QUARTZ 9.12: A NAME FOR THE DARKNESS

“They see evil as contravening the existence of good without seeing goodness as predicated upon evil’s existence. In a world of perfect goodness all would perish, energies sapped by time. In a world of perfect goodness the boredom would itself become a form of pure refined torment they cannot imagine.”

– from ‘The Book of Kultemeren’, 3:18-20

Perhaps the new champion wasn’t such a stranger to her magic’s versatility after all.

Her lightning came crashing down, each fiery white strand reaching out for one of the molten spears skewering the dweonatar –

Finding instead the pale left hand of the Sinphalamax, who climbed the air faster than sight, flying up to meet its descent.

The living-dead girl gathered up all the bolts of lightning, reaching out to snatch them as they came raining down towards her, past her, still seeking the wizard-metal below. She fed them back with her free hand, collecting the crackling ribbons of electricity together, as nonchalantly as a crone collecting a fistful of loose hairs after a bath.

“Thou art a fool to come hither,” spoke the darkness; it was impossible from down here to espy the lips of the Sinphalamax in motion, but she was surely composing the words. “Thy mind, eclipsed by thy strength, hence thy fate. Thine energies shall be joined with my Master’s, and may he cometh ever closer to satiation by such a feast.”

The wizard brought a finger of lightning across the open space of the Fountains, emanating from some point over towards the western horizon.

The Sinphalamax moved instantaneously to meet it, clutching it easily, taking it for her own.

Ironvine’s voice was low and strained, befitting the great struggle she was obviously enduring, attempting to outmanoeuvre a thirty-third rank demon. It had the cold, educated sound only a highborn could produce – especially here, in the face of her death.

“Nay.”

And Ironvine redoubled her efforts – for a moment it was like day returned. The black storm rolled back and a column of sunfire came screeching down from the blinding white heavens.

White sunfire became red hellfire as it broke harmlessly over the head of the Sinphalamax, cascading down in great crimson globs.

Then Ironvine sagged, crouching once more atop the straining dweonatar. The light died, as swiftly as it had come into being. I could see the wizard’s back rise and fall as she heaved deep breaths.

“She hasn’t attacked yet,” I said, trying to get my voice to carry while keeping it quiet-enough to slip the notice of the Sinphalamax – the buzzing lightning-bolts in her hand had to be loud, right? They sure sounded it from down here. “She can’t be hurt, somehow – not till she attacks.”

Ironvine gave no reply – from the way she still seemed to be gulping air, she didn’t have the breath to. Was that the first time she’d called the lightning? Emrelet would’ve been impressed.

I cast about at the ranks of waiting demons, poised to fall upon us once their mistress permitted it. I saw the eolastyr, looking back at me with gloating black eyes, two of them preening themselves with their coarse tongues, looking as if they hadn’t a care in the world.

The crevasse in which the legs and feet of the impaled dweonatar remained hidden suddenly spurted blood up onto the huge demon’s torso. The gown of the Sinphalamax now hanging from her skeletal frame high above our heads, the spell was broken; no red cloth formed to cover the body of the fallen dweonatar, and in fact all about me I could see it was beginning to fade, the Fountains reverting to their previous likeness.

Not that pools of blood were a vast improvement, but there was far less blood than there’d been before, and I could see the spellbound statues grinding to a halt as the red fabric deserted them, their hellish coats first becoming smoky, blurry, before passing into complete transparency and dropping away. Orovon bowed over with a stony groan and splayed his wings in an unnatural fashion. Nentheleme returned to her previous pose, rearing up and over, the single horn hanging loosely. Yune dropped to the blood-puddles with a splashing clunk, pulling her skirts over her head once more.

When my hosts of undead and demons came back under my control – there was no not-feeling that. It was like having an anvil shoved straight down your throat and into your stomach…

A very small anvil.

Most of my forces were dead, thanks solely to me. Khikiriaz survived, and the mekkustremin, Mrs. Cuddlesticks and Junior –

I’d slain Mr. Cuddlesticks. I’d even slain my elf-wights, almost to the last. A mere handful remained, and those that did were torn apart in seconds as the fiends near to them recognised the reversion of their loyalty, the spell of the Sinphalamax slipping away. Whatever telepathic command she’d sent to pacify the eolastyr’s remaining forces, it clearly didn’t apply to fighting my minions. I hurriedly sent those worth saving back to their home planes – those my power reached in time – and the foe-demons surrounding my portals lowered their claws with obvious disappointment.

Most of my airborne eldritches were gone, too. Pinktongue and Funnyfingers were still alive, and most of Blandface’s retinue had come through unscathed…

While I hurriedly inventoried my sorcerous stock, Ironvine seemed to have settled on finishing the dweonatar a different way. By the time I looked back she’d taken two loops of the molten metal into her mesh-gloved fists and was tugging on them, not with her flesh and bone but her wizardry. Like a brute pulling back on the reins of a tired old pony, she physically stretched the dweonatar out.

There were a series of loud pops and the titanic demon loosed a high-pitched wail.

“My Sons cannot be so slain.” The Sinphalamax spoke from the sky in a matter-of-fact tone that brooked no denial.

“Sure they can,” I bit back right away. “They’re your Sons? Cripes. It’s gonna be a bit thin round the table next Yearsend, wouldn’t you say?”

The Sinphalamax gave no immediate response. Her face turned to the south-east and she lingered for a few moments, as if peering afar and pondering.

“He put up a right fight,” I added in a conciliatory tone. “Lost his eyes, first.”

The Sinphalamax returned her attention to us, and waved a small bony hand in a regal, peremptory fashion.

Ironvine’s metals within the dweonatar dissipated, becoming a fine silvery mist that vanished on the air. Tons and tons of the wizard’s painstakingly-crafted weaponry, evaporated in an instant.

“Thou hast ruined too many of my toys,” the night intoned. “I toy with ye in turn, and demonstrate for ye for one reason alone: to congratulate ye both, on the prowess required to reach me. Now, Feychilde, thou at least needs must die. As thou hast given up all thy prayers, I shall accomplish it. I call upon thee to surrender. Bend the knee. Become the martyr of thy destiny and heed the call. The swifter accomplished the sweeter.”

So she’ll get her hands dirty at last?

“You’re gonna swing the axe?” I said.

The dweonatar beneath Ironvine was suddenly no longer there; it stood once more upright, a little off to the side, its handsome face twisted by a boastful smirk – if it was wounded, I couldn’t tell.

The dweonatar’s motion was so swift that, for her part, the wizard fell awkwardly to the bloody ground – she landed on her hands and knees heavily, then crumpled down on one elbow with a horrid second splash. I heard her grunt and gasp as the surface of the blood-puddle slapped at her face, and upon hearing those involuntary sounds I finally gave up on my hidden hope that she was Emrelet in disguise. The highborn voice could’ve been put on, but those sounds, sounds I knew so well? Never.

I’d spent too long regarding the dishevelled wizard, and instincts screamed at me to flinch – I half-recoiled without even knowing why, and –

A moment ago she’d been above me, but now the Sinphalamax was before me, looking up into my eyes from three yards away.

The black empty maw, grinning. The eyes whose darkness went on into the infinite abyss. The horrid nasal cavity was no different. Whatever it was, it was not a human skull. Humanoid, perhaps, but different from those of the races I’d seen before. The jaw’s size was off, the smile too large, the overall appearance clearly demonic rather than undead despite the skeletal quality of her substance. The simple fact that a huge tongue of hair was growing out the back of her head, trailing her limply, was itself an indication that this pale scalp wasn’t real bone.

Nothing about this creature was real. I couldn’t infer her true shape from what she wore. Entities such as the Sinphalamax would clad themselves in such forms as befitted their whim, their fleeting inclination, and rarely by necessity or outright design.

It didn’t matter what shape she wore. She could do the impossible even if she looked like a toddling two-year-old.

Many of the dark lines about her eyes and lipless mouth were, I saw, densely-packed runes, letters in a script I couldn’t even hope to recognise. The repetitive symbols were inked or scorched somehow into her head, forming bands that looped in geometric shapes across the face, vertically and horizontally, forming semi-circles about her upper cheeks and down her brow towards what should’ve been her nose.

She whispered, and the yawning voice of the night was louder than ever before, the weight of the Twelve Hells compressed into a single will, a single finger pressing down upon the ant, crushing it with an exponentially-greater force.

Her grin grew when she saw me flinch, looking even more enthusiastic than it had a second ago.

I don’t think she’s scared anymore.

“Thou art spent; be now claimed. I am more than thou canst conceive. Here – let me show thee, and see thee and thy powers unknotted at last.”

* * *

I turned to fly, to put distance between us, and even as I whipped about I noted that the surviving demons were barely concealing their glee. All eyes were fixed on me, and on my enemy.

Except for the eyes of my lone ally. The dweonatar’s chain was there once more, flickering menacingly towards Ironvine, and the wizard dived into the blood head-first, disappearing.

I couldn’t blame her. Hopefully she’d be able to get away down there and do… something. Help less people die in the coming apocalypse, maybe. She’d probably be the only protector left worth a damn, by the looks of things.

It was over for me and I knew it.

I hadn’t even gotten a few feet away when fingers sank into the carrion-bird wing on my left shoulder, clawing without impediment straight through its surreal sinews and shadowy feathers –

The weirdest thing was the purchase this gave her, the ability to hamper my velocity, drag me back… There was none of the reciprocal life-steal. The ancients were useless to me here.

I growled, wincing, but before I decided to release the huge eldritch she made the choice for me, ripping the creature of Zadhal right out of me.

Continuing to push myself away, I drew back the whips and prepared to twist and strike – I could still use wraith and ancient to navigate the airs, even if I was far slower – the blade of the vamelbabil had long-since faded but I still had my tendrils, my beautiful barbed fingers –

It sounded like someone sheared a whole bolt of cloth in two. When I finished wheeling, bringing the whips swinging down at her, I saw she’d ripped the bird apart right up the middle, an expression of unbelievable strength, to so neatly bisect it with nothing but her hands.

I didn’t hold out much hope as I brought my force-lines slicing down – she cast aside the huge bird-pieces and put up her palm to meet my strike, the little palm that had caught lightning bolts –

I adjusted their arcs, so that she couldn’t catch them all, but it didn’t make a difference. Her hand just grew to the size of the dweonatar’s.

Effortless superiority.

And then she was gripping my weaponry in her once-more tiny fist, without so much as a flicker of doubt crossing her features, pulling me in. I could hear sizzling coming from her hand, and see little wisps of steam rising off it, but she didn’t seem fazed in the least. The azure threads wrapped themselves about her wrist, the sleeve of her gown, straining themselves against her clutch – and they wept glowing blue tears against the red fabric, as though they suffered a pain from the contact I wasn’t even able to perceive.

At least she couldn’t just rid me of them – not now I’d rejected her offer. They were mine to keep, I suspected. For all the good they’d done me in this short-lived battle.

“What didst thou truly think thyself?” she murmured, smiling at the whips slowly searing away in her fist.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

I shook the wraith out of my arm, restoring its reality, and threw a punch.

I was – I had been – right-handed. The punch was awkward, but she was reeling me in, pulling me to her at a steady rate, and I had the strength of augmented satyrs running through my veins, along with their pinpoint coordination.

Most importantly – I was pretty sure she’d finally broken her ban on hostility.

Despite the awkwardness of the angle, my fist fell into her upper cheek with the force of an erupting fireball. A third of her head literally disappeared, and the rest caved in entirely, the whole skull collapsing into a mess of paste.

Then she shook her shoulders, and some kind of chronomantic effect reversed time; the neck regurgitated the head, the sickening black smile coming straight back into view just beyond my still half-extended hand.

“I thought they’d be my main problem,” Mother said, in a chiding tone. “Dropping satyrs, eh? Hahaha!”

It was my mum’s hysterical laughter. Nonsensical. Macabre.

I couldn’t even think, react –

Now it was her turn – she reached – into me –

One by one, she shook them out of me. Time and again, I struggled, moaning despite all my promises to myself that I would remain strong, remain brave in the face of utter annihilation. Promises meant nothing. The moaning was involuntary.

Not just because of the severed connections, the forced un-joining. No.

Because of the killing.

Sarcamor and Sarminuid were the first to go, before I recognised the severity what she was doing to me. One after the other, she pulled the satyrs from me and flung them aside.

Just the touch of her hand was enough. When she pulled them out of my wriggling body, her fist was already wrist-deep in their chests. As she cast them down to the blood-soaked ground, they writhed and smoked away.

I feared for their souls.

“Let’s see… let’s see…”

Horror gripped me, tighter than the fingers clutching my tendrils.

But – the wraith!

If she took that from me – the crown would revert to its previous dimensions, or at least its previous weight –

I’d lose it, or be crushed by it, or both. I had little doubt the Sinphalamax would be capable of adjusting its properties, claiming the crown for herself. She was already unstoppable, but the Crown of Mekesta – the Ring of Dismo … Something like that would surely seal the deal.

I pushed the wraith to the back of me. It was more than likely one of the elven ghosts would suffice to keep the crown – and my flesh – in the nethernal state. Yet it was my sorcerous instincts enacting my decisions, inbuilt responses I didn’t fully comprehend working on overdrive; and all the same I struggled to hold onto the ascended ancient whose torso the Sinphalamax had found.

No such luck. The female ancient was ripped from me, the pallid elf-face serene despite the arm sticking out of her chest.

She vanished, leaving nothing but a purple smudge on the air. All that dreadful energy stolen from the Thirteen Candles’ wards – all for nothing.

The diminishment of power as she left me was staggering. My arm and legs went flaccid, the semi-physical form of my body surrendering entirely; but my will still burned. The whips were still searing into the bony hand of the arch-fiend.

There was more left to me, and she knew it.

I asked my body to move aside, begged the spirits in me to stir one last time and save me – but they were bound by the same aura of fear, transferred by my mind along the sorcerous link that made us one. I couldn’t command, not anymore – only request.

They refused. I refused.

I merely wobbled, quivering on the air as her hand sank in again.

And again.

And again.

It was the nameless wraith, Blofm or Zabalam and I knew who I had to choose.

I go now to the shadowland – with a clear conscience.

The goblin was one thing, but the gremlin who’d clung me to me – the poor mouldy critter whose loneliness had always been as obvious as a gaping hole in the front of his head… I couldn’t abandon him, and, by the same token, I couldn’t abandon Blofm either. Couldn’t let the Sinphalamax tear creatures of such sentience in two. Couldn’t let them follow the satyrs like that. I didn’t care what the wraith had done for me. I didn’t care which of them I needed most.

Once I let go of the wraith, she’ll just rip me to pieces.

I made up my mind, and accepted doom.

When she reached into me for the final time I thrust the wraith forwards, keeping the illusionist and illusion-breaker safe and sound, sleeping ethereally within me.

What would they feel, when I died? Would it hurt Zab? Not just his heart – I was sure he’d be upset, of course – but would it wound him in the otherwordly flesh somehow? Would Blofm be injured?

I hoped not.

Goodbye, Twoshoes.

I did it. I let the wraith go. The amorphous shadow-man went wailing out of me on the end of the arch-fiend’s claws, and shattered into a thousand dark shards.

And the crown –

The crown…

For all that I’d been building this moment up inside my head, if anything the crown felt lighter. It stayed, snugly attached to my scalp, as I plummeted a few feet and staggered, the left ankle giving way and sending me to my knees.

And I dragged her with me.

The whips in her hand didn’t lengthen, and she gave a sudden Aaah! which the night copied.

I couldn’t help but chuckle. I was here, a mere mortal, a wretched tangle of flesh and bone on the cusp of my destruction. But damn it, watching her be surprised, right here at the end of all things… it made me laugh.

Then a voice emanated from the air just above me. Just a soft hiss of sound, and yet it cut through every noise in the vicinity, pierced every thought.

“Finally,” Mekesta whispered.

* * *

The ranks of assembled demons muttered for the first time, a disconsolate din. The eolastyr looked to one another and to their maker.

The Sinphalamax, for her part, was mortified.

“Thou canst not,” she gasped, the night chorusing her fright once more.

“I can,” the crown whispered. “You forget. This world is mine, Abstraxia.“

My mind lit on fire.

The Sinphalamax was already bound – bound by a will that’d lasted centuries.

Could I break that chain, with her name as my weapon?

“Abstraxia,” I grunted.

Even just saying it had clearly shattered a good percentage of her arcane protections. I tried to rise and in so doing accidentally tugged on the tendrils that were still attached to her –

Slicing off half her arm without even meaning to.

The night’s roar in response was immense; I physically shook in return. It was like being a midge trapped alive in the gullet of a lion.

I wasn’t sure if it was the dismemberment, or the name.

“Look at me!” I cried against the dark voice, pushing myself to my feet, taking almost all of my weight on the right leg. I injected every last shred of Zab’s power, every last drop of my sorcerer’s ego, into the command: “Behold your new Master, wretch! Be mine, bondswoman, and mine alone. Kneel and do my bidding!“

But I’d lost my physical hold on her even as I’d gained a new one. We were no longer attached to one another, and she turned her back on me the moment she lost her hand, refusing to meet my gaze. The hard white rope of hair hanging stiffly from her scalp swung about me, reeking of pus.

The eolastyr and dweonatar moved, bringing themselves a disconcerting distance closer before her remaining hand snapped out in a warding gesture, waving them away.

She was still screaming, on some level, the roar of pain and rage unabating, reverberating from distant buildings. When the night’s voice came rumbling forth, somehow speaking on top of the ongoing scream, it was hoarse, choked with unimaginable emotion.

“I can be neither thine nor mine, even at thy mercy. I am his. One thousand and twenty-three years, as thy kin measureth the count of days, son of Kabel. Nigh seventeen thousand as I hath marked them, and that is itself but a hundredth of my long existence.”

I had no indication my gaze was doing anything to her, but out of nowhere she swayed, as if tempted to turn. Her voice was suddenly drunk, words coming fast and desperate from the black tongue.

“He is like nothing, nothing I’ve ever seen before. I thought – I sympathised with his goals – but he didn’t care. Even the Judge… even the Judge had mercy…“

A tremor rippled up her gown, slow-moving, but disturbing the cloth to such a degree that it distorted her entire shape, belying the humanoid form supposedly contained within its dimensions. Its colour started to fade to pink before my eyes.

“You expect forgiveness? After everything you’ve done? Everything you’ve tried to do?”

She stopped quivering, seeming to conquer herself, and the acid was back in her voice. “O, how full thy fullness, Kastyr Mortenn! Thy legacy is plain. Spare me, I beg thee. Let me go, lest we further reduce one another. Do with my Daughters and Son as thou wilt. Let me go, and follow me not. My name is loosed upon this world. I am undone.”

My crown laughed callously.

Mekesta’s right. She’s tricking me.

“It’s simple. If you won’t be mine… then you will die.”

The weightless right arm raised its azure fingers, unbidden.

Yune’s fingers?

I glanced at the whips, then back at the now grey-gowned figure.

For the sake of Peace – killing?

“But I cannot Die here, Kas. And you will not dare set foot there at my side, will you? There’s no escape for me; destroy this body if you wish. You cannot touch my being. Not from here.”

Mercy costs me nothing, and killing gains me nothing. Is that what she’s saying?

Is that what Yune would want?

“If you leave now,” I said quietly, “a-and don’t come back, ever… I won’t tell another soul. All I want is an answer.”

She stopped screaming; I’d become so used to the coruscating roar that its absence was a yawning gulf devoid of meaning. In the silence that followed, the echoes of the sound came rippling back to my ears from far-off streets.

“Speak the terms again!” my enemy moaned, still refusing to turn. “Do not misspeak!”

“If you will honestly answer one question, your name will go with me to the shadowland.” I spoke warily. “I’ll not speak or… or show it again in the presence of another. In return, my friends are to be freed from those – nets – and from any of your obnoxious spells I don’t already know about. Then you will depart. Do not ever return to Mund.”

“This part of this earth which you call Mund, will in time be remade, and remade again –”

“Not while the city walls still stand.”

“This is thy compact? Upon thy will and magic in this life? Upon thy soul?”

“Yes!” I barked. “Glaif witness me.”

The Sinphalamax – Abstraxia – sounded utterly broken.

“Then I accept.”

“Mother!” one of the eolastyr cried, gazing despondently at her mistress.

“As thou wert, Daughter,” Abstraxia said, then sighed. “Grandmother remaineth displeased with me.” She turned back to face me, the scorpion-tail hair swooshing about me again. “Come, then, mortal. Ask thy question. May it be all thou dreamst and more.”

She met my eyes. Clearly the contention was over between us, our agreement reached…

Now that the moment was upon me, I didn’t know how to say it. My mouth was dry. My foot and the stump of my arm ached. The rain had drenched my hair and my torn robes were soaked in blood. Somewhere far off in the distance I heard the petulant gong! gong! gong! as if to remind me that I wasn’t yet done.

I should’ve asked for seven, shouldn’t I?

Say that, receive the affirmative answer, and she’d be gone.

Just one question, you fool.

“I can’t put it in such a way that I get everything I want. What I want to know is – why?”

I stared at her. She didn’t react.

“Why any of it? Not just ‘why me’ but ‘why us’ and ‘why everything’…”

“I understand,” the night intoned as the black-hole mouth moved. “Out of respect for you, scion of the Summoner, I shall give all the treasures you seek, save one. You surely are aware already that I cannot name my Master. This was not the question you asked.”

“I know whom you serve.”

“And you have many of your answers already. It is to you and yours to drive the chariot of Mund into the very heart of this ‘Crucible’, this confluence of events known to us as the Prime Concatenation.”

I stared at her.

“It is but the change your world so sorely needs,” she said, as if this explained anything. “When one reaches such heights, it is with gods and gods alone one might contend. Ah… you do not know your value.”

“But – my value? To whom? For what?”

“The dragon-lords. You will fight them.”

“But you serve the dragons…”

“Kakasag!” She growled the swear-word, and it rippled out across the sky, thundering off at the horizon. “Would you know it all, Truly?”

Her voice dropped suddenly, the air about me crackling intensely.

“Do you understand deification? The art of apotheosis? Herein lies your answer, son of Kabel. Avalost requires new rulers.“

I shuddered, even though I barely comprehended.

“Twenty-eight, son of Kabel. Many burned books would teach ye the truth, though they be deemed heretical, and as many in Mund know but fear to say – yes. Twenty-eight gods there were, under whose reign your world has long stagnated. An opportunity arose, and the Lord of All Magic, he who was called Omecrox Spellgod and Orlsyth Dweos, Keeper of the Divine Will – he fell to the weapons of my Master and my Master’s kin.”

They… killed… a god…?

“It was in bearing the brunt of that fall that the Free Lands were destroyed, and a new Age of Order ushered in upon your plane. You understand this? The meadows of Nivthelem on the western edge of the world, where the willows wept not, where at twilight the wheat and wildflowers would seem to set ablaze, orange beneath night’s setting sword, trailing stars!”

“You m-mean – N’Lem…”

“Yes, son of Kabel, yes! Night came down upon that land, that the sun never arose again. Nivthelem was annihilated out of time and space, sent to the shadowland in its entirety on the heels of the dead god’s corpse, such that the place is now as though it never was – as though it were there only as a dream of men… but that its last son and daughter walk even now the streets of this city, cold brands in their hands, slaying my servants!”

His corpse sent a – a land to Nethernum…

I was staggered. The sheer immensity of the power… power her draconic overlords would claim –

No wonder they’re eating our souls. They don’t just want to rule Materium. They want to own the planes, up and down.

“I can’t let them become gods,” I moaned.

“Your acceptance is, at this time, irrelevant. You will bend, as I; you too will worship at his feet, and be absolved of all your doubts. They gather the fractions of the spirit of Omecrox, and shall divide his Throne upon their Return. Many more gods shall fall at their hands. They will take up their rightful place as the strongest force, the strongest Powers, across all five boundless planes suspended within Avalost’s circumference. All shall pay them homage. The King cares not, or if he will he has not even once sought to show it – all rivers flow through the Citadel, in the end, and such anarchy only serves his higher goals.”

Vaahn? What was this ‘Citadel’? Vaahn dwelt in the Shadow Mountain. How could anarchy serve his goals? He was its antithesis!

Chraunator, King of Time? Vaylech, King of Insects?

King Money-Bags?

I shook my head vehemently in both disagreement and confusion but there was no time to respond, she was continuing, continuing, my brain struggling just to keep up –

“Do you still think yourself special? Do you still not see? There is no way out, Feychilde. Escape my embrace a while longer; do not think you will not serve the greater purpose all the same. I merely collect the overflow. You and all your compatriots – you are a waste product, to be sent for reclamation. Did you believe yourself chosen? Did you lull yourself to sleep with lies, telling yourself that your place in history was designed for you? No, mortal! Fate does not choose! Power is blind! Fate… is Death. Death for the Spellgod. Death, even for you.”

She regarded me gravely. I’d grown more-accustomed to the strangeness, the horror of her appearance, but I felt the way the white, wavering pupils stared right through me.

“Does this suffice, Kastyr Mortenn? Have I kept up my side of the bargain? Am I free to depart?”

I didn’t even know what to say. She’d answered questions I could’ve never even phrased.

“And the – the crown? What is a Ring of –“

She stiffened and her jaw dropped, a gush of pure darkness flooding out of the open mouth with her screams.

“Okay! Okay… By the Five…”

It was only the panicked shrieks of the eolastyr that made me realise something was wrong.

Well, not so much wrong as right. Incredibly, unthinkably right.

A second later the metallic wires finally extended out the top of Abstraxia’s head – I looked down and saw them extruding from the blood soup beneath her, entering her flesh beneath the gown at a dozen points.

I returned my gaze back to her face and stared at her in wonder. She looked scared. She wasn’t used to having her core self exposed like this; she’d held all the cards, all her long, long life. To suddenly have an empty hand must’ve been truly disconcerting.

Ironvine came loose of the earth, crouched atop a floating, red-hot chunk of stone that went flying ten, twelve feet up into the air then halted.

The dweonatar flickered, closing half the distance between itself and the wizard in the time it took her to put out a mail-clad hand in warning, pointing the other suggestively towards the sky.

The marble titan paused, lowering the whip.

“The fiend would go alone,” the wizard said derisively. She wasn’t looking at me, so it took me a moment to realise I was the target of her words. “That promise was meaningless. She’d set the remaining arch-demons to tear down the walls. Only those who considered you their friend would be set free, and then they would be slain where they stand.” Her voice had a hard edge. “If you truly are – him – you ought to know better, sorcerer.”

“Hey – under a bit of pressure here.”

“I wasn’t part of your pact, but I did listen. Here is my vow, Abstraxia. Not just to you. Your Sons. Your Daughters.” She looked around. “Every last one of you.”

The skewered Sinphalamax merely gargled, the darkness echoing her meaninglessly. The eolastyr curled in on themselves, looking to one another for reassurance, mewling. The ranks of demons raised a low clamour once more, uncertain, confused.

“I’ll see you all in hell.”