James West - Shadow and Steel

The ring of light continued to widen, roasting all before it. Yet his only thought was to quench his thirst for the surging energies cascading through the decaying chamber. He hungered to take his fill from the purest source of all that darkness, from the Faceless One himself.

As the light bathed him in its immeasurable heat, he fortified his shield, and then reached out, his desire manifesting as a clawed hand passing through the searing radiance, reaching to the Faceless One.

The dark and sustaining pillar of energy abandoned the enemy of humankind, and stretched out to meet Leitos. When they touched, the motion of life ground to a sudden, violent halt. The world Leitos knew, the chamber, all ceased to be.

Leitos stood before the obsidian throne, not sure how he had gotten there. The chamber’s destruction had ceased … but that was not quite true. The devastation remained, but frozen. Massive stones had ceased their plummet, and the cracks in the chamber floor no longer spread. All was stationary within a clutching gray mist.

He remembered trying to take the Faceless One’s power, reaching out to catch hold of it. Storms continued to rage inside him, and his veins rushed with dark energies that threatened to unmake him. By his will alone, he withstood those forces.

To one side, Ulmek lay on his back. His unblinking eyes shone with fear, and a dribble of foam flecked his lips. To the other side knelt Adham, hands clasped in his lap like a child taking instruction, his gray eyes locked on the figure upon the throne. Both men resembled wraiths, their skin bleached and haggard.

Leitos slowly looked to the one he had come to destroy. The man slumped in the magnificent obsidian chair, the fingers of one hand idly tracing mysterious shapes engraved in the arms of the throne.

“Show yourself to me,” Leitos commanded.

“You should not have come,” answered the same tired voice he had heard the first time.

Leitos could have offered up innumerable condemnations, hurled curses, made demands, but when he spoke again, he begged the simplest question. “Who are you?”

The man slowly raised his head. Inch by inch, his features came into view. In place of roiling blue fires, a rugged, craggy face peered at him through ropes of lank hair. Stubble bristled his hard jaw. Pale blue eyes, the whites shot through with blood, locked on Leitos, a stare that was at once harsh and unforgiving, yet captivating.

Leitos’s heart seemed to freeze solid inside his chest. While there were differences, he knew well this man’s likeness, for he had seen its legacy written in the bones of his own face.

“ Father? ” Adham rasped. “How have you come to be here … why-”

“Adham, my son,” Kian Valara said, his face twisting as if another presence lurked under the skin. “I did not expect to find you alive, let alone here. But you cannot stay. Return to Izutar, and warn the others that-”

“No!” Adham was on his feet now, trying to claw his way up the black stone pedestal to reach the throne. “Why are you here … why are you serving the Faceless One?”

Kian’s features writhed, his teeth clamped together in a grimace. By shuddering fractions, he went still. His icy stare began dancing with blue flame. “I serve no one,” he said, a murderous grin pulling his lips tight.

The fires of his eyes began to spread, licking out over his cheekbones, puffing from his nostrils and mouth. More sprang from his skin and clothing. Above him, the black pillar of energy burst once more into existence, and all that had been still, again fell into motion.

Over the thundering roar of destruction, Leitos’s grandfather, the legendary ice-born king who was said to have rallied his people against the Faceless One, declared a different truth. “I am the lord and master of this world. I am the Faceless One.”

Adham scrambled away with an agonized sob, but Leitos stepped closer. Whoever Kian had been, he was no more. He had proclaimed himself the greatest adversary to humankind, and Leitos needed no other reason to attack.

As the blue fires engulfed Kian, Leitos reached out to the black pillar of bound power that gave strength to his foe, and stole it into himself. The pillar withered and paled, like a vine stricken with pestilence.

“No!” cried the Faceless One, leaping down from his seat. Where his feet struck, the plane cracked like rotten ice. A crimson blade came into his hand, and he stalked forward.

At a thought, a rippling sword sprang from Leitos’s fist, its length black and cold, a weapon forged from the souls of the thousand and more Mahk’lar he had taken within himself.

As the Faceless One drew near, Leitos swung his blade. The two weapons clashed with the shriek of damned souls, and swirling sheets of fire erupted between them, driving them apart, forming a barrier. Before those crackling flames burned out, Leitos sought his father.

Adham knelt at Ulmek’s side, attempting to help him to his feet.

“You must flee,” Leitos warned, the resonance of his voice shaking the chamber.

“No,” Adham said, his face twisted with misery. “You are all that I have left in this world.”

A shout jerked Leitos’s head around. The Faceless One’s sword ripped a burning line through the air, and Leitos barely deflected the attack. Again, an impenetrable wall of fire burst between them, and Leitos danced back to stand over his father and Ulmek.

Beyond them, the now pale plane buckled and heaved under the falling ceiling. No safe passage showed itself … and so he made a way, though he did not know how, save that he desired it, and it was so.

One moment the way back was blocked, the next a gleaming passageway of transparent gold led to the distant blue point. Where blocks of molten stone slammed against the arched pathway, they bounced away or shattered.

“Follow it to safety,” Leitos ordered.

Adham shrank away from the power of his voice, but did not heed him. “Not without you!”

“Go, and I will follow. Do not slow or stop, no matter what happens.” As he spoke, he could feel the heat from the clashing of swords diminishing behind him, and knew the Faceless One would attack again at any moment.

Adham wrapped Ulmek’s arm around his neck and hoisted him to his feet. He glanced once more at Leitos, an unsettling awe lighting his eyes, then turned and carried Ulmek into the gleaming passage.

Leitos pivoted to meet the Faceless One’s next assault. Instead of crossing blades with him, Leitos ducked low and lunged, stabbing his black sword at the burning figure’s heart. The Faceless One easily avoided the strike. Leitos flung himself out of reach, then braced his feet.

The Faceless One laughed. “Fight as you will,” he said, “but you do so in vain. Better to attempt the capture of the wind in your hands.”

As he spoke, he changed from a man into a shapeless figure with a hundred arms, each bearing a flaming sword. As Leitos retreated after Adham and Ulmek, those blades twirled, creating whirlwinds of fire. Leitos inched back, and when a sword snaked out, he blocked it and retreated farther.

“Have you lost the will to fight?” the Faceless One mocked. “Has your hatred turned to cowardice?”

With a shout, Leitos lashed out, slashing and stabbing, but his black blade cleaved only empty space where the Faceless One had been. He tried again, but his foe shifted faster than his eye could follow. Tendrils of worry gripped his heart. If he could not even touch this creature when he wanted to, how could he believe a chance existed for victory?

“You have no hope of defeating me,” the Faceless One admonished. “No matter the puny power you have taken for yourself, you are still but a man.”