Interlude 8
“And here is where we must end, my dear.” Darkness purred with a grin. He knew exactly how his daughter would react to the sudden break in the story.
“What?!” Amaranth exclaimed. “You cannot stop here, not right before the wedding.” She pleaded. “Come on, father, this is the part I have been waiting for.”
“If you, my dear, are expecting some grand expository speech where I go over every snack and ribbon, every dance and song, then you are sorely mistaken.” He told her.
Amaranth waved her father off. “No, though I would appreciate that, that is not what I have been waiting for. Neither you nor mother have ever told me what your vows were. I, want, to, know.” She demanded. “So let us just go over the wedding quickly and then you can leave to hunt whatever unknowable horror you are all getting ready to slay.”
Darkness hummed in thought with a finger on his chin. Amaranth already knew what that exaggerated posture meant. “No.” He told her simply. “You will have to wait. While you wait, to keep your mind off of it, can you-”
“Yes. I will look after Celeste.” Amaranth cut him off as she set her pen down. She leaned back in her chair and felt her back pop from countless hours hunched over her desk. “This is the first time you both will be away, for her. How do you think she is going to handle it?”
“Honestly, I have no idea. You sulked and Claus got into trouble. Maybe Celeste won’t even notice.” Darkness replied. “If she ends up being too much to handle, well, Claus could use a good challenge.”
“I will do that.” Amaranth replied. “Father, be straight with me, what are the odds of your failure? Also, do you think anyone is going to try and capitalize on your absence?”
“If we fail, then no offensive action will be able to handle it.” Darkness explained. “I will not jinx it.” He told her which was all of the information she needed. Their odds of losing were low but definitely present. “As for our neighbors? Two of their cities aren’t there anymore. I would hope that they have learned their lesson. If they aren’t careful, the last of the sister cities will soon join her siblings in becoming an object lesson.”
“Even if you fail?” Amaranth questioned.
“They might start to stir, but they move far too slowly to be able to capitalize on any perceived weakness.” He assured her. “Now, come see us off.” He told her and then took a step into her shadow and vanished.
—
Amaranth met her sister and brother at the town square. All three of them gazed upon the statue of their parents and their dragon, three beings that were all almost dragons in their own rights but all were missing real draconic blood. Their mother and father stood back to back. Isaac was retreating away from an attack that hadn’t had the luxury of being set in stone. His cloak flowed seamlessly into his armor and shadow and his face was softened with shadows to the point of unrecognizability. His sword was low, ready to rise from his opponent’s blindspot and ensure that was their final mistake. His free hand almost seemed to trail behind his backwards momentum as death flames dripped off of it, lethality in its purest form. The sculptor who had set all of this into plain dark grey stone had taken ages to get the smooth, untextured, barely tangible shadows covering Isaac correct, and even now, they were not quite right. They were close enough for anyone who hadn’t seen them in person though, which was fine for the town square. No matter what the sculptor had done, he just couldn’t set the spectacle, of all of the light in the area draining away, into stone.
Lenna squared off against her imaginary foes as she readied some kind of fire spell. Her hand was bathed in flames that were done so perfectly that, even made of stone, they looked as though they would reach up and consume anything above them. Her plate armor was more plain than her uncle’s repurposed armor from all those decades ago, though in truth, it was far, far, better. Her helmet was off so her stern features, laced with pure intensity and a tinge of anger, were on display for all to see, though, no one that walked by would dare to hold the statue’s gaze for long. The sculptor had done an amazing job at setting their mother’s penetrating gaze into his work for countless eras to come. It was so lifelike that some of the more unsavory folk avoided that side of the square all together, for fear that she could see their darkest secrets.
Lording over the square was not the, barely larger than life size, statues of their parents but the massive dragon behind them. With his wings outstretched he took a defensive posture to protect their parents from any attacks coming from his direction. At the same time, he looked as though he was about to unleash a dragon’s breath down mainstreet towards the northwestern gate. His body was made of elongated bones as his natural skeleton was stretched to cover every gap and hole. His pale majesty was a legendary sight that heralded an incoming violence that few would ever be able to equal. The Reaper had once ridden a pale horse, as the legends about him changed, but his horse was nothing in the face of the Bone Dragon Ashtohkesh, the Pale Black Flames of the Entwined Demigods of the Innerworld, the Demi-divine King of Dark Dragons. His final title was one that was created for the sole purpose of igniting a mindless rage inside of any dark dragon that heard it, and it had worked. A dozen dragons of varying sizes, colors, and ages have laid broken at his feet over the decades that he has been in service. The open eye sockets of the mythical monster were filled with actual small balls of death flames, created from a tiny platinum enchantment that none could see from the outside.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
“It’s funny.” Claus said from beside his sisters. “They made mom and dad a little bigger, but shrunk the hells out of Ash’esh.”
“Language, Cel is here.” She scolded him before explaining his observation: “That is because he needed to fit in the square. As it stands, they used his tail as a curb.”
Claus and Celeste leaned to the side in perfect unison in exactly the same way so they could peer around the dragon and look at what Amaranth had mentioned. “Huh.” Claus replied. “I can’t believe I never noticed that.”
“I can’t believe I never noticed that either.” Celeste agreed.
Claus chuckled and ruffled her hair. “Well, I’ve had a few thousand more chances to miss it than you, so at least you know now and not when you are thirty.” He told her.
“But you’re older than thirty.” She ruthlessly reminded him.
Claus clutched his chest like he’d been shot. “Ouch. No need to remind me. Soon I’ll be a relic, like Ama- Ow!” He cried out in pain as his older sister smacked him.
A black void opened up in front of them and their parent’s raised out of it over the course of one exaggerated second. They could have just appeared but their father was nothing if not theatrical. Their mother was clothed in her favorite silver dress and her father wore his classic black shirt and pants. Both of them looked like they didn’t have a care in the world and were only planning on stopping by their neighbor’s for tea.
“Cel, be good for your sister, and remember what I told you.” Lenna told her youngest daughter as she bent down to give her a hug.
“If I don’t like someone I should only burn them a little unless they are, or are about to, hurt someone.” Celeste replied proudly.
Lenna sighed. “Close enough.” She told her and kissed her on the top of her head. She then rose back up to her full height and looked over their two adult children. “We’ll be back. Don’t burn the house down.”
Claus laughed as Amaranth rolled her eyes. “You’ve been saying that for longer than I can remember.” He commented.
“That is because of the time when your sister almost did, in fact, burn the house down.” Isaac explained with a grin. He gave his youngest daughter a quick hug and then turned a serious gaze to the two older ones. “I am always watching, but if you notice that I am not, lock down the city and wait for us.”
“We know the drill.” Claus replied.
“Of course.” Amaranth said at the same time.
“Good.” Isaac spoke with a nod and then turned to his wife. “My Lady of Hellfire, it is time to go.”
“Yes, my Lord of Darkness.” She replied with a smirk and a wink. Fire raced up her body starting from the tips of her toes. Everywhere it passed was covered in royal purple and scorch mark colored adamantine. The platinum enchantments were the only thing that shone brightly on her armor but the rings of orange flames caused them to scatter campfire-like light in all directions. Once the fire reached halfway up her thighs more rings formed at her fingertips. They too raced upwards until her entire body was covered in her mythical plate armor. The entire transition only took around two seconds, as did Isaac’s.
Shadows poured out of the dark mage turned demigod and seemed to almost solidify into millions of tiny, black, silken scales. Inside of the silk scales there were real dragon scales from a black dragon. The drider silk caused every movement to be entirely silent and prevented the scales from taking any unnecessary damage while the scales dispersed any solid impacts. The armor was a slim fit that, if seen without the cascading shadows permanently coming off of it, looked like a fantastical long sleeve shirt and pants. Over top of it formed black layered, hardened leather plates that gave him an unusual but more conventional look of protection. It was all an illusion, however, as the entire exterior armor was just the webbing of a black dragon’s wings with as many self repair enchantments as could physically be put on it. The ‘real’ armor barely offered any protection compared to what was under it. His hood floated up on its own and soon only shadows and a pair of silver eyes could be seen from inside the cloak.
“Come forth, Ashtohkesh.” The Lord of Darkness spoke with words that shook the mana itself in the localized area. A black void opened behind the pair of demigods, behind the statues of them, behind the statue of the dragon in question, and took up the entire thoroughfare. A massive bone white dragon with a wingspan of at least fifty feet launched out of the void and into the air overhead. He banked and circled the square in a silent arch with wings fully outstretched. He did not beat his plate-like wings but guided mana over them to generate the lift necessary to fly. The amount of mana that was guided over his massive wings to hold his majestic bulk in the air was staggering even for those that had seen such a spectacle before. “My Lady.” Darkness purred and held a hand out for her. Only his forearm and hand were visible from the cloak of living shadows that he had become.
Hellfire took his offered hand and shadows seemed to swallow them up like a cocoon before launching towards the dragon as its arch reached its closest point. The shadows splashed against the back of the dragon and there the Lady of Hellfire appeared. Her legs straddled the dragon’s neck just in front of his wings but her mate was nowhere to be found. The dragon banked towards the exit to the Outerworld and then sped up as a black mist seemed to stream off of it before rapidly dispersing.
“It is always a show.” Amaranth commented.
“That’s the best part of seeing them off.” Claus added with a smirk that looked far too much like their father’s.
“Is it always like this?” Celeste wondered.
“Sometimes.” Amaranth replied. “Though, you never really know how something is going to go when our father is involved.”
END VOLUME FOUR: JUDGMENT