The Undying God (28 page)

Arxu also looked at the intricate
markings, but he did not dare explain them. They looked so
pronounced against his skin, an eerie contrast in the moonlight. He
attempted to sit upright but he was obviously too weak to do
so.

“Let me help,” Nishka said, gathering
cloth strips. Arxu realized she had sacrificed the hem of her shirt
and part of her pants to assemble the bandages. With a nurturing
hand, she applied the strips over his wounds.

Arxu was grateful for her kindness.
Even the concept of gratitude somehow made sense to him in his
painful delirium. He looked into Nishka’s eyes as she rested a
single hand on his forehead.

“Why did he kill you?” she
asked.

Arxu shuddered as if a vicious wind had
lashed him. He dropped his gaze.

“I cannot remember,” he whispered.
Nishka almost thought he was lying, if he was capable of doing so.
In that moment, she knew he carried an emotional wound more
visceral than any of the lacerations that marred his body. Arxu
trembled from the cold and Nishka reached for his shirt to clothe
him.

“We need to find shelter,” she said.
The Nightwalker rose from his feeble position and
followed.

“Where are we?” They left the small
copse enclosed under the black canopy.

“Far from Gaelithea and Azia-Nocti,”
Nishka answered.

Arxu vaguely remembered traveling west
through a forest toward the city of Eternitas. The name Margzor
also rattled around in his consciousness. Presuming he wasn’t
suffering from delusions, he believed the man was responsible for
massacres across the realm of Eyegad. He had invaded temples
devoted to Astalla, the demigoddess of virginity.

Nishka expressed concern over the
escalating situation, and she insisted they try to stop Margzor,
although she had no idea how.

Arxu had briefly spoken to Astalla not
long ago, during which she divulged the murderer’s occult motives.
He intended to weaken Astalla through the massacres and take her
place as a deity. Of all the gods in creation, who would want to
preside over virginity?

Arxu reached the conclusion that
Margzor pursued an ideological war, a fantasy of revamping the role
of virginity and sexual morality. However, it was not clear to Arxu
how Margzor’s deluded notions would change society.

Another concerning threat loomed ahead
of him. According to Astalla, a demon possessed the man’s soul,
polluting him with hatred and envy, transforming him into a vessel
of destruction.

Arxu shook his head and abandoned his
worries. He would consider their mission another time. His primary
concern was surviving this ordeal. He felt like he could succumb to
his wounds before the end of night.

“Nishka…” he whispered.

She slowly came to a stop.

Hrioshango lurked on the periphery of
the glen, looking warily at Nishka. The small figure was clothed in
brown rags and a tattered hat upon its horned head. His large,
green eyes peered through the darkness, and his fanged mouth curved
in a smile.

His smile was not his customary grin;
it looked far more treacherous.

“Ah…
the humans
,” he said in a
wispy voice that didn’t quite seem his own. “Nishka and
Arxu.”

The darkling’s presence perplexed Arxu
and triggered alarms. He had magickally trapped Hrioshango in amber
only seconds before the Defiler attacked. Perhaps a semblance of
pride did not want anyone to take the fight away from
him.

That being said, he watched the
darkling with uncertainty.

“You did not think you could trap
Hrioshango,
did you…?
”

If this was Hrioshango’s way of
prefacing their murders, he was savoring the delicious moment. Arxu
suspected from the beginning that the darkling would seize the
first chance to eliminate him, but he hadn’t thought it
possible.

“Hrioshango shall have his revenge!” he
hissed venomously. “Hrioshango never forgive you! Never forgive
Nishka! Rolling me around in my amber prison!” Suddenly, Nishka
burst out laughing, the sound rolling over Arxu in relief. The mere
image of the chaos magician rendered so helplessly brought a smile
to her face, and Hrioshango writhed in fury. “Hrioshango has never
been more humiliated! I will extract revenge on you and you will
never know!”

“How is that?” Nishka asked, intrigued
by the possibility of vengeance.

“Hrioshango is a chaos magician!” the
darkling shrieked.

“So we’ve heard…” Arxu released a sigh
as the darkling slinked back into obscurity. Nishka noticed that
Arxu was more silent than ever before as they tiptoed through the
forest. He stared vacantly into space, possibly glaring at the
stars. Nishka nudged him softly.

“How are you coping?”

Arxu didn’t reply, looking absently
around the forest. Something was intrinsically wrong with this
place. The further he distanced himself from the ruins, the better
he would feel. He could still feel the aftershock of encountering
the Defiler. The mental shock of its nails driving into his abdomen
made him feel vulnerable and weak…

Suddenly, he fell to his knees and
hyperventilated. Pain jabbed his chest like needles in his lungs.
He heard Nishka cry out in dismay.

“Arxu, stay with me! We’ll take you
somewhere to rest soon!” He gripped Nishka’s hand painfully tight,
as though releasing her would sever his one link to life. He
managed to nod and endure a few steps more with her aid.

He couldn’t bear this suffering
alone.

Beyond the borders of the forest,
Nishka spied a lake in the distance below. The water rippled
gently, coaxed toward the shore by a moon as pale as snow. Its
ethereal tint seeped through the sands, blanketing the quiet beach
in white frost. She continued to drink in the spectacle for a while
longer, taken back by its beauty.

Arxu stalled as he looked upon the
tranquil site.

“
Look,” Nishka said. She
indicated a small fishing vessel stranded on the shore, awaiting
someone to claim ownership. “It looks abandoned,” she said, stating
the obvious as if to justify what she was about to do.

She pushed the vessel into the lake and
it almost sank with a gurgle. She suspiciously climbed into the
boat, expecting the dark waters to envelop her in its icy embrace.
Arxu was the last to board.

Hrioshango wielded a paddle and dipped
it into the lake. The vessel cut rhythmically through the water
without resistance, gliding like a feather on the breeze. The
forest fringe swam past them as they drifted into the obscurity of
the north. The horizon seemed no more ambiguous than black flames
writhing in the wind. Nishka watched the flames form trees as the
fog parted before them like a secret passage. She could not deny
the mystique that nature had endowed that night. Suddenly,
something caught her eye.

An eerie luminance winked below the
surface of the water. The orbs followed their course like fireflies
swimming in the lake. She studied the phenomenon, speculating about
the nature of these deviant lights.

Hrioshango raised a cackle that chilled
Nishka’s blood, a maniacal sound that usually portended something
horrible.

Night was descending fast and the
possibility of shelter was diminishing. Arxu desperately needed to
sleep and recover from his wounds. He seemed disconnected from the
world, gazing into space with a disgruntled expression. Nishka
rested an assuring hand on his shoulder. He did not even
acknowledge her touch.

The boat breached the shore, their
nocturnal sojourn drawing to a close. Hrioshango tossed aside the
paddle and leaped onto the beach. Nishka didn’t protest when he
raced off into the darkness like an excited puppy. She regarded her
wounded companion, his expression growing dimmer by the second. He
barely lifted himself on his legs and he required her help to leave
the boat. Nishka looked over her shoulder as the tide licked her
ankles.

The strange lights lingered near the
center of the lake. They didn’t follow them to the shore, as though
wary of the strange man ferried across their lake—if the lights
indeed belonged to creatures.

“Hrioshango!” Nishka called out.
“Hrioshango!” Her cry for help went unanswered. She eventually gave
up, assuming he wouldn’t offer much assistance with
Arxu.

“Hrioshango has found a cave!” his
voice called out. They spotted the darkling prowling among the
trees. The mouth of a cavern loomed behind him with vines suspended
like adders.

Without a final glance, the hermit
gleefully marauded into the underground. Arxu took a step forward
and Nishka watched him enter the cavern. The Nightwalker took a
deep breath and steadied himself on a stalagmite. In the distance,
he could hear Hrioshango laughing, the sound ricocheting off the
walls like a thousand voices of insanity.

With a heave, Arxu reached out and felt
his way through the cavern, his fingertips glossing over icy
walls.

An exotic, subterranean world awaited
him, delighted to engulf him in its depths. The tunnel air was so
frigid that he believed he could feel ice crystals clinging to his
lungs. The tunnels murmured around him. At last, his legs were too
weak to walk anymore and he collapsed in a chamber where the walls
were lined with quartz.

His fingertips kissed a cluster of
crystals and they warmed to his touch. Purple radiance glistened
across the cavern as shadows flocked like raven wings. Soothing
warmth enveloped the chamber, transforming it into a virtual
womb.

Arxu closed his eyes. His pulse slowed
and his every breath echoed in the chamber. He seemed to be
collecting magick essence from the stones. He absorbed the
serenity, attuning his soul to the energies the crystals projected.
He dangled by a thread of conscious…

“This is beautiful.”

Nishka wandered around the chamber,
gazing overhead. The stones were limned with brilliance that
rivaled the moon on a fair night. Nishka met his eyes for a few
seconds, indulging in the silence.

“Arxu, when you look at me, what do you
see?”

The stones cast an enchanting glow
about her. Soft tones washed over her with spellbinding grace,
lolling across her hair. Her eyes looked intense in the light,
vibrant sapphires that made the crystals pale in
comparison.

Arxu gazed at her with a dead
stare.

“I see a woman.”

Nishka couldn’t deny the pain his
answer inflicted. She dared to hope he would say “beautiful” or
“lovely,” anything other than such a mundane description. She tried
to conceal her disappointment but it was futile.

“Is that all
?” She waited for
him to say anything else, offering him a second chance to mend his
mistake. Arxu looked nonchalantly at the ground as if he wanted to
lie down and rest.

Nishka turned away, feeling embarrassed
and angry with herself.

She left Arxu alone to contemplate the
meaning of her question. Nishka often perplexed him. Arxu gazed at
the crystals and he spied himself, a pale imitation of a human
being. He reached for his reflection in the stones and they winked
out.

* * *

Invictus leaned forward with a gasp as
Astalla’s voice pierced his mind. He held his breath and listened
to the words flooding his mortal brain. He was not expecting so
powerful an act of divine intervention. It overwhelmed his frail
body.

Across the temple chamber, Ethan lifted
his head from prayer. His eyes flickered across Invictus, sensing
something amiss.

“What is wrong?”

His teacher remained silent, staring
intently at the wall, quite visibly disengaged from all reality.
Invictus served as the Elder Cleric of the Eternitas temple,
reigning over its denizens for several decades. He was a man
entering the resolution of his life, imprisoned in a body abused by
time. Barely any hair adorned his mottled head. Clad in violet
robes of silk, a red sash, and a signet ring of exquisite amethyst,
he cut an impressive figure in his wardrobe. Though he would appear
feeble, beneath his wrinkled exterior a strong determination burned
within. He was the life of the temple, a man whose spirit could not
be extinguished by age.

“The demigoddess is speaking!” he
exclaimed. Ethan pounced to his feet. “I cannot decipher the words.
I can only sense her feelings.” Invictus concentrated on the tone
of her voice. “I can sense distress from the demigoddess.” Fear
gleamed in his eyes and his voice dripped with concern.

“I am unable to receive her message.
This has never happened before.”

“What shall we do?” Ethan asked his
mentor. Invictus stroked his forehead as he began to feel a pain
burn there. Dizziness set in and he did not dare move. He had
communed with Astalla only once through a mental link initiated on
her part. He did not understand why it would fail abruptly in the
midst of another exchange. Years had passed since she last linked
to his conscious.

“I need to rest,” Invictus said.
“Perhaps when I wake I will have a clearer understanding of what
Astalla intended to tell me.” Ethan nodded in
understanding.