The Undying God (42 page)

The temple had transformed into a
universe of decadence. A dome, once lustrous with a mural of the
sky, was blackened like eternal night. Even the shadows themselves
seemed to slither toward Arxu’s feet in cold tendrils.

Nishka and Hrioshango joined him as he
walked briskly through the halls. Arxu peered into the alcoves to
make sure their target wasn’t lurking there. Instead, he saw only
melancholy statues leering back at him.

The temple had become corrupt and
unhinged as Margzor’s influence seeped into the building. Pools of
cleansing had darkened to blood, roiling loudly in the
basins.

Even more disturbing, the statues
seemed entwined in suggestive positions, their haunting silhouettes
lurking in the dark. This once holy sanctum now resembled an oasis
for the sexually damned.

A sudden noise made Nishka spin on her
heels as something latched onto her leg. Before she could scream,
she looked down into the frightened eyes of a young boy and
girl.

Hrioshango and Arxu looked on with
shock, not expecting to find children within the temple.

“He didn’t kill you...?” Nishka
gasped.

“No,” the little girl whispered. She
buried her face in Nishka’s shirt to hide from the darkness. “He
didn’t hurt us.” The fact that Margzor didn’t kill them when he had
murdered so many was beyond belief.

She knelt down and hugged the terrified
children. She couldn’t imagine what horrors they witnessed inside
the temple. If only she could take them far away from this
place.

“You must leave.”

“But we don’t have a family.” Those
words drove into Nishka’s heart. She couldn’t abandon them, but she
couldn’t bring them where she was going.

“We’ll come back for them,” Arxu
said.

“Shouldn’t you leave?” the girl asked.
Nishka gently took her hand.

“We can’t. We have to stop this.” She
looked apprehensively down the hall, expecting Margzor to emerge
any moment. “You have to go now.”

At last, the girl took her brother’s
hand and retreated. The children’s silhouettes became less distinct
in the darkness as they fled down the halls.

“Thank you,” Nishka said, wrapping Arxu
in her arms. Again, they made their course to the north. The
tomb-like silence was devastating. Nishka walked past a gray altar
with blood smeared across its once pure surface. The sight stole
some of her courage.

She closed her eyes and concentrated on
something else. If she would only look at the floor, she wouldn’t
see the horror that Margzor’s siege had wrought. She accidentally
walked into Arxu and opened her eyes. He had stopped.

A circular chamber awaited them at the
end of the hall. Arxu had an ominous feeling that they would find
Margzor inside. Ever slowly, they entered. The light felt tainted
and less pure, a mockery of the divine power it once represented.
It seemed confined to the space in the center of the chamber.
Suddenly, Arxu came to a halt.

An aura crashed over him that made his
acquisition of emotions seem petty. The most intense fear blazed
through him. The overwhelming portent of doom dropped him to his
knees. Depression assaulted his mind, buckling his knees and bowing
his back. He tried to lift his head, but it felt as though all the
weight in the world was dragging him to the floor. He desired
death.

Nishka gaped and took a step backward
as a tremor passed through her body.

Margzor emerged from behind a pillar.
His head was bowed and his lips curled in a wicked smile. His
silhouette drew closer to the light.

Arxu staggered back to his feet. He
stared in awe of the approaching entity. Margzor reared his head
and his green eyes burned into his.

He did not know the Nightwalker by
name, only by face. He did not know the darkling at all, but his
presence would nonetheless be resolved.

Arxu stepped forward. Margzor
considered him, the man he saw with the woman of his desires. Rage
and excitement gleamed in his eyes. He reveled in anticipation of
his most brutal kill yet. Margzor did not offer any
words.

Instead, an ungodly sound burst from
his throat. An appendage erupted from his back, a segmented limb
ending in a stinger much like a scorpion. The grotesque display
paralyzed Arxu. The jutting appendage slithered back into Margzor’s
spine as he lunged forward.

Margzor drew his staff high in a parry
and launched a swift kick to his ribs. He immediately grappled
Arxu, locking his weapon arm, seizing a handful of his hair and
throwing him to the floor. His steel clad foot plunged to crush
Arxu’s skull. His foot only stomped on the floor as he rolled out
of harm’s way.

Nishka discovered her bolts were
useless as she repeatedly pumped the trigger. Out of sheer
desperation, she pushed against a weak pillar.

“Hrioshango, help me!” she shouted.
Margzor and Arxu continued their deadly dance across the chamber,
locked in a perpetual state of battle. Everything was an instinct
translated into a parry or strike, neither man afforded one second
to think. They could only react like two animals on the verge of
destruction.

Arxu couldn’t plot his strategy. Every
breath was devoted to staying alive for a second longer.

Margzor didn’t even sense the large
shadow falling across him. The pillar pinned his leg against the
floor with a crash. He bared his teeth and screamed in feral rage,
feeling his bones fracture. Arxu pressed forward and struck him
once before he escaped.

What distinctly unnerved him was the
sound Margzor made. When injured, he produced a sound like a beast.
The chamber still echoed with his hellish scream.

Hrioshango waved his sword erratically
and summoned the energy to modify it. The blade stretched high and
flailed like a steel snake. Nishka gaped at it, her jaw hanging
open. Hrioshango began to use the mental link with his sword to
control its elasticity. It was perhaps the most bizarre power he
exhibited yet.

Suddenly, it arched with devastating
speed and zipped toward Margzor. It weaved around Nishka’s form,
slithered along the floor, and danced around the fighting form of
Arxu. The tip zoomed straight for Margzor but he spun aside.
Automatically, the blade snaked up from behind and curled around
his throat.

Margzor howled and grappled the sharp
object constricting his airway. He could feel the pressure building
behind his eyes.

He outstretched his hand toward
Hrioshango, who immediately shuddered in pain. Every imaginable,
horrible impulse overwhelmed him. Hrioshango cried out and
collapsed. The blade recoiled from around Margzor’s throat,
releasing its vicious grip.

He gagged for breath and fragilely
touched the wound there. He had tolerated suffering far worse than
this.

Nishka shot several bolts, but they
rebounded harmlessly off Margzor’s armor.
If I can’t hurt you,
then I’ll disarm you
. She aimed along the bolt.

Margzor broke Arxu’s parry, knocking
his staff out to the side. A bolt struck the flaming blade as he
prepared to plunge it into his enemy’s chest. The stinging impact
dislodged the sword from his grasp. Arxu rushed toward the demigod
and raised his staff in an attack. Margzor agilely dodged and swung
his leg in a kick that toppled Arxu. The Nightwalker tumbled and
his head jolted painfully against the marble floor.

“Hrioshango! Do something!” Nishka
called. If only she knew what she had just done. Margzor’s sword
ricocheted off the ebony staff as he circled his prey. Suddenly, he
sensed impending danger behind him, a distortion of space. With
godly speed, he spun on his heel and saw a great missile careening
through air.

A crossbow bolt the size of a
pillar.

Margzor dodged and tucked into a roll.
The missile resounded off a wall with a shriek. He pounced to his
feet and snapped a glowering look at the meddlesome woman. It was
time he disposed of her. He would simply kill the woman that would
never be his.

Margzor took aim at Nishka and
charged.

Hrioshango collapsed the distortion
field and called upon the elastic blade again. It entangled around
Margzor’s leg, flowing up his calf and bursting through his spine.
The world began to swerve around him. Margzor was airborne,
propelled above the floor as if gravity reversed. The impact
thundered in the chamber when his body smashed against the
floor.

Hrioshango didn’t give him a chance to
retaliate. At last, the sword recoiled. Margzor retched for breath
and placed his hands on the floor, struggling to his feet. Pain
flooded his senses. He could not bring himself to move without
bringing about another stab of agony.

Suddenly, the light was snuffed out and
the chamber was tinged in shadow.

Tremors jarred his muscles, devouring
the last of his strength. For a second, they could see fear in
Margzor’s eyes. He could feel his lungs locking up. He shuddered
weakly and collapsed motionless against the floor.

Nishka jerked as a single death spasm
rippled through his corpse. Margzor’s dead eyes stared blankly into
space. Arxu breathed heavily and leaned against a
pillar.

He let out a heavy sigh and glanced
around the chamber. He couldn’t believe they were still alive. They
had come so far and survived against annihilation. Parts of his
body were sore from battle. He rubbed an injured shoulder and
closed his eyes.

He needed a moment longer to
relax.

Margzor exhibited another death
spasm.

“What the hell…” Nishka breathed. The
body moved again. “Isn’t he dead…?” It shuddered against the cold
floor. Arxu’s heart rate began to quicken. This could not be
possible. Margzor had died.

As if to indulge Arxu’s greatest fear,
Margzor’s armor split apart, revealing the tender skin beneath. He
tore apart as something monstrous bulged from inside the corpse. A
greater form squirmed out of the empty husk, shedding its skin. It
left behind a bloody membrane that still bore limbs with a head
attached.

A darker Margzor stood before them. He
was naked, his flesh now tainted gray, and parts of his body were
blackened with a malignant texture. The blackness lingered most
prominently on his genitals and his right arm. From there, it
spread to his neck and his left breast. Fangs protruded from under
the skin on his arms like a beast bursting from within.

Trapped under his skin.

His scorpion tail bobbed up and down as
he staggered to his feet. Arxu stared with aversion at an umbilical
cord stretching from Margzor’s belly to the husk. The demigod pried
the sword from the clutches of the empty shell and regarded the
cord.

The sword flashed across and severed
it. Arxu realized the sharp tip of Margzor’s appendage now bore the
same fiery luminance as his blade. Margzor cast the blade aside and
approached. His appendage lashed out with the ferocity one would
expect from an animal. Arxu parried the blade-like tip with his
staff, sparks spitting from the impact.

He leaped back just as the appendage
slammed into the floor where he stood. It plunged through the
marble tiles, leaving little to the imagination of what it would do
to Arxu’s skull.

Margzor spun to his right and the tail
arched around to impale Arxu’s neck. He dodged the blow and tumbled
against a pillar.

Arxu couldn’t maintain his defenses
against this monster forever. Margzor was determined to see the
male suffer for destroying his fragile vision of love. Now, the
same man wanted to take away his divinity. For every second the man
escaped, he would make his suffering all the more
excruciating.

Arxu ran across the enormous chamber.
He would die soon, he knew it was unavoidable. Margzor was far
stronger than he had anticipated.

He refused to perish at the hands of
the murderer. He spun around and thrust his staff toward Margzor.
Arxu’s face contorted in dismay. He gasped as his chest ripped
apart.

The scorpion barb impaled Arxu’s chest
and uprooted him from the floor. A scream tore through the chamber
but it was impossible to distinguish whether it was Arxu or
Nishka.

The demigod pinned him against a pillar
and flung him across the chamber.

Margzor didn’t even grin in victory.
His eyes only bore into him with numb hatred. He paused in front of
the Nightwalker’s body slumped against the pillar. The tail arched
for the kill.

Nishka dove in front of Arxu, throwing
her arms across him. Margzor hesitated when he saw the woman whose
charms snared his heart. But the notion of her shielding this
unworthy male quelled his sympathy. Feelings of rejection bombarded
his brain, coaxing him toward violence as his only
option.

Hrioshango swung his sword at the
demigod, giving his friends the chance to escape. Margzor accepted
several more blows before he vengefully kicked Hrioshango. The
darkling limped away and collapsed.

Arxu staggered to his feet with
Nishka’s help. He wouldn’t take any chances with Margzor now. He
mentally assessed several spells, though he feared none would prove
effective.