David Dalglish - Blood Of Gods

“I’ve won,” Ashhur said as Karak knelt before him, clutching his bleeding chest. Karak glared at him but said nothing, would not admit defeat even then. Velixar waited for the horrible moment when the final blow would come, wishing he could shut his eyes, but unable to do even that.

“You have,” Celestia said, and it seemed she grew closer, more human. “But what does your victory mean?”

Ashhur seemed perplexed by the question. He looked down at his sword, stained with the blood of his brother, the blood of a god. His fist tightened. The glow of the blade brightened.

“I end it,” he said.

“There is another way,” Celestia said, and she hovered between them, a ghostly presence. “Let him suffer exile to the world you came from. I allowed your entrance, and I can deny it just the same.”

Still Karak said nothing. Velixar wished his god would object, would cry out at the injustice. Celestia had interfered-did they not all see? The whore had broken the dance, tipped it to her lover. Ashhur was not the stronger. He was not!

“Another way,” Ashhur said, gaze boring into Karak, who shuddered and held tight to the oozing wound in his chest.

“Or you can take his life,” Celestia whispered, and it seemed her voice echoed from a thousand directions. “Take his power into your own. All of Dezrel will be yours, if you desire it. Make your choice.”

Up came the sword. Velixar couldn’t imagine the debate raging within Ashhur, but he could see a glimpse of it. He could see the pain, the exhaustion, the indecision, the doubt and fondness. But then he saw it all replaced by a glimmer, a hint of something he’d seen in Darakken, and in himself. A longing for power. When did a god ever resist power?

Down came the sword.

“STOP!”

Ashhur’s sword shattered. Eternity quivered. The goddess stood between them as a flaring nova, and there was no denying the fury that overwhelmed her every word.

“You still seek blood?” she asked as both gods lifted up, helpless in her grip. “You, Ashhur, my lover. . you would seek power over mercy? You, Karak, you would have death and emptiness if it granted you order? You entered my world through my grace, my desire to save you, and you have ruined it with fire, flooded it with beasts, and spilled the blood of your own children. I will not have it, even if I must be the one to pay the cost.”

The heavens ruptured. High above, Velixar glimpsed a world beyond his own understanding. The only thing he could perceive was its vastness. Something-a wall, a light-divided it, and with a sound akin to shattering stone, Celestia cast the gods into either side. They faded, growing farther away. Yet still the goddess spoke.

“The souls that awaited you. . take them. They are yours.”

A chasm then appeared, rising from below him from the black. Next came the murmur of thousands of voices, and then Velixar watched the people ascend from the chasm, which now stretched out into the heavens as if it had no end. They passed through stars as if the distance was but a step, and they sang and cried and danced. The souls of Afram, Velixar realized. Velixar looked to the dividing line, and the sight of it made him wish to weep. The faces were different, the bodies strange, but Velixar saw some he recognized, people Jacob Eveningstar had known; Roland Norsman, Nessa DuTaureau, Crian Crestwell, Vulfram and Soleh Mori, Harlan Howey, Oscar Wellington. Ranks of Wardens streamed past him, Judarius and Ezekai, Loen and Grendel, Bareatus and Jaquiel, and countless others. The spirits of the humans went to the gods who’d created them, and the Wardens to Ashhur, until the stars sealed, and only the twirling void met Velixar’s eyes.

He was alone with the goddess.

“Karak,” Velixar wept. “Karak, please, fight her. . fight free!”

Celestia turned to him, and he felt paralyzed with terror. Her eyes bore into him, and it seemed she saw him for the very first time. Pointing a finger toward him, she spoke.

“You were banished. You are again.”

The power of Velixar, the Beast of a Thousand Faces, ripped out of his very essence. No pain ever felt by the man once known as Jacob could compare. He screamed, he writhed, as the ancient power fled him like red curls of smoke, disappearing into the void. It was like losing a hand, only worse-like forgetting how to breathe even as his lungs burned. Yet he could do nothing, only weep, while the stars vanished.

In his chest, he felt his heart beat, just once, before his body spilled apart.

As he lay dying, the clouds above him rumbling, the world returning to his sight, he heard the goddess’s words echo across the land.

I banish you, never to walk my land again. If you would war forever, then let it rage among your creations. Let it be your curse, one they will bear until the breaking of days.

His body convulsed, his vision gone dim, and with ears gone deaf, he heard only silence. Death was coming, death for the ageless First Man. For the briefest moment, he thought perhaps it would be a welcome relief. At least he would war no more. At least he would bear no more burdens for either of the gods. As he felt himself slip away, his only regret was that, in the end, he and his chosen god had lost.

Not yet.

It was a voice he could never forget. Karak’s invisible hands were on him, his power flooding into Jacob’s every particle of being. Skin knit shut where he’d been cut in twain. The strength he’d lost from the demon was replaced by something purer, holier. His body convulsed, but he felt no pain as his sight and hearing returned. Against his chest he felt the emblem of his god burning into his flesh. The pendant glowed like a dying star. Letting out a great cry, he staggered to his feet. Karak’s voice overwhelmed him.

This is the last I have to give, my faithful prophet. The war is not yet done. Be my voice in a world that will soon know only silence. Be my Lion.

Velixar looked down to his hands as he realized what it was he’d become. His heart no longer beat. His lungs drew in no air. When he spoke, his voice was a projection of his will, deep and rumbling.

“Death,” he whispered.

Prophet, said his god.

Velixar looked about, saw the countless men and women who moments ago had been trying to kill each other, now confused and lost, blinking away their blindness from the sudden deluge of light. They didn’t know what to do, how to act. Who would rule them? Who were they to worship? And what of the war, the gods?

They’d need him, Velixar saw, now more than ever. But it could not be here, not as he was, a wretched, scarred body coated with his own blood. He had to recover. He had to grieve. To his left he ran, toward the shadows lingering between two wrecked sections of the wall that had once protected the Castle of the Lion. He leapt into those shadows. Karak’s power flooded him, and he knew the words without thinking. A doorway opened for him; he fled through, and then he was gone.

I banish you, never to walk my land again. If you would war forever, then let it rage among your creations. Let it be your curse, one they will bear until the breaking of days.

Patrick blinked, his vision finally coming back after that sudden flash of brilliant light. The billowing clouds overhead parted, allowing sunlight to once more shine down on the blood-covered square. The ruins of the castle were now devoid of conflict. All it had taken was a single lightning strike, and Ashhur and Karak were gone. Jacob Eveningstar seemed to have vanished as well. In their place were the words of the goddess, echoing through Patrick’s mind as he stood gawking at the scene.

Patrick wiped blood from his forehead. The rush of conflict had all but left him, quivering in his nerve endings like a forgotten memory. He looked to Moira, who appeared just as horrified as he, and snaked his hand into hers. He slid Winterbone into its scabbard. Together they exited the confines of the wrecked stable, wandering out amid the ruin.