Lawrence Watt-Evans - The Seven Altars of Dusarra

No! Why wait? He would burst into the chamber while the dancers remained lost in their chanting gyrations and snatch it out red-hot from where it stood! Then he would flee, he thought at first, but instantly other thoughts crushed that out; he would not flee! Flee? An overman flee before humans? He would not flee; he would wield that splendid blade among the worshippers until it shone as red with blood as it did now with heat.

Somewhere a part of him knew this was insane, this uncontrollable craving for the possession of the sword; that part struggled vainly to restore calm. It revolted at the thought of wanton and unnecessary bloodshed.

It was brutally suppressed by the unearthly power that now dominated him, erasing his conscious self; his rationality was drowned in a flood of unreasoning blood-lust, like nothing he had ever felt. He had known the wild and involuntary passion that consumes an overman when he scents an overwoman in heat; he had known the roaring blind fury of battle rage that made a mortal warrior a berserker; this new lust was so strong as to make those mere shadows, trivial wisps of emotion, though it partook of both in flavor. He could contain it no longer.

An instant later the reeling, semi-hypnotized dancers were delighted to see the great dark form of an armored overman stride roaring into their midst, red eyes ablaze; they knew at once, with the absolute conviction of the fanatic, that this was their god who confronted them. They screamed with ecstasy, the chant collapsing into chaotic raving; the earth rumbled beneath them, and lightning forked across the sky.

Boldly, unhesitatingly, as if unaware of the flames and heat, the apparition marched up onto the verge of the holy pyre and wrenched the sacred sword from its place; his hands smoked with the heat of the hilt, and the stench of burning skin filled the temple. The overman paid no heed, but, raised the blade above his head and whirled it about, so that it blazed and flickered in the firelight.

"I am Bheleu!" cried the monster in Garth's body; he thrust the blade upward at the heavens, to be answered by a crash of thunder and a blinding flash of lightning. The bolt struck, spattered, and sizzled across the spiderweb metal frame of the ruined dome; sparks showered upon the worshippers, who danced maniacally, screaming their devotion. A second bolt came on the heels of the first, leaping from the clouds to the peak of the dome, and thence to the point of the sword; it poured through Garth's body and blasted the bonfire apart at his feet, scattering burning wood.

The thunder was now a steady pounding as other bolts showered across the city; Garth's hands fell, the sword still clutched in them, and his eyes blazed crimson as the blade chopped through the skull of the high priest of Bheleu.

The worshippers screamed in frenzy, crying the name of their god.

The blade swung up, red with blood and gleaming gold in the firelight; lightning flashed, silver steel shone for an instant, and the sword came down, hacking through a man's neck, spraying blood into the scattered fire where it sizzled and stank.

"I am destruction!"

The worshippers cried hoarse approval, and surged toward him, forgetting their dance. The blade blazed upward, flashed down; blood showered unnoticed across fire, earth, and flesh. There was no trace of resistance; the eager worshippers flung themselves in the weapon's path as the earth shook and the sky raged, and the monster wielding it merely laughed.

For half an hour their god walked among his people, slashing aside all who approached him; for one insane half-hour he brought the total destruction their creed proclaimed holy. The priests of Bheleu had been warriors, for their faith required it. None shrank from the sight of blood, nor cringed away from the dismembered and disemboweled corpses of their comrades; instead they fought amongst themselves for the right to approach and be slain, their religious fervor blended with the old fighting fury, the death-wish of those who slay made manifest.

Throughout, the thunder rolled and roared, crashing arrhythmically about the ruins, and lightning blazed again and again across the open dome. Every so often a bolt would strike the exposed steel, and the temple walls would shake. With the agility of the warriors they once were, the worshippers kept their feet and pressed forward to the slaughter.

At last, as the dripping blade swung flashing upward for the final stroke, there came a crash of thunder like none before; the last devotee fell to his knees before his god, deafened and blinded, as the sword blazed red and silver against the sky, whirling about the head of the crazed overman-monster. It swooped down, like a hawk upon its prey, and struck the man through, entering the front of his throat and protruding between his shoulder-blades; no more metal showed, but only blood, red, brown, and black, coating the blade and spattered liberally across the temple floor.

The final lightning bolt's pealing echoed among the shattered walls, covering the sudden silence that fell with the death of the last screaming priest; overhead, the blasted dome sagged, twisted, and broke. Snapping sparks were strewn amid the dying remnants of the pyre, and drops of molten metal flew hissing downward. The framework continued to crumple, collapsing slowly, as the storm finally broke, whipping fat raindrops across the prostrate corpses and the upturned face of their slayer.

For long moments the overman stood motionless; rain filled his eyes and ran in cool streams across his face. The sword was still clutched in his hands, its hilt slimed with gore, its blade still thrust through his final victim. The madness was passing, fading, shrinking into itself somewhere within him; he blinked away the rain, and lowered his gaze from the storm.

He looked at the sagging, slack-jawed figure impaled on his sword, at the score of slaughtered men, at the scattered remains of the bonfire dying in the rain. His hands fell from the hilt, and sword and cadaver tumbled forward at his feet. He stepped back, appalled, and sank to his knees; then, for the first time in a hundred and forty years, Garth wept, as the shattered metal of the dome crashed to the ground around him.

He came to as the first glimmer of dawn broke through the clouds; he was lying sprawled on the dirt floor of the temple, surrounded by tortured scraps of metal and ragged, red-clothed corpses. Ashes and charred wood were scattered at his feet.

Before him, the elongated hilt of the great broadsword protruded from the throat of his final victim; the gem set in the pommel gleamed as red as blood, but the blade had been washed clean by the rain. In the dim light the metal was dull gray.

He got slowly to his feet, and the events of the night seeped back into his mind; he grimaced in disgust.

Here was the destruction the Seers of Weideth had foreseen. What had come over him?

He found himself unwilling to admit that he had in truth been possessed by some higher power, acting as no more than a puppet; but then, the thought that he had within him such berserk savagery, so easily roused, was almost equally unacceptable. True, his rage and hatred of the Aghadites still smouldered, and his anger at the Baron of Skelleth likewise. Had the babblings of that senile old P'hulite suggested to his suppressed darker side that he take out his aggressions thus? Perhaps the dance of Bheleu had hypnotic properties designed to release a watcher's pent-up emotions; perhaps some mystic fumes, invisible and unnoticed, had affected him. He had heard that volcanoes produced such gasses, and Dыsarra was built on the slopes of a great volcano.

It really mattered very little; what was done was done, and could in no way be altered.

He recalled the roaring storm, of which nothing remained but, puddles and dispersing clouds; the dome had been blasted away. He remembered the fiery lightning-had it actually struck him? That could not be. He looked at his hands; the palms were burnt black. He shuddered. Had he really pulled the sword red-hot from the fire?