Lucian: Dark God's Homecoming (17 page)

CHAPTER SEVEN

These crimson flames that cascaded down from heavy skies and smote our enemies and drove them back relentlessly—these flames I knew, and knew all too well. Most recently, a thousand years ago, they had interposed themselves between my forces and the great citadel in the square of the Golden City. They had resisted my every effort to circumvent them, and scorched coldly at my dark soul as I sought to bull my way through them. Their eldritch energies frustrated my forces and disrupted my plans, and they succeeded in holding me off until Baranak arrived with his throng to utterly crush my uprising.

Yes, these flames I knew. Their master, the great engineer of the gods, however… That was a different story.

What little time I had ever spent in the company our god of toil, in the long years prior to my rebellion, had involved exceptionally large quantities of alcohol and obscene amounts of tasty but doubtlessly unhealthy food.

The two of us had conversed at length on only three occasions that I could recall. In my memories, each carried with it a different flavor, a different mood pervasive over it. While none of the three could rightly be called grand or momentous, each remained vivid in my mind and would contribute a piece to the puzzle that emerged later.

The first time was in a dark and smoky bar in Drezas, the capital city of Tolkar. I entered with a pair of attractive young mortal women in tow, midway through an exceptionally pleasant evening of celebrating the success of one of my innumerable minor schemes. He sat alone at a small table in the back, smoke from a long, slender cigar wreathing his bald head. I had sensed his presence instantly, even before laying eyes on him, and approached him to offer greetings and to make polite inquiry as to his presence. He had feigned ignorance of the place as a known favorite of mine, and had let on just enough in the way of his darker thoughts that I had been drawn in and felt compelled to sit down and continue the conversation. The two young women were forgotten; I have no idea what became of them. But he and I spent the remainder of the evening deep in conversation, drinking the establishment dry and talking the moons out of the heavens. His mood had been black—darker even than mine on a good day—yet the words we spoke to one another that night carried a strange power. Afterward I could remember few of the particulars, which I found odd, other than a sense that he was searching for something, and having little success. For a long while I attributed this gap in my memory to the alcohol, or to my lack of attention and patience for the rambling discourses of my fellow gods. Later I would have cause to question this.

My second encounter with him came several decades later, and again took place in a bar on the mortal plane. In all the time since our first meeting, I had scarcely thought of that earlier night or dwelt on its larger implications, until by chance I passed him on a sidewalk in a city on Majondra. His mood was lighter, and he greeted me heartily and talked me into joining him for dinner at a nearby restaurant that was one of his favorites. About the time of the third course, his demeanor turned dark again, his eyes in their deeply recessed craters burned bright, and the conversation moved inexorably back to where we had left it before—his quest for knowledge in areas long beyond the ken of even the most learned of the gods. I managed to depart our dinner later with at least that much intact in my mind, though again the rest flew away with the coming of the Majondra dawn.

From these two early conversations I had decided that, far from a mediocre, mid-level god useful mainly for his technical virtuosity, he was someone to watch in the future, on many levels. I also believe we developed something of a grudging respect for one another. Perhaps, had events allowed it, we might have developed a true friendship—or as close an approximation of one as seems possible among we of the Golden City.

The third time I ran into him, our meeting lasted only minutes. I had set myself up for a period of months on a snowy world several planes removed from both the City and the human plane, living with a small retinue of servants and hangers-on in a vast, alpine lodge I had ordered constructed some years earlier. Generally I prefer warmer weather, but occasionally—as such spans are measured in the lifetimes of immortals—the desire for skiing and related activities takes hold, and must be satisfied. This encounter began with an unexpected knock at the front door. Tearing myself away from my glass of wine, bearskin rug, and lovely female companion, I opened the door and, with some degree of surprise, welcomed him into my lodge and invited him to share drinks by the fire. He would have none of it. He stood in the doorway, his goateed face twisted in a mask of anger and frustration beneath that gleaming bald scalp, and he sought to question me roughly about matters of arcane art and science for which I had little knowledge and fewer answers. Apparently dissatisfied with my responses to his little inquisition, he first intimated that I was holding out on him, attempting to deliberately mislead him. Then he grew frustrated and whirled about, stomping down the steps and flashing away in a splashing circlet of red flame. I shrugged and closed the door behind me, returning to the soft rugs and the warm fire and the warmer embrace.

Those varying incidents encapsulate our three one-on-one encounters. My fourth encounter with him was, as I have said, in the courtyard of the Golden City, during my insurrection, where he had stood with Baranak and the others against me. He had not been present afterward, at my sentencing, when Baranak’s clique exiled me to the mortal plane. Our most recent meeting was in the dungeon, when he and Baranak and Alaria had visited me and listed the charges of murder against me.

From these few, brief episodes, one might well conclude that he was many things—brilliant engineer, brooding seeker of knowledge, moody loner—but neither guardian angel nor cavalryman riding to the rescue probably would make that list. Thus my great and profound surprise to discover that it was indeed Vorthan, the great engineer, the god of toil, who had arrived to rescue Evelyn and me from the demon horde.

# # #

The crimson flames flashed down from that madly shifting sky, high above my gray, bowl-shaped world, and smote the demons where they stood.

It began with a blinding flash of light from outside, from behind the massed body of demons. A split-second later, a rolling boom sounded, shaking the floor at our feet. The demons inside the shack with us whirled around, flowing like quicksilver, to see what was happening.

Again the flash and the thunder. The demons all but forgot us in their rush to investigate this new phenomenon. In mere seconds, the building was empty but for Evelyn and me.

Lowering the fist that contained the silver fragment, Evelyn frowned and looked wordlessly from the open wall to me to the opening again.

I shrugged.

Wails reached our ears then. The wailing of demons. Again the flames, again the sound and the fury. What did this signify?

We moved cautiously to the opening and peered out.

Standing on bare, muscular legs some short distance away, a bald figure clad in leather and wielding a massive hammer smashed at the ranks of demons. Red energies spilled from the weapon, lashing at the dark horde and driving them back.

Evelyn gasped.

“Who is that?”

“You’ve seen him before,” I said, “though in somewhat less chaotic circumstances.”

Before us, the scene appeared thusly: Vorthan stood on a low rise approximately thirty yards from my safe house, hammer clutched in both hands, muscles rippling. On three sides, the demons pressed towards him, thwarted each time by another swing of the hammer, another gout of flame arcing out from it. Each time he struck they fell back, then quickly pushed in again, gaining a little ground each time.

The feeling had come back into my fingers, something I took as a very good sign. I considered a number of options, some more attractive than others. Most, admittedly, involved immediate flight. Finally, I looked at Evelyn. She met my eyes and held them, her gaze solid as steel. No words were needed. My options were closed out instantly.

I could not very well humiliate myself in front of this mortal woman, could I? I had to act. Even considering who it was that needed the help.

Shrugging, I stepped through the doorway.

Vorthan glanced my way, saw me, and seemed unsurprised. He said nothing, preferring to let his hammer speak for him. This time it caved in the skull of one of the dark creatures. The others crowded forward, filling the gap.

“Thanks for the assistance,” I called to him, taking a few steps in his direction. He was quite occupied, and so did not reply. I wondered if that were the only reason he said nothing.

A few seconds ticked by, as I took a couple more steps forward. Did he desire my help? Did I wish to give it?

All the while, the creatures gained more ground on him.

“Lucian,” Evelyn said, concern evident in her voice.

Nodding, I started forward again, despite my decidedly mixed feelings. By this time, Vorthan had almost disappeared from view behind the wave of attackers. Just as I reached the outer periphery of the melee, he fought his way partly free, and I finally heard his gravelly voice calling to me. He sounded remarkably calm, given the situation, revealing only a hint of strain and exhaustion.

“You might consider… returning the favor… at some point,” was all he said.

Frowning, I raised a hand before me and willed the Power to flow. Blue sparks erupted from my fingertips. The numbness was mostly gone; I felt close to normal.

The demons pushed in tighter, to the point that I lost all sight of him in the press of shapes, of bodies.

Vorthan is quite powerful and, from what I have heard over the years, generally unlikely to place himself in extreme jeopardy if it could be avoided. Yet I sensed he had perhaps gotten in over his head this time, figuratively and literally. I had never encountered demons like these; they seemed quite resilient and powerful. Perhaps he had underestimated them, or overestimated himself. I found that this thought somehow pleased me, despite the fact that Evelyn and I surely needed his help if we were to escape these creatures.

I raised both hands to waist level and allowed spheres of energy, weak at first, to drop from my fingertips, spilling to the ground. Even as I willed them to roll over the dull terrain, I fed them more power, increasing their size along with the intensity of their blue light. I could also feel additional power feeding into the spheres from elsewhere—from all around us—though that made no sense. All of these energies coming together, I realized, would allow for quite a powerful effect when I triggered it. Resolving to address my technical questions only after the enemy was defeated, I concentrated on charging the spheres to their utmost levels. When they reached the edge of the demon scrum, they insinuated in among the dark bodies, disappearing within the black and shifting mass. At the same moment, strange ebon energies rippled out from within the pile.

I caught Evelyn’s attention and gestured with my head toward the doorway behind us.

“Get back!”

Raising both fists above my head, I gritted my teeth and exerted the full measure of my power, then brought my fists down hard. In a blinding flash of blue flames, as impressive as anything I had ever managed before, the spheres exploded. The eruption shook the ground and nearly blinded us. Best of all, it hurled shredded bits of demon all about, leaving a mound of unmoving black shapes where Vorthan and our adversaries had stood.

Evelyn whistled in appreciation. “Nice,” she observed, emerging from the building. “How come you’ve never done that before?”

“Rarely do my opponents allow me the time to prepare something like that,” I replied, blinking the spots from my eyes, moving forward rapidly. “I think I was somehow able to tap into the power I expended earlier, too. The trees here siphon it up, and I was able to draw upon it, without even realizing it. A fortunate turn of events.”

I reached the periphery of the blast area and engaged in a quick inspection. Not a single living demon remained. Any that had survived the explosion must have fled. Kneeling, I examined the smooth gray ground for any residue. Nothing. After the unpleasant task of dragging several of the strangely boneless bodies out of the way and climbing over many others, I arrived near the center of the pile.

It was hollow, vacant. The formerly writhing mound of demons that had overwhelmed Vorthan now appeared like a donut, with a perfectly round, empty center. Had my blast annihilated them? Was that possible? And what of Vorthan himself?