Dalluth

There was some kind of commotion going on our there. It didn't matter.

He was finished.

He tore off his leather robe. His body was like his face, a twisted blob of bone and rancid ground meat put together in a vaguely human shape using all the wrong parts. The pounding human heart in the center of his chest looked almost perverse, like a child's face grafted on the body of an animal. Ichor oozed off of him onto the floor as he stepped inside the hourglass and closed himself inside it.

The fluid from the top of the construction flowed over his body, coating him, subsuming him.

There was pain.

He'd been expecting that. He'd been prepared for the agony. His exposed flesh and organs burned like ice. But his mind soared, expanding into a cosmos of infinite possibility, of whirling stars and dying planets. He saw the world formed by the furnace of the sun, he saw Maia stand upon it for the first time. He saw the edge of time and the limits of space, he saw countless other worlds receding into a limitless multiverse.

And finally, beyond it all, he saw the gods. Not as mortals saw them, but the way they saw themselves. And they were aware of him.

There is still time to stop this, Maia said.

Why? And then a realization. You tried to stop me. The assassin. And others. They're yours. Your creatures. Shylldra too? Creeping around, trying to stop me. But it won't work. This is what I've always wanted.

Is it? Maia asked. Is it what you always wanted? Is all this death what you wanted as a child, Dalluth? I remember your first infusion. How delighted you were when it made people smile. You are still that child, despite it all. We offer you a rare chance.

What chance? Dalluth demanded.

You still feel guilt for what you've done. There is humanity left in you. We can use that. We can take your broken body and repair it. You can turn back. Lead a normal life again. Create your wonders without leaving a trail of death behind. You can stop, before this goes any further.

Dalluth gaped. How dare she? How dare she! As if even the gods themselves could wash away the lives he'd taken. And to talk as if they were something important here, now, with all of the infinite cosmos spread out beneath them, what did one life even matter? Or a hundred thousand lives? Why would the gods pretend to care about his own paltry murders in the face of galaxies that swirled and burned, stretching off into infinity?

He could think of only one answer. They must fear him. What he had done would make him a threat to them. It was the only thing logical.

Nothing can stop what I've become. He spat the thought at them.

There was a moment of cosmic pause, and Dalluth could feel Maia searching for the words that would convince him. Make him agree to abandoning it all. Being weak. He was waiting to spit them in her face, but they never came. Instead, Baulra spoke.

You'd be surprised, the father of the gods said.

And then Dalluth was falling. Not cast aside, not fleeing, but falling because he'd jumped. Because he'd felt the change was complete. It was time to return to his body. Because now, the work had truly begun.

Shylldra

The High General insisted on being the first into the throne room. Hallek followed close behind. Then Shylldra entered, followed by soldiers who filled the space around the throne. There was still a chance their might be danger, despite there being no real resistance so far. The guards around the palace had, for the most part, been more than happy to surrender. Even Gwarruf had met them outside the palace to plead for mercy. She hadn't even bothered ordering him arrested.

Patrician Jajess was sitting on the ancient stone hair, his back straight, his flabby jowls trembling as his body shook with the effort of remaining rigid. Ballum stood behind him as always, arms crossed, staring down the steps as they entered the room.

“Patrician Jajess,” Shylldra said, taking a step forwards.

“Emperor!” Jajess shrieked like a child, his eyes unfocused.

“Fine,” Shylldra said. “Emperor Tobin, then.” She had to shout to be heard over the sounds of the soldiers spreading out around the room, all weapons pointed at Jajess. “You will, uh, abdicate, I suppose, immediately and step down from the throne.”

“I will not!” Jajess giggled. “I finally got it, you see. Did you know my great great grandfather was the emperor?”

“I did,” Shylldra said.

“He went mad you know,” Jajess said, as if he was telling them all a secret. “Mad emperor Kalltak, they called him. That's why the family took my great great grandmother’s name. Jajess. Rolls off the tongue better, doesn't it? Especially because he was mad.” He glared around the room. “But I won't go mad!”

“No,” Shylldra said, her voice a little sad. “No, of course you won't.”

“Say the word empress,” Ferrik sad, “and we can cut him down.”

“No!” Shylldra hissed. “The poor man needs help, if we can give it.”

“What are you whispering about down there!?” Jajess demanded.

“We were discussing your health,” Hallek suggested. “You don't look well, Emperor Tobin. Maybe you should go and lie down? Ruling the empire takes a lot of strength.”

“Yes maybe I should,” Jajess said. “Maybe I should lie down, get get some rest. Have something to eat too, I'm hungry. I couldn't eat today, not after meeting with Master Infuser Dalluth. He was just so strange, and touching his hand made me so queasy I...you're trying to trick me!” The patrician leaned forward in his throne and shrieked, jabbing pudgy fingers at them as if he expected lightning bolts to fly from the tips and slay them all. “A trick! A filthy trick! Ballum, kill them! Kill every last one of the traitors!”

The servant reached for the sword at his waist, and behind them Verris panicked.

“Get behind something!” Verris shouted. “Get low! That thing's dangerous it's--”

But Ballum drew the weapon and explanations were meaningless.

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It didn't have just one blade, it had dozens, Maybe hundreds. Curved slashing blades of bone affixed to the three wooden branches of the weapon. The “sword” was as long as a man's forearm, split into three forklike tines of uneven length. From each of the blades energy crackled, red and orange and yellow and blue, a sickening rainbow of destruction. Because every single one of those little blades was from a different creature, killed in ritual agony and added to the blade through a dark skill of infusion known only to the worshipers of Kuraga. It was never meant to slash or stab or parry, it was never meant to be weilded like a sword at all.

The rainbow of energy exploded into shapes and washed over the room, a torrent of glowing smoke and crackling lightning that sprouted faces and claws and fangs as it ran over anyone Ballum aimed it at. There were horrible shrieking sounds from the blade itself, and then from the blades’ victims accompanying the twisted symphony of tearing flesh and cracking bone.

On the throne, Jajess giggled.

Hallek

When the chaos was over Ballum rested the sword over his shoulder. Some of the soldiers had managed to survive. They'd thrown themselves behind sturdy pots or pillars quickly enough, or darted back down the hallway. Unfortunately, some of the soldiers that hadn't done that had also survived. One of them was only a torso. And compared to the ones who hadn't survived, he was actually one of the largest remaining pieces.

“Congratulations,” Ballum said. “It's been thirty years since anyone took my rampage blade head on and remained standing. I salute your power.”

He was talking to High General Ferrik.

The High General's triceratops head shield was cracked in three places and his armor was cracked in a great many more. Blood seeped out around the corners of his mouth. He'd jumped into the rampage blade's mad projection ahead of his Empress, turning himself into a dam protecting her, Hallek, and the soldiers just behind them.

“You love the empress,” the High General rasped, and it took Hallek a moment to realize who he was talking to.

“I do,” he said. It wasn't how he would have picked to say it out loud for the first time, but he wasn't about to take it back.

“If I don't survive,” Ferrik said, “you'll protect her? And you'll finish this?”

“I will.”

“Ferrik,” Shylldra said. “What are you going to do?”

“I'm going to get that sword away from him.”

The high general charged. Ballum whipped the sword forward again, unleashing another stream of madness, but either because Ballum was surprised or because the weapon needed time to recover it wasn't nearly as powerful. Ferrik turned it aside with his shield and slammed into Ballum, sending the Kuraga warrior sprawling on the ground. Ferrik had just enough energy left to throw the blade across the room before collapsing in a bloody heap.

Hallek had been running behind Ferrik. When the general fell, Hallek slammed his fist into Ballum's gut, sending the warrior reeling to his knees. Hallek slammed the pommel of his sword into Ballum's head, leaving the warrior sprawled on the floor. He turned his attention to Jajess but something struck him in the chest and sent him tumbling back. And then there was the sound of...music?

The walking band of bones clattered out from behind the throne, honking and playing, protecting Jajess like a guard dog Hallek roared, pouring the power of the Fang into his voice, and the band just...fell apart. Its infusion runes flared once and then the device lost all cohesion. Jajess shrieked as Hallek stormed through the dust and grabbed him by the throat.

“Please,” Jajess said. “Please don't. I'm sorry, I won't be emperor anymore, I won't, I'm sorry so please...”

Hallek wanted to hate him. For everything he'd put them through, for all the soldiers he'd just ordered killed. But he couldn't bring himself to do it. He turned and threw Jajess off the throne, down the steps onto the floor.

“Shylldra,” he said. “He's down. It's...it's done.”

“No,” Shylldra said, sitting down on the throne. She looked uncomfortable in the stone chair. “It's just starting. Now we have to fix it all.”

“Empress,” one of the soldiers coming into the room behind her said, bowing.

“No time for that!” Shylldra said. “Ceremonies later. For now, save everyone you can. Get them to the healers.”

“Right!” the soldiers said, spreading out and picking up anyone who could still breathe. Two soldiers carried General Ferrik out of the room on their shoulders. Hallek stayed standing by the throne with Shylldra as she took a series of deep, calming breaths, her eyes closed and her hands clutched around her staff.

“Thank you,” she finally said.

“For what?” Hallek asked. “I was the one who said you needed to be the Empress.”

“For not killing him,” Shylldra gestured to the sobbing form of Jajess on the floor.

“I wanted him to be some kind of horrible monster,” Hallek sighed. “But with the sword in my hand...he was just pathetic. Of course now we have to decide what to do with him.”

There was a crackle of blue light and Verris's whip came down surrounded with an aura like the stomping foot of a Brachiosaur. When the glow faded Patrician Tobin Jajess was dead. His face was smashed, his mouth obscenely open and his jaw split in two. His stomach had ruptured, his limbs were completely flattened. The whip came down two more times, and when it was done there was nothing left of Patrician Toben Jajess but a thick smear of red slime on the throne room floor.

“Handled it,” Verris said.

“Why would you do that!?” Shylldra screamed at him, her face red with fury.

“It's literally the only reason I came here,” Verris said. “Remember? Killing my father has always been kind of a thing with me.”

“Hah!” Ballum laughed, picking himself unsteadily up off the floor. “I knew when we first met. I knew you were Kuraga. What is to be done with me, Empress?”

Shylldra looked between the two of them.

“I don't know yet,” she said, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I don't know what to do with either of you. But now that the battle's over, I finally have time to think about it. Someone not carrying the wounded come and take these men down to the dun--”

Before she could finish, a fresh set of screams echoed through the palace halls.

Dyryl

She'd been worried when they stormed the infuser's lab. An infuser with time to prepare could cook up all kinds of nasty surprises, and this Dalluth was supposed to be some kind of mad genius. More than that he scared Illeth. And anyone who scared the world's greatest assassin was someone worth being scared of.

She, Illeth, and Krazzek had gone to get Dalluth, Krazzek being there to take care of any locked doors. They'd brought with them a small troop of soldiers, one of many teams pouring through the palace to secure it in the name of the new empress. What they found inside the lab wasn't an array of tricky traps and defensive infusions. What they found was one man—for lack of a better term—kneeling on the ground, his skin coated with glistening slime.

His skin was greenish whit. He had a head of perfectly cropped blonde hair, and the body of a sculpture, too perfect to be real. He looked a little bit like the thing the emperor had become in the arena but perfected, beautiful beyond reason instead of horrifying beyond measure.

“Who's that?” one of the soldiers said.

“It's him,” Illeth snarled.

“But I saw him before, he's a little guy! That man must be...”

“It is him.” Illeth said. “He has completed his work.”

“Yes!” Dalluth laughed, standing and stretching. “Yes, I have. No, not quite. Not yet. Almost. Almost completed. But there's more, I can do more, I need...more...”

“Master Infuser Dalluth?” A soldier said, approaching cautiously.

“Yes,” Dalluth said. “No? I was him. But is that name good enough? Does that title really signify the grandeur of what I have become?”

“In the name of Empress Shylldra,” the soldier said, “I place you under arrest.”

“Empress? Oh I see,” Dalluth laughed. “Lekarik is dead. Bold of her. Tell me soldier, when you approached me...did it occur to you just how obvious it was that you were going to die?”

Dalluth didn't even give the soldier time to respond. A tendril of greenish flesh shot out from his shoulder and impaled the soldier through the throat. The soldier gurgled and screamed as his body...melted. Squeezed itself down into a single enormous pulsating organ with eyes and a mouth, still screaming until it was absorbed back into Dalluth's body. When it was done he was a little taller.

It had taken a matter of seconds, and no one had been able to move. Dyryl cursed herself for not trying to save the man, but it was too late.

“More,” Dalluth said, tentacles exploded from his back like a horde of snakes.

“We can't fight him!” Illeth hissed. “Not in close quarters like this. We have to move!”

They turned and ran as tendrils grabbed the soldiers around them. Something heavy slammed into Dyryl's side. She had just a second to register it had been Krazzek before the tendril which had been seeking her slammed into his forearm. It bulged, pulsing with veins, and Krazzek screamed. Illeth's claws flashed, cutting Krazzek's arm off at the elbow, and it was sucked away into the growing thing Dalluth had become.

“You saved him,” Dyryl said to Illeth.

“Thank you,” Krazzek said weakly, clutching his bleeding stump, “I wish I could say I felt a little more saved, but...”

“And you saved me,” Dyryl said to Krazzek.

Krazzek smiled, about to make some joke, but he passed out first.

“We have to move,” Illeth said.

“Right.” Dyryl threw Krazzek on her back, and they fled into the palace with Dalluth following behind.