The door to the last unexplored room of the labyrinth was opened, sliding up and disappearing into the ceiling. The wailing this time, was worse than all times before, louder more frantic.
What was most obvious was now they could tell where it was coming from. It was coming from beyond this room. From somewhere deep within it. The cries filled with eons of pain and suffering.
“Get Out!”
“Get Out!”
“Get Out!”
“Get Out!”
“Get Out!”
“Get Out!
“Get Out!...He’s going to find you!....Get Out!”
With most of the people present being unable to understand the cries, and the Bone Tree Company, and the few others who ‘could’ understand it keeping mum, the pleas were ignored.
The contractors stepped inside a hall that was a bigger than another the floors they’d passed through before and then they entered a room that was at least a thousand times bigger than the entirety of the tower had been.
Big enough that you couldn’t see the ceiling. Big enough that the whole room seemed like a small world. With dark sky of its own, filled with a million blinking stars and some manner of bright rainbow colored gas.
The ground was covered with bodies. The room was filled, absolutely packed with millions of prostrate steel-supplicants. The gaunt, undead cyborgs ignoring the contractors’ presence as they all lay in uniform position. Their foreheads pressed flat against the floor. All of them facing a single point.
At first it seemed like a mountain, a massive mountain with its peak hidden in mist. A mountain of a scale that one would was rare even in Monde, the biggest of this solar system’s worlds. Then as they got closer and were able to see past the mist they realized it wasn’t a mountain, it was a body. A kneeling body, of incomprehensible size and feature.
“No!”
“No!”
“Go...He’ll find you and if he finds you he shall make me slay!... Go!” Moaned the mistress of the tower.
She was a woman of indescribable beauty and unutterable horror. A maiden made entirely arms of and hands. The limbs coming in various sizes, ranging from human sized to a scale that could be used to creature ocean waves. Forming the curves and angles of her pristine beauty.
With a seat of several million tendril like limbs working to form her head and hair. In her head were five eyes, burning more radiant and bright than the stars of the sky that hung above her. Weeping tears of blood. She was bound, and pierced and flayed. Her naked muscle exposed.
A network of massive spikes and bolts driven into her body. Connected to a pole that had ran in and out of her throat, standing exposed in the parts that had ended up tearing themselves out of her. Covered in gristly blood and rust. An iron maiden in an iron gown, with her body all wrapped up in chains. A spiked crown of blades sitting on her head, the points biting into her skull.
When they saw it there wasn’t a single person who wasn’t affected by the aura of the being before them. The weakest of their number actually falling into a swoon. With everyone else growing fainted, affected by bowel voiding level of fear.
Failing to understand what they were seeing but knowing that it was something so far above them that they couldn’t even hope to be able to deal with it.
Supervisor Arold swore, retreating several feet. His face filled with confusion and horror and anger.
“Well, Bollocks...I think that’s it ladies and gentlemen, The show stops here.” said Arold. Frowning, unable to help feeling a tad disappointed. They’d come all this way but the prism had turned out to be one of those.
One of those ruins, dungeons and labyrinths whose master was beyond the power of any group or individual. An unconquerable. The best they’d be able to do was retreat and then seal off the area surrounding the prism. Arold was just thinking about the long process he’d have to begin, when he reached the door they’d come through and found it closed. Gone.
“No...Oh, hell no. Where the-...Where the fuck is it?!” said Arold. His exclamation and obvious panic drawing the attention of his people and the other members of the raid.
“What is it? Said Keyair.
“We’re sealed!” said a panicky aide.
“Oh gods that’s not true is it?!” said a contractor.
“No! No, that's definitely not the case. I just can’t...I can’t find the door.” said Arold. Cold sweat pouring down his brow and moistening the back of his shirt.
“What?!” said Esme, leader of the Lloyd’s two great martial sects associates . Sounding more annoyed, than afraid.
“It’s nothing...We’ll figure this out...we just have to-...”
“No!...Oh forgive me!...I tried! I warned you! I tried! He’s found you!”
*Aiiiiieiii!*
The moaning came back again, louder, deafening now and ending with an agonized screech. The maiden of hands was looking at them now. Her head inclined towards their position, though her gaze seemed dimmed and lost.
For the observant there was an impression that her metal garb was alive, that the crown was also filled with eyes. And that the metal spikes were the bones of some ancient monster that had come to impress and oppress the woman who went beyond words and reason.
An unholy union, a non-consensual fusion of beings. An abomination that they were never meant to see. Shedding blood and rust as the two beings that comprised its form warred against each other. One vying for control while the other sought freedom.
The longer one looked, the more one saw, and so like ants contemplating a giant realizing that it wasn’t some irregular landmass but was a thinking, feeling, plotting, being like themselves, there was feeling of gloomy enlightenment.
The group fell into uncomfortable silence, and then the silence was broken shattered by the sound of laughter.
*****
“Heh…*Snrk….Heh….*Snrk*.... Haha, haha, haha, haha, haha, haha, haha, haha, haha!”
*****
There was such a thing as an un-joke. A situation that wasn’t funny at all but you couldn’t help but feeling that you were going to laugh anyway. Like there was awful bomb in the back of your brain and it was ticking and the moment it went off there’d just be the cloud of laughing gas and you wouldn’t be able to help it.
You’d have to laugh, or least smile, leering like some evil clown. They popped up in the most inappropriate moments, during funerals, after disasters, after someone has shared their pain or ill fortune.
This was the un-joke. A strange aversive reaction to things one was helpless to do anything about. A reaction to things that were awful, things would normally bring tears, or sighs of sympathy, or at least pity. This manic, hysteric impulse that in the moment would often feel impossible to restrain.
“Billy?!” said Edna.
“Will?!” said Elena.
Billy was on his knees. He’d pulled the mask from his face and was just trying to concentrate on breathing. Tears streaked down his cheeks and his nose ran. It was taking all that he had to just breathe and stay upright but he was failing at both.
“Billy, What’s wrong?!” said Edna. Concerned. Knowing that the being in front of them was to blame for his inexplicable.
He managed to get hold of himself and climbed to his feet.
“Shit...Fuck me...This isn’t even…*snrk*....No.”
Billy stood pulled the two girls to him and gave them both a kiss on the lips. Naturally the kiss wasn’t a kiss. It was magic, necessary magic, but he didn’t have time to explain. Nor did he have time to explore the fuzzy headedness he’d felt as he did it.
“Billy...uh, what are you-?” said Edna.
“Not that I’m not happy, but...I really don’t think this is the-...” said Elena.
Both of their words were cut off as he pointed at them and a light, a kind of blinding bright darkness appeared in their shadows, both similar and dissimilar to what one would appear shortly before a teleport.
The girls caught on their expressions shifting.
“William Percival Maddoc, don’t you dare!” said Edna. Catching onto what he was doing. She tried to step out of the pool of glowing shadow, but couldn’t.
Scarily enough, Elena was actually somehow managing to make headway. Almost managing to wiggle a few fingers free. Billy upped the power of spell and she snapped back into place.
Elena glowered at him, nostrils flaring.
“You better come back alive, you asshole. Don’t you dare think of dying before I’ve gotten the chance to knock your teeth in for this!” she said. Her voice both indignant and unresigned. Billy smiled, feeling his heart was about to beat its way out of his chest.
“Nh...naturally.”
She nodded back, her glower, still present but her gaze softening. Then the shadows swallowed them and they were gone in a flash.
“What the hell?!” said Tangent, who was standing by his boss, as per usual.
“What’s the game here, man?” said Jermaine. More calm than his other
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
compatriots.
Billy nodded at the being that was now slowly getting up, slowly standing, slowly becoming real, stepping out of whatever mercurial fugue it had been and stepping into the real world. Its aura washing over everyone like a tsunami, serious like a heart attack, knocking the weaker members of their number off their feet.
“Game? No game, here. Does it look like I’m having fun to you? Odd. It’s simple that thing over there is ‘way’ out of all of our leagues. I have an exit ready for you guys if you want it.”
Jermaine frowned, his expression, clouded and thoughtful, he looked up at the maiden of rust and blood and then looked over at his fellow contractors. Weighing the odds in his mind.
“I can’t see through that thing. I can’t tell how strong she is. Are you telling me you can?” asked Jermaine.
“Yes. And trust me, this wouldn’t be good odds even if we all got bumped a layer or two and there were ten times our number present.” said Billy.
“Shit…” said Tangent.
Jermaine just tapped the side of his hip while thinking and then he nodded.
“Well, damn. It was a good go anyway and at least we got the cred for showing up….Shit, okay Asphodel. I’ll take that exit.”
WIth that said, Billy opened up more dark doorways pushing the people of the Thousand Ghosts company through to the other side where the city of Gene was waiting. Which was just barely far enough away to be safe.
With that done Billy sighed watching the other people in the room panicking. Some saw to their own exits. A few made it, most were either splattered against the backwall or simply disintegrated into ash and aether, their spells failing to breach the spatial-temporal boundaries of the great tower.
Keyair tried to escape, chuckling as he was covered by a bright green light, the chuckling soon turned to a scream and soon all that was left was a greasy smear on the ground.
Esme sneered as she saw that there was no profit to be gained and stepped back, disappearing into a neat white void. The tunnel remaining open just long enough for Supervisor Arold and his men to follow her.
Soon there was only Billy and the people of the church. The templar stood, their hands resting on their blades. The clergymen prayed for strength from their gods. With only the strongest amongst their number staying while the underlings were sent back, carried away by flashes of blinding light.
Ludwik Georg gazed at the dark man who stood still staring up at the being that was about to breach its way into their world.
“You...You have an exit. Why aren’t you leaving?” he said. Finally deigning to speak.
“Nh?....Because someone needs to deal with this situation before it gets worse and Monde becomes an even worse place to live.” said Billy.
“Is that so….are you sure this isn’t some ruse. The two of you feel far too similar for all this to be a coincidence.” said Ludwik.
Billy’s face went blank….blanker than usual anyway and he laughed again, though this time it wasn’t born of hysterics. It was just a dry chuckle as he realized that he was the victim of a strikingly ordinary misunderstanding.
Like mistaking one extremely tall person for the other because you were only ever able to see the back of their knees.
“Are you stupid? Don’t you have eyes? This thing hates me most of all.”
“And why would that be?” said Ludwik. Eyes narrowed.
“Because it knows I can kill it.” he said.
Ludwik frowned, the men and women behind him sneered. From anyone else the words would have sounded like the kind of braggadocio that practitioners were known. Meaninglessly proud. However coming from the man known as Asphodel, the man whose compatriots called Billy, it was just a matter of fact. Said without guile. Without pride. Without any hidden agenda. Ludwik frowned and then he nodded.
“Hmm...I suppose whatever it is you ‘are’ you still need a world to live in. Very well. It’s not like anyone I have a here can help me fight this thing. And it’s not like I can fight this thing on my own either. Everyone we’re retreating.”said Ludwik.
His people stopping whatever doing, some looking shocked and disappointed, others looking indifferent, their duty and faith, making them not care whether they stayed or went. Most just looked relieved. Well aware that they were all in over their heads.
As the light washed over them all Ludwik turned to one of his men, whilst stepping out of the light.
“Sergeant Holtz, If the gods permit. I’ll be joining you soon, but if not when you get you’re to rouse the Innocentus just in case this matter doesn’t end as neatly as we would hope.” said Ludwik.
The templar simply saluted. Head bowed, one hand at his back, the other on his heart.
“Sir, Yessir!” said the man.
*****
The maiden rust stepped through the boundary, breaking from the quiet limbo she’d been kneeling within into Monde’s reality. Her footsteps brought wind, her breath was noxious and the cold that radiated from her flesh, was the icy, hoarfrost of the void.
“So...you’re not going to?” said Billy.
Barely holding his own against the turbulence that the rust maiden’s one footstep had created. Surprised to see that boy was managing to stand his own as well. The surprise receding as he sensed the presence of a god, watching as a being of higher order leant the boy just enough power to stand tall against the rust maiden’s brutal power.
“No. I shall stay and play the part of witness. Either you win and I go back to report. Or I die and the fact of my death sends the message for me.”
“Oh...really?...Cause I could handle this you know.” said Billy, feeling slightly annoyed and more than a little awkward.
“An innocent man’s hands are clean. A righteous man has no need to hide.” said Ludwik. His tone lofty, expression slightly superior.
Billy just frowned, deciding to ignore the boy, aware that he had no more leeway. Though he’d rather not have any witnesses for what he was about to do, he’d could afford to pay the boy any more attention.
“Tch…”
*****
The Rust Maiden stood before him, her million arms outstretched and waving, reaching out towards the world and the stars that hung above her head.
“You!...I know You! Have we met? Are we going to meet? You shall die you know...I’m sure she tried to warn you...Silly bitch...She is mine. Now you are too. And this whole world. The world beyond this tower. Everything and everyone it! Mine! Mine! Mine! MINE! Oh what fun we shall have...Oh so much fun. So! Much! FUN!” said the creature that some from the metal that bound the rust maiden.
Its voice painful, like nails on a chalkboard, harsh, like the sound of a crumbling world. Clear and echoing like the intonations of a bell.
The beings words were a sobering reminder of why Billy was still here, it was right, there was ‘something’ familiar about it but that wasn’t what he cared about. The real issue was what it would do to his world if it got free.
This was his Monde. It was home to him, Edna and Elena, and thus even if he only barely cared about its people, feeling like a stranger to most of it, he couldn’t look away. Thus there was only one thing he could do.
He bowed, as elegant as courtier standing before a royal. Letting the magic flow out of him. Letting the plan B that he’d spent the past few weeks preparing, take effect.
“My Greetings, Million Armed Maiden who Adorns the stars...My greeting to you too, foul unctuous cretin who has attached himself to the maiden. I am ****, I am the one who stands at on the line. Standing on boundary between life and death, black and white, good and evil, real and Imaginary. You may call me Asphodel. I shall be slaying you today.” said Billy.
His voice soft and low but low enough that it carried through to every single portion of the room. Loud enough to disturb the worshipers who had stayed prostrate even when their master was trampling them. The supplicants glared at him but didn’t move. Oppressed by the power he was releasing. Oppressed by the spell that now unfolded, unpacking itself and steadily warping the fabric of faith and time.
“Hmph! Impudent. Toy are meant to be played with. You’re not allowed to talk! I shall teach you this when we’re done.”
“We shall see.” said Billy.
*****
Ludwik watched from behind, having darted to the very edge of the room, going as far back as he needed to, whilst staying close enough to be able to observe what happened next. Despite his calm demeanor, his heart was pounding. He couldn’t help it, it was the natural response to overwhelming strength.
The Rust Maiden was one thing, stronger than he could see through and perhaps even stronger than could be comprehended. Exceeding the boundary line of the petty ranking chart that the ancients had created and spread through the world in a way of educating and bragging of their power.
Though the church knew that there were ranks that lay beyond the twelfth layer of anomalous existence. Understanding it very keenly because this was path that their gods had walked upon transcending the boundary of human understanding.
A second surprise had been the man. Ludwik had felt his power and he’d been surprised to find that it had been far beyond his own. He’d suspected that might have been so when he spied the man’s otherness but it was still a jolt to feel how very voracious the man was.
At least one thing was clear, the man hadn’t been lying. While he and the being were both ‘strange’ in nature, the man’s aura was something else. Something hungrier than the massive woman’s was. If she escaped and rampaged she’d been an earthquake.
A calamity that the church and the gods its served would have to step in to quell. Killing millions if not billions before it was stopped. The man on the other hand was unreadable. He wasn’t like the women at all. He was something else. Something deep. Wet and dark. inscrutable, like the ocean on a starless night. Ludwik wasn’t sure what would happen if ‘he’ was allowed to walk free but he knew that it was something to note. Something for wiser heads then his to think on.
******
Billy grit his teeth as the Maiden of Rust set herself upon him, her million arms slamming against him like an avalanche of burning worlds. As it went out he felt himself drifting away several times, he felt his soul creaking, filling with cracks but there was nothing he could do.
This wasn’t the same as when he’d been fighting the dragon emperor. Back then it was the difference of a few layers. This time it was the difference of entire realms. An existence that surpassed the strongest that the old world had bothered mentioning to its common practitioners, a power beyond the exaggerations of the imperial chart. An existence that could truly make the world shake, warp reality with its mere presence.
He couldn’t fight it by bridging the gap between their power with the sacrifice of his soul like he’d done the last time he was outmatched. Nor could he outwit this being and trick it into inhaling his nothingness like he’d done for. To attempt either would merely get him killed. And killed with such thoroughness that it’d be eons before he recovered. With Edna and Elena likely both dead and gone before he returned to having an individuated self.
Fists fell him like water during a rainstorm. Each one landing with the force of a falling moon. The ground shook yet, and it was miracle but the tower kept standing. It was this point that Billy realized that this prism was truly its own space. A prison for the beast that took the maiden. The stars above her head, likely the stars of some doomed universe. He was fighting a world killer and the only thing he could do was weather it and wait and pray that his plan B came true.
“Hahahahaha. Do you like it?! Is it fun you tasty slut! Enjoy! More! More! More! More~!”
The mad maiden sang beating Billy for hours. Smashing him with rods of steel and cutting him with shards of raw iron that she called up from the ground. The thing that rode her flesh, using her as an instrument to beat the little that stood before her. Smashing it with all the million hands that it had stolen.
Billy could only just grin and bear it and grin he did. Some insane part of him awaken. Both masochistic and sadistic. Waiting to see if his spell would come through before he broke.
The pounding continued, there was light and fire and pain. At some point Billy was picked up and he was used like a club, like a bone. The creature alternating between gnawing on him and smashing him into the ground with enough force that if this was the planet beyond the Prism, Monde would have split in two. It went on and on and eventually there was one question on all the minds that were present enough to ask it.
“How? Boring thing! I smash you and you do not break. I pull you and you do not tear. What manner of toy are you?!”
Billy lay on the ground, covered in his blood, his soul weeping, most of his mind absent, conveniently knocked into stupor, because otherwise the pain would have made him curl into a ball and die. With some difficulty and eerie floatiness of a puppet on a string he stood. Rising to his feet.
“Nh...Toy? I suppose if I had to be considered some kind of toy you could call me a wind up toy.” said Billy. His eyes filled with ominous green fire. A wide grinning stretching the limits of his face.
“Wind….Up?”
The maiden stirred seeming to catch on, seeming to understand what he had done and was about to done. Her wretched beauty returning with something that could loosely called a pained smile.
“Thank...You…” she said.
The thing that rode her was immediately alerted and suspicious.
“Thank you?! Are you finally learning to love it babe? No...wait that’s not for me. Wait why are you fighting again! Bitch. Slut...Whore. Let me free! What are you doing?!”
Billy stalked towards the creature while it struggled with its captive.
His footsteps making the ground shake, his aura spiking, pushing everything side, filling the room with violent winds. Blowing the few surviving steel-supplicants aside.
“Let go! Let go! Let go! Look friend! This is a mistake! I don’t want to die! Let me go and I’ll give you a secret!” said the creature.
“Fool if you really want to do this I’ll show you hell that you never believed. Please! No! Bastard! Fiend! Stop! Bitch, he’ll kill us! He’ll kill us you know! He’s coming!”
The creature alternated between threatening its host, threatening Billy and pleading for its life.
Billy ignored it completely, pushed beyond it as he concentrated on carrying the power he’d soaked up. Containing all the force he’d absorbed, kinetic and otherwise, while also preserving his soul. A feat that would have been impossible for him before he’d been tempered by his battle with the Dragon Emperor. His base being bolstered. His aether raised till it was just barely enough to act as windbreak while he cast this spell went against the laws of reason and proportion.
“No! Stop!” said the rust maiden. Crying out while trying to move from the position that she’d been frozen in.
“I am Asphodel, the one who stands between the boundary of nothingness and everything. You are one who delights in everything, but always hungers for more. A pity. Perhaps you will find satisfaction in nothingness. Come...Let me show you the true shape and wonder of the void.” said Billy. Speaking with voice that was louder than thunder.
Echoing from all the stars that hung above their heads. His presence make the world tremble as just enough of his old power was pulled through for what he needed to do. He leapt up and he got enough to be absolutely sure that he wouldn’t miss. He looked into the maiden’s eyes and saw relief and gratefulness. He looked into the things eyes and saw fear and unresignment. He didn’t have the leeway to care about any of it. He just turned, using his hips to properly line up the world breaking power that was being carried within his fist.
******
Billy didn’t notice as Ludwik slipped away. Evacuating from the prism, sure that he’d seen enough and aware that staying any longer would mean his death or a loss of his sanity. What happened next wasn’t something mortal men were meant to see. And while he was still mortal, it wouldn’t do him to stay and witness it.
So he left, satisfied that the matter was handled. Appearing several hundred miles away from the prism. Just far enough away not to be blown away by the pillar of light and shadow and force that appeared shortly after awards. Shattering the floating crystal tower and making the whole world seem to rock in its moorings.
“Mhm…I guess he ‘could’ kill it.” said Ludwik. Waiting for the smoke to clear.
A wind came smoothing things out. The world reacted as it always did when it took too much damage. The grace of the heavens and the power of the ancients working in tandem to keep nature from going further out of the balance.
Monde groaned as magma and molten stone was shifted to fill the gulf that had been opened up going all the way to center of the world. Ludwik frowned as he stared at the nothingness that remained, slightly surprised that the city that had been neighboring the labyrinth hadn’t been wiped out as well.
Though parts of its wall had fallen, it seemed to be relatively untouched. The soldiers that had been patrolling were lost, but considering what had nearly broken free it seemed that they were always fated to be casuality.
After saying a brief prayer for their souls and all the souls that were lost in this mission, and then giving some thanks for his own survival he cast the return spell, the young priest was bathed in the light that would take him home to the city of his birth and the halls of his calling.