A killer loose, and dead ahead

Or imperilled friend, instead?

Mekka sat on a mossy log, brooding. The sun was low on the horizon, sending long streamers of misty light through the woods. A cloud of mosquitoes danced erratically nearby; around his black boots were scattered dozens of tiny purple orchids. The forest was brimming with life, shimmering leaves and a warm, golden-green glow.

He had passed beyond the Winter’s influence. Somewhere behind him lay a cold, blasted wreckage: the violent end of a violent life.

Except that he hadn’t really left the Winter behind, he reflected moodily. He was carrying it with him.

He put his face in his hands, overwhelmed with grief and shame. He had a responsibility to put an end to Carmine. It had been he who had convinced the Freeroamers to keep her at the Guard House, at the entire town’s expense. He had organised the elaborate set of locks that bound her cell. He couldn’t fathom how she had escaped – he had taken great care to see to it that that wasn’t possible. No-one could have let her out, even if she had convinced them to; only Mekka knew where the keys were hidden, only he understood how to operate the complicated mechanism.

Or was it more simple than that? Had she become truly wraith-like, turned to smoke and slipped through the bars?

However she had achieved it, the consequences were likely to have been dire. Mekka was in no doubt that she had murdered others besides Luca and Lord Arzath. She must have killed at least some of the Freeroamers.

And what of Everine, and Ben?

And… Hawk.

An intense part of him was desperate to find her before she stole the souls of someone else. The thought pained him more than anything ever had, but he knew now that the woman he had befriended, trained and cared for deeply was gone. She was part of another era, a past that seemed so long ago that it felt like it belonged to someone else. Carmine Vandaris no longer existed – she was a monster, now: he had finally come to accept that. For years he had watched her approach such a fate, had known it from the first moment he had found her on the Middle Isle, wearing the trigonic armour. And yet…

He looked up at the sunset in despair. He understood why the White Dragon had left. She was infected and considered herself a danger to Ferrian and everyone else. She had chosen to distance herself, most likely taken herself back to her cave in the Snowranges. She knew that it would take Ferrian a long time to find her there.

But she had trusted Mekka to look after him. She knew that the young sorcerer had no-one else to do so.

The Angel sighed.

I don’t know how to be a friend.

Every attempt at it so far had gone horribly wrong.

He closed his eyes. His chest and the still-tender wound in his side ached with an old pain.

Aari’Zan.

He had walked away from a friend before – his first and best friend – and… and look what had happened.

Sometimes it felt as though his entire life was a series of catastrophes, one after another. And there was still no end to them!

For long moments, he sat in stillness while the warmth of the sun gradually faded. When he opened his eyes again, he knew, heart sinking with the day’s end, the decision he had to make.

The Dragon was right; he could not walk away from a friend again. Not ever again. No matter the consequences. Even if Ferrian ended up hating him, as Aari had done.

His dark green eyes shimmered with tears. Swallowing heavily, he blinked them away before they could take hold. Leaping to his feet, he spun, launched himself off the mossy log and shot away into the darkening forest.

Night had fallen dramatically by the time Mekka approached the clearing. The sky was dazzlingly clear and full of stars; a scythe moon gilded the tops of the trees with silver. Not a breath of wind stirred, save the soft rush of black feathers as the Angel passed close above the ancient boughs.

The sky was so beautiful that Mekka would have been taken aback – except that something else drew his attention.

Something exceedingly odd, blocking out a large swathe of the stars.

He had noticed it from some distance away, but could at first make no sense of what he was seeing. The Barlakk Mountains loomed ahead to his left, white-tipped and sharp like the jaw of an immense beast, stark in the moonlight. Beside them was something like a dark, pointed outcropping, rising up out of the sea of trees.

Mekka frowned. He had not noticed any such geological feature on the way here; it didn’t look like something that he could have missed…

Cold nausea hit him like a gust of frigid air, raising the hairs all over his body, so sudden that he gasped. A crowd of indistinct whispers invaded his ears, floating into him out of the night ether, eerily familiar as though he ought to know who the voices belonged to, but couldn’t quite remember. It was as though the stars themselves were trying to speak to him…

For a fleeting moment, panic gripped him, and a wild desire to flee. He floundered in the air, disoriented. Then his eyes widened as the Seraphim’s vision flooded unbidden into his mind.

…and now Mekka was staring at the black city on fire, the elegant flower-like buildings shattered, the dead lights spitting sparks into the air. From the centre of the destruction, within a boiling column of smoke a huge object could be glimpsed – as though the rubble of the city had re-formed itself into a jagged mass topped with a dark, sleek pyramid. It rose slowly, turning as it did so to reveal lights rippling across its smooth sides like electric water and a large, brilliant blue semblance of an eye…

The Black Pyramid!

Had it followed Ferrian all the way from Arkana?

No, he realised with a sudden shock of realisation. An extremely powerful spell had been cast here, a huge outpouring of magic. Could Arzath’s Fatalis have drawn the Pyramid, like a hungry wraith seeking to devour the source of such bright and blazing power?

If so, then Ferrian was in incredible danger…

Gritting his teeth, trying to ignore the insistent whispers, Mekka sped on over the forest.

He reached the edge of the clearing a few minutes later, and dropped into a crouch on the top branch of a tree. Before him, once again, spread a wide black circle of wasted forest, its floor stubbled with burned and shattered stumps and branches. The Winter had dissipated; only a few patches of bright, rapidly melting snow remained dotted about.

The Black Pyramid hung suspended in the air above the clearing, fully revealed like a majestic and terrible sculpture, both jagged and sleek; otherworldly.

Mekka couldn’t help but stare in mingled horror and awe.

A giant light, shaped like an electric blue eye, winked suddenly into existence on one smooth black side of the Pyramid, facing him. It caught his gaze and fixed it there, pinning him like an insect. The voices became louder, almost deafening. There was a discordant, melodic tone to them, like a weird chant that drummed a rhythm in his mind, and the eye blazed into him, setting his soul alight with blue fire…

A flash of silver caught the edge of his vision, and he tore his eyes away from the Pyramid. There was a series of bright gleams below him. He watched them for a long, dazed moment before realising that it was Ferrian, slashing his Sword at something.

Springing into the air, Mekka folded his wings and fell into a dive.

Ferrian’s Sword cut long, gleaming arcs through the moonlight, trailing silver and black mist as it swung this way and that. Black spikes had erupted out of the ground all around him, barring his way; a shiny and lethal forest. The spikes twisted into tentacles, lashing at him from all directions like snakes. Unlike the giant shard of the Pyramid, his Sword cut through them easily, dissolving them into clouds of inky mist, but new ones kept replacing them.

Gritting his teeth, he spun and demolished a spike that struck at him from behind, his grey cloak whirling. He panted with the effort, tiring quickly, not yet fully recovered from his failed attempt to master his Sword. His arms ached and his legs felt shaky. His Winter had fled, and sweat trickled over his skin beneath his clothes. Every swing of his Sword felt harder than the last.

He had no magic left to banish anything. Only the pure silvertine was keeping him alive.

Dammit, he thought in dismay. I’m not going to survive this…

He didn’t know what the hell that giant Pyramid thing was, and had no time to consider why it was here.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

All he knew in this moment was that it was trying to kill him.

He cut down another tentacle, then another: but this time, stumbled and fell to his knees with the effort. His weariness saved him as a third spike shot past his head, almost grazing his cheek.

His heart hammered crazily in fright. The barest scrape from one of those things was enough to doom him…

But his arms felt like lumps of lead; his Sword had dropped into the ash and he could barely lift it…

His shoulders slumped; he felt light-headed. The tentacles swayed around him like a ghoulish creature that had ensnared its prey.

Ferrian let out a last sigh. I can’t…

And then something exploded into his sight in a whirl of black feathers and blazing silver blades. It danced around him, nimble as a shadow, and black tendrils disappeared into swathes of coiling mist in its wake.

Ferrian gasped. Mekka!

The black-winged Angel spun around him with impossible athletic grace, and in seconds the entire mass of spikes was gone, and only Mekka was left crouching there, his raven wings gilded with moonlight and twin silvertine daggers extended.

He rose, sheathed his weapons and came at once to Ferrian’s side. “Ferrian! Are you alright?”

Exhausted, Ferrian nodded.

Seeing his expression, Mekka frowned. “You don’t look alright.”

Ferrian gave him a wry smile. “I’m alive, aren’t I? Isn’t that good enough?”

Snorting, Mekka took his arm and helped him to his feet, then glanced up at the Pyramid.

Ferrian looked up as well. A vast black wreck of shards rose above them into the night. Much higher up, like a second moon, glowed a bright blue light.

Staring down at them.

Ferrian shuddered. The Pyramid remained motionless. Nothing moved on its surface or in the clearing around them. Everything was deathly still.

“We have to get out of here,” Mekka said grimly.

Ferrian turned back to him. “You don’t need to tell—” He gave a start, taking an involuntary step backwards.

Something extraordinary had appeared to encompass his friend’s head; a kind of elaborate, ethereal headdress made of electric blue light. It somewhat resembled the helmets worn by the Sky Legion, though this one was vastly more impressive, adorned with six elegant feathered wings – the largest pair reaching upwards imperiously on each side, at least two feet into the air, with two smaller pairs of wings fanned out below. Suspended in between the wings was a strange, delicately thin metallic ring, rotating slowly on all its axes, reflecting the blue light in circular arcs.

Almost too stunned to move, Ferrian forced his arm to lift and point at Mekka. “What,” he whispered, “is that?”

Mekka looked all about himself and then at Ferrian in confusion. “What is what?”

Gripping the hilt of his Sword with both hands, Ferrian swung it upright so that Mekka could see his reflection in its polished surface.

Letting out a strangled gasp, the Angel leaped backwards like a kicked animal. He scrabbled at his head, messing up his hair, and spun around in circles like a crazed thing, kicking up clouds of dust. Finally he hunched on the ground, pale and panting, his dark eyes wide.

The eerie headgear had vanished.

For a moment they were both still and silent, shocked.

Ferrian glanced up again at the looming, ominous Pyramid, but nothing had changed. “What… what’s happening?!”

Mekka looked down at his hands, which were visibly shaking. He seemed to struggle with his emotions. “I… I know why it’s here,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper, so that Ferrian had to move closer to hear. “The Black Pyramid. I know what it wants!”

Slowly, he rose to his feet and ran his hands through his hair, stared at them again as though contaminated with something horrible, then gesticulated wildly at the burnt ash that was Arzath’s pyre. “It didn’t come here for him,” he went on, half to himself, as though revelations were throwing themselves into his face. “Or you! It didn’t come here for magic at all!”

All of a sudden he spun, gripping Ferrian’s arms, his eyes full of dark terror as they bored into Ferrian’s: “It came here for ME!”

Ferrian just stared at him, the words passing through his weary mind and leaving no comprehension in their wake. “What are you talking about?”

Mekka searched his face, as though desperate for him to understand. “The Seraphim showed me a vision!” he continued. “When I was trapped in the Sanctuary at Caer Sync! They showed me a city in the sky full of ancient black-winged Angels, and a Black Pyramid rising from it! The Angels wore head pieces exactly like what you just showed me!”

Ferrian took a deep breath, wondering if he had, in fact, changed something with his Sword. This reality he was experiencing seemed to have twisted in on itself.

“Are you saying…” he shook his head in disbelief. “Mekka, are you trying to tell me you’re an Ancient?”

The blood drained from the Angel’s face, as though he hadn’t truly believed it himself until Ferrian had spoken the words aloud.

The spikes chose that moment to make another appearance, bursting out of the ground all around them in showers of ash and burnt wood, making them both jump.

Mekka threw Ferrian roughly to the ground and crouched over him, black wings spread protectively, like a shield. Ferrian heard the shing of his daggers unsheathing above his back.

Ferrian gripped his Sword tightly, tensing for an attack. The tentacles swayed languorously around them, like weeds in a dark, loathsome sea, their gleaming surfaces twisting the moonlight into odd, sickening colours. He fought back another wave of cold nausea, breathing in the smell of scorched dirt and trying not to retch or faint again.

But the spikes held their distance.

Could it be true? Ferrian thought in awe, catching another glimpse of blue light reflected in his Sword. Could Mekka really be an Ancient?!

“I’m going to clear a path,” the Angel’s voice growled from above. “As soon as you get a chance, run.”

Ferrian shook his head at once. “No. Mekka, I—”

“Ferrian!” Mekka hissed. “Just do it!”

Ferrian sighed, wanting to argue, but he was too tired. Mekka, not waiting for him to respond, bounded over him and threw himself into the swarm of spikes.

He watched with a mixture of fear and awe as Mekka whirled among the glistening trigonic mass. The blue head piece had reappeared, radiating a mysterious power, as though his friend were some wondrous fantastical combination of demon and Angel and something unfathomably alien…

But this time, the spikes retreated from his assault; disappearing into the ground and reappearing somewhere else. No matter how swiftly Mekka slashed at them, the spikes evaded him, and did not strike.

No such luck for Ferrian, however; a tentacle slipped past Mekka’s blades and whipped out across the ground at him.

With a gasp, Ferrian managed to roll aside and avoid it. Scrambling to his feet, he snatched up his Sword and cleaved it into mist, then parried two more spikes that lashed at him from the side.

Then Mekka crashed into him, but instead of bearing him to the ground, Ferrian was carried aloft, over the tips of the grasping black tentacles. The Angel beat upwards steadily, speeding them away from the Pyramid, towards the forest.

“I told you to run!” Mekka snapped.

Ferrian just shook his head stubbornly.

The ravaged clearing passed below them in a wash of silver and black. The moon was like a blade overhead, but offered no assistance. There was no sound but Mekka’s strained breathing and the heavy thump of his wings. Ferrian clung to him with one arm around his neck, the other grasping his Sword. He tried to look back to see what was happening with the Pyramid. It loomed behind them like a hill in the sky, its huge blue eye blazing horribly.

“Dammit, Dragon!” Ferrian cried aloud. “Where are you? We could use your help right now!”

There was no sign of her, no white wings beating against the stars, but the lack of a mental response frightened him most. “Mekka!” he said. “Have you seen the Dragon? Do you know where she’s gone?”

The Angel did not reply. He seemed all of a sudden to be struggling, panting as though the burden of carrying him was too much. Ferrian shook his head. “Put me down!”

They descended until they were low enough that Ferrian could drop to his feet. Mekka landed as well, but immediately staggered backwards, almost overbalancing as though something had yanked him from behind. With a gasp, he drew his daggers.

Ferrian felt it as well. A strong force propelled him forwards, like a shove in the back, though no breath of wind stirred his hair or cloak, and the Winter was entirely absent. The force grew stronger, pulling at them both inexorably, as though they were caught in an invisible current.

Mekka stabbed both his daggers into the ground and clung to them. “The Pyramid!” he cried. “It’s pulling us back!”

Fighting a surge of wild panic, Ferrian did the same with his own Sword, ramming it into the charred soil, wrapping his arms tightly around the hilt, feeling the strain rapidly increasing. “Why?! What does it want with us?!”

Mekka was grimacing with the effort of holding on. His impressive helmet had disappeared and there was a sheen of sweat on his face, his black hair sticking to it. “Either I’m an Ancient,” he replied, “or that… Pyramid thing… thinks I am! You?” he shook his head. “Perhaps it thinks… you’re a threat!”

“A threat? My Sword just… bounced off it!”

Mekka glared at him. “You’ve… banished wraiths with it! You can… alter reality, dammit! Use… your magic!”

Ferrian shook his head in exasperation. His chest hurt with the pressure, and his hands were slipping. He gritted his teeth, digging his heels into the ground, trying to brace his sliding boots. “I… tried already! Before that Pyramid showed up! It… didn’t work!” He shook his head again in despair. “It doesn’t matter anyway… I’ve… got no energy… left!”

There was a moment of silence, in which they both struggled futilely against the monstrous alien power that gripped them. The edge of the clearing lay just ahead, mere yards away, crowded with huge, elderly, moss-haired myrtle trees; mute witnesses to the peculiar battle. Ferrian stared at them in furious helplessness; he and Mekka would never have been able to get away, even if they had made it into the forest – not without the Dragon’s help. “You… tried?” Ferrian heard Mekka say, incredulously. “What did you—”

He never finished the sentence. His daggers slipped free of the ash and, with a cry, the Angel tumbled away over the clearing, like a leaf tossed in a storm.

“No!” Distracted by Mekka’s fate, Ferrian’s Sword jerked free as well, and he was thrown heavily to the ground, bouncing in an undignified tangle after his friend.

In a painful, chaotic whirl of bright stars and black ground, of bitter clouds of ash choking his mouth and eyes, Ferrian desperately clutched for anything he could hold; but everything was a charred husk and crumbled in his hand…

His fingers brushed a rock, but he could get no purchase. He tried to jam his Sword in the ground, but his limbs flailed everywhere and it was all he could do to hold on to it…

Blood and terror thundered through his body, along with a sudden rush of ice across his skin and flurry of snowflakes as his Winter instinctively awakened, trying to protect him. At any moment, he expected to be smashed to pieces or impaled on a gleaming black spike…

And then the ground fell away, and the battering mercifully stopped, replaced with a soothing rush of wind in his ears. Relief soared through him, joyous but dropping like a stone into horror when he realised it wasn’t Mekka who had dragged him into the sky this time.

Twisting in midair, he saw that he was being pulled upwards by an invisible, silent power, towards the sheer black face of the Pyramid. Mekka was a short way ahead of him, flapping his wings in vain, equally helpless under the Pyramid’s mighty influence.

Struggling was useless. He could do nothing but let himself be carried higher – dangerously high – the massive nest of black shards passing beneath him.

Ferrian was paralysed with terror, looking down into those angular, razor-edged chasms. All the Pyramid needed to do was drop him…

It didn’t. A huge triangular opening had materialised in one smooth, slanted side. There was nothing to be seen within it but impenetrable blackness.

The blackness was so black it was like a solid object rather than a hole, like an unreal thing that shouldn’t and couldn’t exist. So black it absorbed all of his senses, all of his courage, his reason, his sanity…

A kind of primeval terror clawed at the back of his mind. Something between a sob and a scream welled up inside him, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away…

The snowflakes that had been floating around him twisted and fled as he approached, as though repelled, and his skin prickled with something that was not frost, but far more repugnant…

I have to do something, he thought frantically, desperately. I have to use my Sword, like Mekka said… He had to scrape up some shred of his magic, no matter how pitiful, before it was too late…

But he couldn’t seem to move.

Mekka was swallowed by the impossible maw of shadow. And then he, too, was consumed by it.

In his panicked disorientation Ferrian managed to turn himself about, and found no longer a black hole, but instead a white-gilded triangular shape awash with stars, that shrank as he watched.

Smaller and smaller it became, diminishing like a lovely jewel dropped into a well, until finally it was gone, and there was nothing but unending darkness drawing him and his Angel friend ever deeper into the unfathomable bowels of the Black Pyramid.