“What?!” Trissiny exploded in pure disbelief. “How?! Why did—”
“Wait,” Agasti interrupted her, straightening up and snatching his cane out of the earth. “Something is—”
His infernal spell circle abruptly collapsed, with all the violence for which that school of magic was famous. The glowing lines, already burned into the ground, began exploding like a series of embedded firecrackers, hurling ash and clumps of sod in all directions and causing Agasti himself to stagger, being caught in the middle of it. Both revenants surged protectively toward him, but Toby was both closer and faster, snatching the warlock and hauling him bodily out of the radius as the circle continued to disintegrate.
“It’s still going on!” Agasti gasped even before getting his feet back under him. “The instability is not confined to the circle. No more holding back, we need divine magic. Now! As much as you can!”
Trissiny needed no further urging, and her armor, sword, and shield coalesced around her out of pure light. Her aura flared into being, wings and all, pushing outward with an intensity that it rarely showed. Toby’s effort, by comparison, was muted. The glow sprang up around him as well, but for all that it pushed outward nearly as far as Trissiny’s, it was without the same ferocity. His contribution didn’t compare at all to the divine nova he had sometimes unleashed at Omnu’s bidding.
Smoke rose from both of them, accompanied by a harsh buzzing in the air, as their channeled power annihilated loose infernal magic from the vicinity. Agasti retreated with a nimbleness that would have been unbelievable when they had first seen him the night before, muttering and gesticulating rapidly with his cane. He charred another spell circle in the ground a few yards distant, then swiftly moved on to cast another while the first formed a smoky vortex above it, channeling infernal radiation into its center to be contained. The warlock carried on laying down grounding circles as quickly as he could, while his two revenant companions hovered protectively near him, unable to approach the paladins due to the light.
Between the three of them, they were making headway against the energy bleeding out of that transposed patch of Hell, but that unfortunately was not the worst of their problems.
The distortion rising from the ground around the circle was at first glance easy to mistake for heat waves in the sun, at least until it began spreading outward and reached the paladins. Their divine light did nothing at all to disrupt it, but the reverse was not true. Trissiny stumbled as if struck, her aura flickering, and Toby’s was momentarily snuffed out entirely by the disorientation.
When it reached the first of Agasti’s grounding circles, the entire glyph disintegrated in a cluster of minor explosions just the way his original spell circle had.
Worst of all, where the slow-moving wave crept past, it changed the ground from the mundane meadow to the heat-blasted stone of the hellscape on the other side. Bit by bit, the patch of hellscape was growing, the dimensional swap expanding one foot at a time.
“This is not a side effect!” Agasti shouted, retreating further. “Someone on the other side is pushing this out. They must have been watching the site for an opportunity. Get ready to fight, I have no idea what’s going to come through!”
It was a very peculiar sight, the surrounding hills and mountainside being erased by what seemed to be a flat plateau. As the effect expanded, structures began to appear, towers and fences seemingly made from gigantic bones encircling the temple site. None of that commanded their attention, however, as the demons shimmered into being starting when the growing circle had stretched only a few yards out. More and more came as it spread; though the five of them, revenants included, had not been shifted into Hell when the dimensional ripple washed over them, the beings on the other side had evidently been preparing for exactly this.
Trissiny, ever the tactician, immediately charged at one of the figures standing in a glowing glyph carved into the ground and chanting with his hands upraised. A guard of five demons surrounding him surged to meet her, and proved no match; they actually burst into flames on contact with her aura, and she only bothered to dispatch the one which was bodily in her way before ramming her sword to its hilt in the chest of the summoner. At no point had he paused in his working, and died as his flesh burned away and dissolved into charcoal from the spot where she impaled him.
That drew the attention of the others. The creatures surrounded them by the dozens, brandishing weapons made of bone and in a few cases hurling balls of explosive fire. They were a little bigger than human-sized on average, covered in chitinous scales and plates of natural armor, and wearing nothing but hide loincloths. The entire throng was clearly standing by, ready for battle, with casters positioned evenly around the circle where the temple had stood, chanting and obviously causing the dimensional effect to continue expanding.
Nearly a dozen converged on Trissiny, doing nothing but slowing her as she pivoted and tried to make for the next caster. For all their preparedness, this group was clearly not ready to contend with something like a paladin. Agasti, doubtless the first to discern the pattern, felled two more casters in rapid succession with precise shadowbolts, but then had to defend himself from a massed counter-attack with waves of fire and kinetic force. His efforts were supported by blasts of lightning; Kami had retrieved a battlestaff from the carriage and Arakady drew two wands from within his coat, both stepping up beside their patron to fire arcane destruction into all who threatened him.
In the sudden furor, none of them even noticed that Toby was simply standing, surrounded by a shimmering glow, and staring.
“So. This is your doing.” The air was filled with screams and spellfire; no one heard his soft voice.
The light that erupted from the Hand of Omnu was nothing like the steady expansion of the halo which had heralded his divine nova in the past. It burst out in a violent shockwave, the force of it knocking every demon in the vicinity to the ground, most shrieking in pain and several catching fire. It did not have the pure intensity of Omnu’s nova, either; that would simply have incinerated them.
But Toby wasn’t done.
Arkady and Kami had also fallen at the first impact, and now Agasti seized each of them by one arm and in a swift swell of shadow, all three vanished. Trissiny had been rocked slightly by the force of the divine spell Toby unleashed, but it did not hit here with anything like the impact it inflicted on their attackers. She pivoted on one heel to face him, then froze. Toby wasn’t looking at her; she could not tell where he was looking. His eyes were completely obscured, emitting a golden glow with an intensity like the sun’s.
The demons were already rallying, even despite their obvious pain at the haze of divine energy now covering the site. At least the expansion of the piece of Hell had stopped, every remaining caster having been felled by the blow. In fact, it began to retreat again, the blasted ground giving way to tallgrass and wildflowers which were already wilted by their momentary trip to Hell.
Before any could launch another coordinated attack, shapes appeared in the air around them. Scythes, hovering unassisted, seven of them. Barely had they manifested before they began moving.
Trissiny hurled herself flat to the ground, covering her head with her shield and leaving her defensive aura alight, but none of the blades struck her. Instead, directed with uncanny aim, they swept through the horde. Wherever a demon was cut, it instantly exploded, leaving nothing but ash upon the wind.
It was over in seconds.
Trissiny raised her head warily. Smoke and ashes drifted on the air around them; Toby’s aura flickered as the circle walling off this patch from its home dimension passed back over him in shrinking. It did not dissipate this time, though. The golden scythes now drifted slowly around them, tumbling end over end as they orbited the Hand of Omnu. They had cut down even the bone structures, leaving only shattered and charred fragments to vanish back into Hell as the circle shrank.
The very air sang, filled with a tone like distant bells.
“I understand it now,” Toby said expressionlessly. His voice resonated almost like Ariel’s, as if there were a second, deeper voice speaking in unison. “It’s so simple, I don’t know why I struggled with it for so long. Omnu is life. Omnu is peace. Omnu is paradox. Omnu’s real path is navigating the tension between opposites. Because the truth is as Avei has always taught it. As Vidius has known. There is only one true peace…and it is the opposite of life.”
Trissiny stood, leaving her sword and shield lying on the charred ground behind her. The original patch of Hell remained, a hardened circle of ground where the temple had been, but the dimensional ripple seemed to be fully dispelled now. She strode right up to Toby, pulling off her silver gauntlets and also letting them drop.
She took her fellow paladin’s face in both hands. He was standing like one of the stone figures of Salyrene, staring with empty glowing eyes at some nothing in the infinite distance. He did not resist, however, as she tugged his head gently down to face her.
“Toby,” Trissiny whispered, “stop.”
It was like staring into a furnace. There was nothing behind his eyes but the light. Not a flicker of expression or acknowledgment on his features.
She squeezed lightly, shifting her hands to slowly brush her thumbs across his eyes. Enough mortal reflex remained despite whatever trance he was in that they closed, cutting out the light which blazed onto her own face.
“Please, stop.”
Trissiny changed her grip again, releasing his face and pulling him closer. She wrapped an arm around his back and tugged his head down to rest it against her shoulder.
The distant music of the Light faded. Golden scythes dissolved into sparks and swirls of unfocused energy. The glow which hung over the whole scene like fog dissipated, giving way to simple, wholesome sunlight.
With its passing, Toby seemed to come back to life. His breath caught, came unevenly in little bursts for a moment, and then faltered entirely into shuddering gasps. Weakly, he clutched at Trissiny, and she just held onto him, holding him up even as his legs failed.
----------------------------------------
“You did this on purpose,” Ariel accused as soon as things settled down somewhat.
Gabriel took his time before bothering to reply, turning in a circle to make sure there were no more enemies waiting. A few had lunged at him before being swept away in that ripple their chanters were creating; the four who had jumped the wand now lay dead nearby, three little more than skeletons decorated with parchment-like scraps of old skin, all that the scythe had left of them. The fourth was more well-preserved, having been impaled through the heart by Ariel, whom he now plucked from the air. They had spent quite a bit of time on the charms that enabled her to float and fight independently; this wasn’t the field test he would have preferred, but at least it had worked.
When the demons began vanishing and an expanding patch of real-world ground appeared in their stead, he had immediately realized what they were doing and what it probably meant for the mortal plane. Gabriel had failed to think of any countermeasure in time, but fortunately, it proved moot; in only moments, the circle had shrunk right back to its original boundaries, and not only was every last demon gone, most of their bone structures had been shattered. Bless Toby and his holy nova.
The less uplifting news was that with no control over whatever magic the demons had used to create that effect, he and his friends were still stuck on opposite sides of the dimensional divide. Which was good for them, but his own situation was less cheery.
“I’m morbidly curious how you came to that conclusion,” Gabriel finally answered, sliding Ariel back into her sheath and turning another slow revolution to take a more careful look at his surroundings. The geography sort of mirrored that of the real world; there was a towering mountain range to the east, but unlike the Wyrnrange this appeared to be entirely made of gigantic shards of obsidian, and the fires of volcanic eruptions flickered in their heights. Gabe wasn’t well-versed in geology but he had a feeling that wasn’t right; then again, there was no reason to assume the basics of mortal life were applicable here. For example, the forest which spread to the north and south of the flat area in which he stood consisted of trees that seemed to be entirely thorns, some people-sized (and slowly oscillating as if seeking prey) and swaying tree-sized mushrooms whose conical caps contained giant, tooth-lined mouths. As he watched, one snapped at something flying past.
“Because you were just announcing your awareness that something terrible was going to go wrong with that entire enterprise, because you are generally reckless, and because you have a stubbornly self-sacrificing tendency that invariably makes you place yourself between your friends and danger. Whether or not that suits the strategic needs of the situation.”
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Well, I guess you’ve got my number,” he said lightly. “All right, immediate practicalities. After the Crawl I’ve started carrying stores of food, water, and potions in my bottomless pockets, so I can survive for a while. I’ve always heard there’s not even any water in Hell.”
“There is, but it is not plentiful and you would not be advised to drink it. Nor is the food safe. You are extremely resistant to infernal radiation, between your hethelax blood and the divine magic granted by Vidius, but surviving here is not a long-term prospect. We need to return to our own plane posthaste.”
“Easier said than done,” he murmured. Demons were constantly trying to escape from Hell, and at a glance he could already see why. If it were that easy, it would happen a lot more often. “Okay…let’s see what we’ve got to work with. Apparently these guys have been building their little nest around the temple site to try to cross over if anything happened to the dimensional phenomenon merging that spot. They sure were well-prepared. Do you know what species this is?”
“Ikthroi,” she said as he bent over the most well-preserved dead demon. Apparently when they died in Hell they didn’t dissolve into charcoal. “Sapient, slightly larger and significantly stronger than the human norm, possessing an inherent but quite minimal capacity for infernomancy. During the Hellwars these were by far the largest contingent of Elilial’s ground forces, but sightings of them have diminished markedly in the centuries since. None have crossed any hellgate since well before the Enchanter Wars. Either they fell from Elilial’s favor or their population was culled for some reason, we have no data on this in our realm.”
“I’m impressed you knew even that much, considering how long you were collecting dust in the Crawl.”
“Then I suppose we are very fortunate at least one of us listens in Tellwyrn’s history class. I see no way this can help us now, however. That was all I know of them, and it hardly prepares us to glean useful information from this settlement.”
“Well, don’t worry, we’ll get out of this yet.”
“Your blind optimism is beginning to grate.”
“Relax,” he said, grinning in spite of himself, and reached into one of the inner pockets of his coat. “We’re here working for Vesk, remember? Nothing we’ll be tested with is any worse than we can overcome.”
“We. Are. In. Hell!” Ariel sounded openly angry for the first time he could remember. “Vesk has no power here! Vidius has no power here! None of the rules apply, Gabriel; it’s just you and me and whatever you’ve brought with you. To the extent that Vesk’s stupid quest still makes a difference to us, the pattern thus far established only raises the risk that we will encounter Elilial herself! I assure you, she will be far less cordial than the gods you have met to date. A paladin isolated and vulnerable in her domain is exactly the kind of opportunity to hurt the Pantheon she rarely happens across.”
“Okay, you’re not without a point, there,” he said more soberly, withdrawing the bottle Toby had given him. “Still, remember that I wasn’t totally unprepared for this.”
“Desperate as we are I hate to naysay, but do think about what you’re proposing to do. Whoever’s in that bottle is going to be stranded in Hell right along with us.”
“Ariel, how could somebody be in the bottle?” he exclaimed. “You’re an arcane assistant, you should have better sense than that. More likely the bottle is a physical representation of some active spell. Salyrene said to open it when the need was greatest, and that help would come.”
“Oh, of course, you know best. The vivid proof of that is all around us.”
“I get no respect,” he muttered, and pulled the stopper.
The bottle instantly unfolded itself like a peeled banana, its glass surface vanishing to leave him holding a chunk of crimson crystal. The most confusing part of this experience was that the crystal was significantly larger than the bottle had been. The thing itself he recognized, having seen it quite recently.
“Of course, on the other hand,” Gabriel acknowledged, hefting the huge rough-cut ruby, “I suppose someone could be in the bottle.”
“Isn’t that the same crystal Schwartz used alongside me in his portal ritual?”
“I’m pretty sure. Aside from looking familiar, that would be just the narrative touch Salyrene would throw in if she was trying to steal Vesk’s thunder, like she said. I guess filching an artifact out of Avei’s vaults was just icing on the cake,” he added, remembering the acerbic comments both goddesses had made about each other. “What kind of demon did Sister Astarian say this was? And the name… I remember it starts with a Z.”
“Xyraadi, and it is probably spelled with an X, the demonic language being gratuitously absurd even in translation. She is a khelminash demon. I am forced to admit that this actually represents excellent help. They are extremely sophisticated infernomancers, and Xyraadi will not only be able to guide us through this dimension, she is one of few demons to have permanently escaped it in the past. Let us hope she isn’t terribly grumpy after being in that thing for six hundred years. I can attest that one is not at one’s best after a long period of time spent magically inert in a dank hole.”
“Perfect,” he said in satisfaction. Gabriel braced his feet and raised the ruby up above his head in one hand, where it glinted sullenly in the diffuse light. With the other, he planted the butt of his staff against the ground, leaning on it in a dramatic pose. “Xyraadi, ally of the gods, you are called upon again! Come forth in our hour of need!”
Something thankfully in the distance screamed. A gust of wind surged up, ruffling his coat and carrying the acrid stink of sulfur.
“Please tell me this is inappropriately-timed humor,” Ariel said flatly.
“Well, what the hell do I know about soul prisons?” he snorted, lowering his hand. “How am I supposed to get her out of there?”
“Step one, ask the talking sword. Step two, break it.”
“…wait, really? That won’t hurt her?”
“Her physical body can’t be locked in a crystal any more than yours can, Gabriel. It’s like the bottle, a complex spell effect given physical form so that even a magically untalented boob can make use of it, at need. Just shatter the crystal, the suspension effect will dissolve, and she will be restored to her proper form. At least, assuming the Topaz College followed its standard practices, and those have not deviated too severely in six centuries.”
“You know what they say about assuming,” he muttered, but knelt to place the soul prison on the ground, then hefted his scythe.
“Not with that!” Ariel barked. “You know what that thing does! She’s hardly any use to us dead.”
“Hm, good thinking,” he agreed, shrinking the scythe down to its wand form and putting it away. “That makes the leverage a bit trickier, but still doable.”
“Oh, look,” Ariel said sourly as he knelt again, raising her over the crystal. “I even brought it on myself this time.”
A saber wasn’t the ideal tool for breaking rocks; at the blow, the prison bounced away sideways. He did succeed in cracking it, however, and apparently that was all it took.
The crack spread, emitting white light, and with a disproportionately violent bang the crystal exploded. Gabriel staggered back, throwing up an arm over his eyes, but there were no fragments. Just a shower of sparks and a tremendous billow of smoke, which quickly drifted away in the breeze.
When it was gone, standing where the ruby had landed, there was a demon.
She had emerged with her back to him, and her head twisted this way and that as she peered about, causing the waves of purplish hair cascading down her spine to shift and shimmer. The demon wore a surprisingly modest dress, in deep green cloth with wide sleeves and blue embroidery at its hems; it fell to ankle level, revealing cloven hooves and the swaying tip of a prehensile tail. She was taller than he, quite slender of build. For some reason, the sight of her put Gabriel in mind of a gazelle, despite the deep crimson color of her skin.
“Quoi?” she sputtered in a low alto. “Qu’est-ce que— Non. Non non non! Je suis encore en Enfer!? Pourquoi? Qui a fait ça?!”
She whirled around, catching herself at the sight of him, and Gabriel again took a wary step back. He carefully kept Ariel lowered, the sword not in a threatening posture. For a moment, he and the demon studied each other. Like Elspeth, she had a bony crest rising from her forehead and making her hair almost invisible from the front. Her eyes were yellow, rather like a wolf’s. Aside from that and the red skin, her fine, narrow features would not have looked out of place on most of the people he’d known growing up in Tiraas.
“Vous,” she said finally. “C’est de votre faute, n’est-ce pas?”
“Uh…” Gabriel subtly extended Ariel out to the side, causing the demon to step warily back, but he tilted his head toward the sword. “That…doesn’t sound like demonic to me. In fact, I would swear I’ve heard something like that before…”
“It’s Glassian,” she replied. “Remember, that was the country in which she lived and served a Hand of Avei’s party.”
“Tanglais?” The demon’s golden eyes had locked onto Ariel when the sword spoke, then widened in comprehension and respect. Drawing in a deep breath, she straightened her back and inclined her head to Gabriel. “Excusez-moi. Je m’appelle Xyraadi.”
He swallowed, then nodded back. “Um… Hello. Uh, jama pell Gabriel Arquin.”
Xyraadi wrinkled her nose at him, her upper lip curling in a pained expression.
“If you ever meet someone actually from Glassiere,” Ariel suggested, “don’t do that.”
“No respect whatsoever,” he groused. “From anyone! Ever!”
Xyraadi cleared her throat, and held up one hand toward him, palm forward. “Un moment, s’il vous plait.”
She took two mincing steps back on her dainty hooves and closed her eyes, raising both hands with the palms extended to the sides. Flickering lights rose in a circle around her.
“Okay,” Gabriel muttered, edging away, “I know this may be a crazy thing to be saying considering I deliberately called her here, and besides she was trusted enough by the Sisterhood to be sealed away in case they needed her again and a demon would have to be unbelievably virtuous for that to happen… But she is a demon and we’re in Hell and she’s immediately casting something. Am I wrong to feel nervous?”
“No,” Ariel replied, “but make decisions with your intellect, not your feelings. That was modern Glassian, Gabriel. After six hundred years a language will drift till it is nearly unrecognizable, unless its primary speakers are elves. This suggests her fluency is due to a magical effect. Given the circumstances, I suspect she is enabling herself to communicate with us.”
“You can do that?” he asked, fascinated. “Using infernal magic?”
“I can,” Xyraadi said suddenly, opening her eyes and lowering her hands. “The infernomancy involved would kill you even if you managed to learn it, Gabriel Arquin. The craft of my people is built around the embodiment and objectification of problems as constructs, which are then attacked, corroded, corrupted—that at which the infernal excels. In this case, the language barrier.”
“That’s absolutely amazing,” he said sincerely. “Nobody on the mortal plane can do anything that sophisticated with infernomancy!”
“In theory, they could,” she replied, allowing herself a pleased smile, “but they would be dead from exposure long before amassing the necessary skill.”
“Why Glassian, though?” he asked. “I mean, if you suddenly pop up in Hell itself…”
“Let me pose to you a hypothetical question, M. Arquin,” Xyraadi countered with a wry twist of her mouth. “Let us say that you are conversant in two languages. One is the tongue constructed by the goddess of cruelty, deliberately designed to be difficult and unpleasant, both to speak and to hear. The other is a tongue of poetry, which when spoken sounds like singing even when you are complaining about your taxes. To which would you prefer to default?”
“Well, I guess I can’t argue with that.”
“Wonderful,” she said, smiling thinly. “Then, if I have satisfied your curiosity, M. Arquin, perhaps you will do me the courtesy of indulging mine. I am most eager to learn why you have brought me here!”
He reared back at her suddenly strident tone, raising his free hand. “I’m sorry! Genuinely, I am. I didn’t want to come here myself, but, ah… This is a bit of a story.”
“Ah?” Xyraadi folded her arms and pursed her lips. “Then be so good as to proceed, before something comes to eat us.”
“…how likely is that?”
“It is not likely,” she said flatly. “It is certain. That is how things are in Hell. Perhaps, if I understand what is going on, I will be able to help when it does!”
“Okay,” he said, nodding. “Fair enough. The short version, then. I suppose I should start by telling you I’m the half-demon Hand of Vidius…”
Khelminash had no eyebrows, save for bony ridges above their eyes which did not move. Xyraadi managed to look incredulous regardless, but the expression faded as he recounted, as efficiently as possible, his journey with the others on Vesk’s instructions, finishing with their current predicament. When he trailed to a stop, she was silent for a moment, digesting it.
“So they really did keep me,” she murmured at last. “I more than half expected the Sisterhood to throw my soul chamber into the Azure Sea the first chance they got. How long was I locked away?”
Gabriel drew in a breath, bracing himself. “Six hundred years.”
She flinched. Only slightly, but it was enough to make him wince in sympathy. Xyraadi turned, staring out toward the west where the horizon was lost in a yellowish smoggy haze.
“Then everyone I ever knew is long dead.”
“…I’m sorry.”
“Ah, well,” she said with forced lightness, lifting one shoulder in a peculiar half-shrug. “Everyone I loved was already dead, that was why I asked to be put in the crystal. The rest, I will not miss. More immediately!” Xyraadi turned back to him, now smiling with more sincerity. “I have excellent news, M. Arquin! It seems you may not have irrevocably doomed us both.”
“Oh, thank the gods,” he said sincerely. “I love it when I haven’t irrevocably doomed something. I’ve learned to really appreciate those occasions when they come along.”
Her expression grew amused, but she continued. “Getting out of Hell means passing through a hellgate. This is usually not possible, because they are typically heavily guarded on this side and always on the other. If one wishes to cross over, one must usually make a new hellgate.”
“That tends to make people on the other side pretty mad,” he noted.
“Indeed, that is a drawback,” she agreed solemnly. “Another is that this cannot be done unilaterally from either side. However! By your account, you are in league with a powerful warlock, who should be waiting in roughly this physical place, right across the dimensional barrier. And now, you have another powerful warlock right here.” She spread her skirts and crossed her hooves in a graceful curtsy. “If I may be forgiven for boasting.”
“If you can actually do that, I think you’re entitled to boast a little,” he said fervently. “But doesn’t that require coordinating across the dimensional barrier?”
“Ah, yes,” Xyraadi said, nodding and looking more pensive. It was peculiar, trying to read her face; her eyes and lips seemed quite expressive, but the lack of movable eyebrows made her countenance oddly opaque. “That is tricky. But not insurmountable.”
“Well, if nothing else,” he said, drawing the wand from within his coat, “I have a—”
A sound split the air, a terrible sound seared into his memory. It was like a hiss, if a hiss was a bellow; a strangely subtle noise which occurred only on the very edges of hearing, and yet was powerful enough to make the ground vibrate.
“Ah,” Xyraadi said ruefully, “it took longer than I expected. And we pay for that reprieve now, for it is even worse than I feared.”
A shape appeared high overhead from the sulfurous clouds roiling above the obsidian volcanoes, a languidly undulating silhouette in the murk that resembled an eel. It was a small shadow, but Gabriel knew from experience that that only meant it was far away. He remembered very well how big they were.
“Aw, man,” he groaned, staring up at the nurdrakhaan. “I hate those things.”