Brian Pratt - The mists of sorrow

“You do have a point there,” replies Potbelly.

So side by side they continue meeting all comers. Eventually, guards from the city begin to be intermingled with those of the temple. Blades sing and blood flies as man after man meet their fate at the hands of expert pit fighters.

“Move!” urges Jiron. The weight of Miko in his arms is beginning to tire him. Brother Willim and Tinok have fallen behind and he has had to wait for them to hurry up. “James isn’t going to be able to hold off much longer.”

“We’re coming,” Brother Willim hollers back. “Don’t wait for us.”

To himself, Jiron says, “You have the medallion, I have to wait for you.” Then the other two reach him and he moves down an adjoining corridor toward the Hall of Despair. Little Brothers have been their constant companions since leaving James. Most of the time, Brother Willim has one or two who grab hold of his robe and pull him forward. Even they seem to understand the urgency of the situation.

“How much further is it?” Tinok asks. At first he didn’t have much strength, but after walking for awhile, the stamina he once had has begun to return. It must have been the time held inactive here that had done it to him.

“Not much more,” replies Jiron. In fact, the hallway they are in opens up onto the room containing the bone chair, the room that Brother Willim had called the Hall of Despair.

“Almost there,” he says. Upon entering the Hall, he’s surprised not to see bodies of Hikuli scattered across the floor. The last time they passed through here, the Little Brothers were embattled with the Hikuli that populated Ith-Zirul. The fact that the Little Brothers had come to the cavern and that no Hikuli had been seen since, seemed to say that they vanquished the little buggers.

He moves along the side wall until he reaches the entrance to the hallway leading to the dais room. “Down here and then we’re home free,” he announces. Moving into the hallway, he leaves the other two behind as he hurries to the end. Once he reaches the dais room, he lays Miko atop the dais then quickly returns to help the other two.

Lending an arm to both Brother Willim and Tinok, he practically drags them forward. “Easy my son,” Brother Willim says when he almost loses his balance. He’s still not completely over the wound to his middle the warrior priest had dealt him despite the healing he did on himself.

As they enter the room, he helps Tinok up onto the dais first, then he follows. “Now you,” he says as he turns to offer Brother Willim his hand.

Brother Willim takes his hand and steps up upon the dais. The medallion in his pocket triggers the magic within the dais and they vanish.

All his life he had read in books these wondrous tales of people who had overcome the odds. Who had gone the distance despite the obstacles that lay before them. He always wondered if he had it in him to be one of those people. When he sent the others off to safety while he stayed behind, he had his answer.

But what other choice was there?

The struggle to prevent the gate from allowing the presence from the other side from getting through grows harder by the minute. Even with the power of the Star at his beck and call he doesn’t have enough to prevent it for long. Having to put more and more of the Star’s power into holding the gate closed, he’s forced to use less in keeping the shadows away. Slowly they draw ever closer.

He has a good idea what he can do to destroy the gate, he just has to hold out long enough for the others to reach the dais and get away. If he can’t, there’s little hope that they will survive what’s to come.

A little to his right he sees the dark form of Ozgirath as it lays upon the rune covered floor. The dagger Jiron thrust into his breast still glows with ruddy light, the dark robe remains still.

Then his eyes return to the gate as the malignant presence that James can only call pure evil tries again to bull its way through. He can sense the frustration and growing anger coming through from the other side. He can also sense lines of magical energy being channeled to the gate from elsewhere and being absorbed by it. Try as he might, nothing he does effectively interrupts the streams of power from being delivered.

When at last he deems the time is right, he creates the sphere. One that he’s created twice before, each time with massive destructive power. The first time was outside the City of Light, the result of which destroyed a good portion of the Empire’s invasion force. Not enough to stop them, but it hurt them bad.

The second time was not too long ago when mages came to destroy Illan’s army and everyone with it. The resulting explosion that time was immense. It seared the earth for miles in every direction and weakened the boundary between the planes to such an extent that a creature not of this world was able to pass through.

Now staring at the sphere before him, he sees his death, as activating it will surely mean. There will be little chance to escape its blast once he does. Then all of a sudden, the presence from the other side makes a massive push as it tries to force its way through the gate. The gate bulges to an extent further than ever it had before. Sparks dance across its surface and just as James is sure it’s going to break through, the pressure subsides.

Now James, he says to himself. While it’s regrouping for another attempt. He focuses his eyes on the sphere and sends the command that will activate it. For Meliana.

No sooner does the sphere become activated than it latches onto the streams of power flowing to the gate and draws them to itself. James can also feel the power of the Star beginning to be drawn into it as well. Opening up the conduit as wide as he can, he funnels raw, primal power to the sphere.

The sphere goes from translucent to deep red in half a second as unimaginable power is absorbed into it. The magic that James had used to prevent the gate from opening is now being drawn into the sphere.

Sparks begin to appear across the surface of the gate and it bulges forward as the presence again tries to cross. Only this time, it’s not meeting any opposition. As the gate opens, terror rolls over James as something begins to cross over.

Tearing his eyes from the gate, he concentrates on the sphere. Now so dark red as to be almost black, it crackles with power. Then it reaches critical mass and detonates.

Back in Zixtyn, the priests of Dmon-Li continue sacrificing slaves and directing the resulting power to Dmon-Li’s altar in the nexus of the temple. Which in turn sends the power to Ith-Zirul. A backlash of energy travels back along the power stream when the sphere detonates. When it reaches the altar…

Crumph!

…the magic explodes in a tremendous conflagration of energy. The temple rocks on its foundation as the force of the explosion blasts the temple asunder.

“Jiron!” screams Aleya when the temple explodes into the night. Standing at the window, Aleya and the others see a massive fireball rising to the sky where the temple had stood.

“Damn,” curses Reilin under his breath.

“Come on,” Shorty says. “James said to get out of town if things went bad.”

“It couldn’t have been much worse than that,” agrees Stig.

Aleya collapses by the window and is wracked with sobs. Stig tries to comfort her while Shorty and Reilin gather their things.

“We can’t know that killed them,” he says to her. “They’ve survived worse before.”

“You think so?” she asks as she raises her head hopefully.

“Sure,” he says. “But we need to get out of here before someone comes looking.” To Shorty he asks, “You got everything?”

With their traveling packs in hand, he says, “Yes.”