Thomas Harlan - The storm of Heaven

"There, you can see for yourself." Nicholas had Brunhilde bare in his arms, his fist wrapped around her hilt, the flat of the blade pressed against his shoulder. Faint lights gleamed in her steel body. Dwyrin turned, staring out over the gloomy roofs of the city. Lights burned in many windows, but the city huddled in darkness under a sky filled with racing clouds. Far in the distance, up the long slope of the city, past the towering pillar of Constantine in his great forum, past the looming inner walls, he could see a line of fire running from horizon to horizon, all along the massive bulk of the outer, Theodosian walls.

Dwyrin began to chant under his breath, summoning the focus to enter the hidden world. Then he stopped, for his mortal vision saw something impossible. The sky in the west darkened as if ink spilt into the air. A wave of ebon swept across the sky, racing past the clouds, covering the moon. A great shadow fell over the city, swallowing up the towers, the houses, then the column of Constantine, then lapping over the walls of the Hippodrome.

Vladimir snarled, growling at the sky, but then the blackness engulfed their vantage and the palace below. The air began to grow cold, and Dwyrin could feel the black tide draining strength from the air. Nicholas cursed, then held out Brunhilde at an angle from his body. The faint lights in the steel brightened until a dim bluish glow illuminated their boots and the stone floor of the platform. Dwyrin did not notice, for his attention was fixed, stunned, on the western horizon.

Something was moving there, in the darkness, something enormous. With a trembling hand he made the seeing square, and distant towers leapt into view. Flames roared up around them, violent and red, silhouetting the gates against a wall of fire. The whole wall of the city was lit by the blaze. Then, even as Dwyrin gasped in horror, a black forest of monstrous tentacles rose above the stone battlements. Glistening in the firelight, writhing with impossible life, they curled around the massive towers. Stone buckled and cracked under the pressure. Thousands more tentacles surged up, clawing at the merlons, crushing the tiled roofs, squirming into arrow slits.

Boom! Even at this distance, Dwyrin could hear the collapse of the towers athwart the Charisian Gates. The air trembled with the noise. Vladimir and Nicholas stared out into the darkness, but they could not see what he saw. Dwyrin looked away, his mind reeling. "We have to go."

"Where?" Nicholas bent down, eyes flint hard and intent on the boy. "Where do we go?"

"To the sound of battle," the Hibernian snapped. The thing attacking the wall had shaken the earth with its footsteps. A nightmare out of some hidden pit, long thought lost and dead. Such power… Dwyrin quailed at the thought of facing such a thing in the hidden world, of seeing its true shape writhing in chaos. I must fight this thing, he resolved, remembering an old man in a ruined temple, crouched over a bundle of wet twigs. There is a fire that lights the world. It cannot be extinguished!

Without another word, the young man turned from his friends and raced down the stairway, his feet leaping from step to step, his hands sliding along the ancient walls, holding him up. Nicholas sheathed Brunhilde with a muttered curse, then followed as fast as he dared. Behind them, Vladimir snarled at the sky again, then stopped, smelling a loathsome taint in the night air. Whimpering, he descended, the fur on the back of his neck and his hands bristling.

"Wait for me!" he called out plaintively. Ancient things were loose in the night.

– |A queer, groaning sound filled the musty air, rolling slowly along the length of the corridor. Stone ground against stone. The Dark Queen sneezed, then hissed at the stone roof over her head. Dust was spilling down out of the cracks between the huge slabs. Irritably, she flipped her long hair, trying to get clinging gray powder out of the thick tresses. At her feet, the little black cat meowed imperiously, darting ahead, then turning to see if she was following.

The Queen suddenly paused, turning to the west. She could feel something moving in the earth, shaking the land. She tensed, perceiving the writhing chaos of darkness that was pressing against the ancient walls of the city. "Child, this is very bad. Our old enemy has grown reckless. He must think himself a great power to lure one of Shudde-M'ell's children here."

The Queen ran forward in silence, her feet light on the cracked stone floor, though she did not leave any tracks in the dust. There were plenty of other smudges and footprints to lead her. The little black cat's nose was keen, too, and it darted ahead, a shadow amongst deeper shadows. The Queen could smell a daywalker infant in the air, her elegant nose wrinkling at the pungent odor. Ahead of them, a strange humming roar could be heard.

A bar of green light cut across the corridor. The Queen slipped up to the portal, then eased the heavy oaken door open a finger's breadth. At her feet, the little cat wormed through the opening, padding boldly forward on soft feet. A huge whirling disk of viridian fire lit the room. The hum, even louder now, came from a set of bronze disks that spun in the air, forming a matrix for the strange vision that confronted her.

"I remember this place…" The Queen whispered to herself, sliding through the opening into the room. She looked around, her face filled with sorrow. Once, long ago, she had spent many hours in this room-then it was new and filled with light and knowledge-with a dear friend. The memories brought a sharp pang with them. But mortals pass, leaving only pain behind.

The Queen found a patch of shadow on one wall where a wooden scroll case jutted out. The green refulgence made everything look strange, but she stepped into the alcove and all sight of her vanished, save for a pair of pale, white eyes. The two people in the room had not even noticed her. They were cowering away from the whirling, humming disk, watching the image of a man speaking sharply on the other side. The Queen's rich, dark lips quirked, seeing the face of the young man in the burning sphere. Another circle closes…

Ignoring her mistress' wishes, the little black cat crept across the floor, haunches in the air, green eyes reflecting the powerful glow of the disk. The woman was trembling, almost weeping, with a little boy clinging to her shoulder. The child was bawling, frightened by the strange lights and sounds. The little cat hopped up onto the table behind the woman and batted at the little boy's face with a soft paw.

The boy looked up, round red face streaked with tears, and caught sight of the fuzzy black creature. Blue eyes widened and it groped for the cat with both chubby hands. The little cat smiled, showing tiny white fangs, and let herself be picked up. Drool streaked her short-napped fur, but the cat did not seem to mind.

– |Dwyrin hobbled into the temple of Zeus Pankrator, right foot hurting from a stone he had stepped on in the courtyard. The vast domed room was filled with gathering men, most of them the Faithful Guard, but also legionaries barracked in the palace. Great chains hung down from the ceiling, holding iron wheels suspended in the air above everyone's heads. Cuplike receptacles holding candles in glass flutes ringed each wheel. Every candle was lit, shedding a warm white light on the faces of the soldiers. Far above, the dome gleamed and shimmered with a massive painting of Zeus himself, seated among the storm clouds, with gray-eyed Athena on one side and victorious Mars on the other. The images seemed to float in a shining sky, even in this dark night. Dwyrin grimaced, hopping along on one foot.

"Here, let me…" Chuckling, Vladimir scooped up Dwyrin and set the young man on his powerful shoulders.

"Vlad! I can walk, you know." Dwyrin felt absurd, perched above the crowd of men in plumed helmets and burnished, gleaming armor. The Scandians were gathering at the center of the room around an elevated block of stone. Nicholas was pushing through the ranks of legionaries. Vladimir followed, plowing through the sea of shorter men like a galley.