Revelation (Seeds of Humanity: The Cobalt Heresy) (17 page)

He nodded solemnly, “I am.”

His serious demeanor gave me pause, and I searched his features unsuccessfully for a clue as to what he meant. “And why is that, exactly?”

A look of sadness crossed his face before he shook his head and said, “Because while you do not lack the ability to conquer your foe, what you do lack is the will to make the necessary sacrifice required for victory,” he explained quietly. “At what should be the final moment, with that victory less than a hair’s breadth away, you will falter and the people who depend upon you will pay the price of your failure.” Co’Zar’I’Us looked off into his realm with what might have been wistfulness. “I have already seen it happen.”

I had no idea what he meant, but frankly it sounded like a load of crap. Since none of what he had said changed what needed to be done, I shook off his cryptic attempt at soothsaying. I could deal with personal sacrifice, if that’s what he was talking about. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time I’d made a sacrifice in my life.

“We have work to do, Cloud King,” I ordered.

His eyes again found mine and he nodded. “Indeed,” he agreed, “we have, at that.”

Chapter XII: The Whole Nine Yards

My eyes snapped open, and time seemed to move like a fly caught in molasses. Dancer was in mid-air, apparently having sprung off the intact obelisk to drive his spear into another pair of skeletons. I hadn’t been out of it long, as there were only two downed foes near his position, which at his speed meant I was probably only gone about five seconds.

 The Iron Butcher, however, had covered more than half the distance between the train car and myself—and only Aemir’s still-frozen form stood between us.

I closed my mind to outside stimuli and focused on Co’Zar’I’Us’ name, which prompted a spell to spring into my mind like when I used the Spell Key which Arch Magos Rekir had given me. Except this spell seemed to be much more controlled, and I could understand what each glyph, symbol, and pattern meant.

I opened my eyes and saw that the Iron Butcher had closed significantly more distance, but Dancer was still in mid-air. Our enemy was apparently moving at inhuman speed, and it was now or never if we were to have any hope of victory.

The spell completed forming in my mind, and with more than a twinge of regret I projected it onto Aemir’s body. It formed instantly and lingered there, seeming to yearn for the energy needed to activate it.

I didn’t hesitate, and I flooded it with as much power as it needed, which was at least half of my remaining reserves.

The effect was instantaneous as the spell surrounded Aemir’s body before collapsing into him like an explosion in reverse, which was quickly followed by a proper explosion as energy rioted out of his body. The shockwave snapped my senses back into real time, and knocked everyone off their feet except the Iron Butcher and Aemir.

Actually, to call him Aemir at that point was probably inaccurate. When I could focus on him again, I saw that he was levitating a foot off the ground, his skin had gained a bluish-grey glow and his hair was standing at impossible angles, with lines of static electricity dancing between the stiffened locks which had erupted from beneath his ruined turban.

I could only see his back, but it was clear that the spell had worked: Aemir was possessed by the Cloud King. Now we had to see if it had been worth it.

The Iron Butcher, who had only been stopped momentarily by the explosive display, resumed its murderous charge toward me and raised its savage cleaver high in the air, clearly intending to finish me once and for all. As it came down I actually had my life flash before my eyes.

I know people say that all the time and I used to think it was nothing but a load of melodrama, but it actually happened in that brief instant before the killing blow came down. I guess it wasn’t my entire life that ran through my mind’s eye, but a few choice scenes from my teenage years which would demand further examination at a later date.

I should have erected my defense field, but in retrospect it’s pretty obvious that the Iron Butcher’s supernatural fear had affected me more than I believed at the time. Either that or my usual instincts to erect the shield had taken a momentary leave on their own volition, which seemed unlikely.

There was a loud clang as Aemir’s scimitar intercepted the cleaver no more than a foot from my face, and if such a monstrous being’s body language could be said to show doubt, then in that moment I saw it in the Iron Butcher.

Aemir, or Co’Zar’I’Us, or whoever it was at this point, held his blocking scimitar easily in one hand and the other hand reached high above his head. It was quickly engulfed in crackling electricity, which formed a sphere the size of a basketball that rapidly grew until it was at least three feet in diameter.

He brought the crackling ball of energy down into the Iron Butcher’s chest and released it with a massive recoil and blast that deafened me instantly, flattening me against the floor. My ears were filled with that whining noise which usually followed an explosion one is standing close to.

When I shook out the cobwebs, I saw that all of the skeletons had been destroyed. Dancer was just regaining his feet, and Pi’Vari appeared to be unconscious.

But Aemir’s possessed body hurtled through the air toward the Iron Butcher, who had been knocked across the room where his electrically charged body lay against the locomotive. The possessed Desert Knight’s scimitar was raised above his head, and was now encircled with its own aura of crackling electricity. He brought it down into the Butcher’s body after he sailed through the air almost too fast to see.

His blow struck true and carried with it the full might and fury of an honest-to-God lightning bolt, the flash of which left a huge blind spot in my vision. A gash opened in the Iron Butcher’s armor at the midsection and Aemir rained down blow after blow into the wound, his blade moving so fast that I couldn’t count the strikes.

The gash became wider and deeper with each successive strike, and out of the ragged, metal, wound poured dark purple ichor which seemed to vaporize almost instantly on contact with the air. The Iron Butcher lay motionless, although the field of electrical energy which appeared to have robbed the creature of its ability to move had dissipated rapidly and I saw its right hand begin to twitch.

The Co’Zar’I’Us-possessed-Aemir raised his hand high above his head again and summoned another ball of lightning, clearly intending to detonate this one inside the Iron Butcher’s newly opened wound.

But his foe had regained its senses after the momentary lapse, and with a blindingly fast motion the Iron Butcher swatted the flying Desert Knight’s body away with a savage, backhand blow, sending him crashing into the stone wall forty feet away where the second globe of lightning erupted with another brilliant flash on impact.

Things weren’t going as well as I’d hoped, so I raised my right hand with the Spell Key strapped to it. The spell’s ethereal form leapt from the device and into the air in front of my mind’s eye.

The Iron Butcher had regained its feet and initiated another bull rush toward me, and I can’t fully convey just how terrifying a sight it was. Out of nowhere, Dancer leapt into the fray and his spear pierced the Iron Butcher’s right pauldron, and out of the wound flashed a deep, purple light. Dancer tried to pull the spear out as he swung his body around behind the Butcher’s back, but it was lodged firmly in the demonic figure’s shoulder.

Unfazed, the little man jumped on top of the Butcher’s back and for an almost comical moment, he looked exactly like a five year old child riding on his father’s shoulders.

Dancer then began raining blows down on the Butcher’s helmet with his bare hands, savage fury burning in his eyes as he was clearly overcome with battle lust. The barbed teeth arrayed along his bracers even managed to draw a few scrapes across the iron surface of the helmet.

But the Iron Butcher was not deterred, and with little more than a flick of its left arm the ancient creature reached up and pierced Dancer’s chest with its vicious meat hook. The implacable monster never even broke its stride moving toward my position, and with the same, quick, motion it had used to spear my little warrior’s chest, the charging nightmare launched Dancer’s body from its shoulders and sent his tiny form hurtling toward me.

I kept my focus and sidestepped Dancer’s profusely bleeding body as it soared past me. We were all dead if I didn’t get this spell off, so I needed to maintain concentration. The Butcher swatted Dancer’s spear like it was a mere annoyance, and it flew across the room to clatter against the stone wall. The living nightmare then raised its rusty, bloodstained cleaver as it neared my position.

I poured energy out of myself and this time, for whatever reason, my timing was perfect and I filled the spell with what appeared to be the exact right amount of energy. I smirked as I knew with absolute certainty that this would be the most potent manifestation I had wrought of this particular spell.

I winced as I released the magic, with the Iron Butcher now just a step away from landing a death blow, but this time there was no recoil which could break my arm like on the Middle Wall. There was actually no physical sign of any kind, which meant that every last shred of energy I had supplied would be utilized efficiently by the spell, rather than causing wild, unpredictable peripheral effects. I felt great satisfaction that at that moment; I had just struck the best blow I had ever dealt.

The spell exploded into a bolt of pure white energy which impacted squarely on the Iron Butcher’s chest, causing its entire body to be wreathed in a soft, white glow. The sheer force of the impact caused its cleaver to fly through the air and clatter against the locomotive’s hull, while the Iron Butcher itself staggered back a few steps before finally falling to a knee.

The spell’s energy cascaded across its iron armor in a violent display of raw magical energy, and then that energy seemed to flow into the huge gash caused by Aemir/Co’Zar’I’Us’ flurry of strikes. My satisfaction turned to horror as the longer the energy flowed into the wound, the smaller the wound became, until finally the white glow dissipated entirely! Afterward, the Iron Butcher’s torso was almost unmarked with barely a visible scratch where the previously gaping wound had been.

The living nightmare stood slowly from its bent knee posture and held its right hand out from its side with the palm up. The brutal cleaver flew from the ground near the locomotive back into the Iron Butcher’s hand, and if I was any good at reading body language—which I usually am—I would have sworn that the monstrosity was mocking me.

Then Aemir reappeared in a literal whirlwind, his body surrounded by a cyclonic tornado which rapidly grew until it was nearly forty feet tall, effectively filling the chamber. He began raining down blows on the Iron Butcher, darting in and out from every angle in a seemingly random pattern. A few of the ancient, rusty weapons the skeletons had used even got caught in the whirlwind and hammered themselves into shards against the nightmare’s seemingly impervious armor. However, the Iron Butcher’s movements appeared even faster than before, and it blocked every incoming blow from the possessed Desert Knight with its own weapons and heavily armored forearms. Small gashes opened in its iron hide, but they looked to be insignificant.

Aemir/Co’Zar’I’Us fought furiously and still had a decisive speed advantage, but I could see that they were gravely wounded. The entire left side of the Desert Knight’s face was covered in blood and the same side arm hung limp, swinging this way and that as he darted around like a hummingbird on a meth binge.

Co’Zar’I’Us was probably going for one final high-speed burn intended to clear the way for my (and Dancer’s) escape, but I wouldn’t have it. I had learned a long time before, on streets I used to think were pretty mean, that you didn’t survive long by running from a murderous pit bull: the best way out of that type of problem is to turn around, plant your feet and bring a baseball bat down between its ears.

I rotated the small section in the center of the Spell Key affixed to my hand a hundred eighty degrees and felt it click. Arch Magos Rekir had warned me that this particular manifestation of the device was less than reliable, even for a practiced Magos. But he had promised that it would deliver enough power to bring a dragon down—or even something worse than a dragon.

I had no idea how powerful dragons were in this world, but I did know that none of us would survive this encounter without a game-changer. So I focused with all the concentration I could muster and carefully activated the key.

The spell’s structure began to form in my mind’s eye and I was alarmed at just how few legible or recognizable symbols I saw. This was an alien form of magic compared to anything I had used or seen, but I couldn’t back out. I didn’t even know if I had enough energy to properly manifest the spell—still, I had to try.

The spell seemed to wriggle and thrash around in my mind with a mind of its own, and it seemed for all intents and purposes to be trying to test my boundaries and focus. It was a battle I wasn’t ready for but I managed to keep it corralled as it finished forming. I had never cast a spell that required so much force of will.

Eventually I forced it to stand straight in my mind’s eye, and since I had no idea how much power it needed I decided to give it everything I had. As I prepared to breathe life into the distinctly serpentine structure, I once again got the impression that there was some sort of intelligence working in tandem the spell—or perhaps within the Spell Key itself.

But those were pontifications for another time, and I flooded every last scrap of energy I had into the spell’s form, knowing full well that failure to cut off the stream of energy would result in my own life force being consumed. And with a spell of this size, it was a mortal certainty that it would be the last mistake I ever made.

I poured all of my magical reserves into the coiled form of the incantation and cut off the connection just before it began to drink my own life force. This spell didn’t erupt like the other one imprinted on the Spell Key. Instead, it paused and seemed to consider its next course of action before turning slowly, while its form solidified into that of a giant ethereal snake.