This is the fourteenth chapter of Diabolical Ascension, the saga of Zeraga Baal'khal, the Doomfire. Discretion is advised due to graphic content.
The thirteenth chapter, Cathedral of the Horned Helmet Part I, can be found here:
The first chapter, Awakening, can be found here: https://talesofvalorandwoe.wixsite.com/zeragabaalkhal/post/diabolical-ascension-i-awakening
Image credits (in order of appearance): Petr Joura
We created Ôx’xâ to kill archdevils? Zeraga asked, surprised that the Crimson Dragons, Asmodeus’s most favored legion and one of the most renowned in all the Thirteen Hells, had created a chaos artifact with the intent to slay Nyrrakhâ’s rulers. That he now sought that very artifact, and that his goal was the slaying of an archdevil, kindled sardonic amusement within him.
Oh yes. Churvômbhel replied. We had already fought many wars against the Mephistophelian League, and both you and Lord Zamyyr felt that such wars were a waste of our resources. But, it was actually Hellscythe who proposed the idea of assassinating the three archdevils arrayed against Lord Asmodeus.
Asmodeus is no lord of mine. Zeraga corrected harshly. Our legion would still be alive had he not sent us to Ag’graaza in a vain attempt to slay Ahriman. More and more, Zeraga wished, also, that he had not allowed himself to be manipulated by Zamyyr into leaving Ôx’xâ behind. Perhaps, then, the cathedral into which the Doomfire and his companions delved ever deeper would never have been created at all, and the Primordial Chaos-Void would have been denied such a tenacious and insidious foothold in the Thirteen Hells. Part of Zeraga could not help but wonder if Ahriman knew of this cathedral. If so, would the First Demon come to slay him again?
To say that the notion was unpleasant was an understatement.
I meant no offense, Lord Zeraga. Churvômbhel said. I only referred to Asmodeus as such out of habit. But yes, a plan had been formulated to clandestinely slay Mephistopheles, Bhaaz, and Belial. The demons bound to the Horned Helmet of Desolation were chosen with that goal in mind, and we sought to hide its creations from Asmodeus lest he misinterpret our motives.
You said, “sought to.” Do you mean to say, also, that Asmodeus knows about Ôx’xâ?
Hellscythe’s cachinnation resounded through the minds of Zeraga and his companions. Of course Asmodeus knows about Ôx’xâ. I’m not sure there’s a devil in all the Thirteen Hells who doesn’t, especially once Charaezohar’en broke out.
Zeraga gritted his teeth and clenched his hand around Hellscythe’s handle. For a single, wrathful instant, the devil thought about snapping the weapon in half across his thigh. A memory fragment from the homunculus swept the urge away: Zeraga stood atop a mound of shattered corpses, his flesh swollen with the vigor of the blood-rage while a vortex of hellfire and crimson lightning raged about him. Ôx’xâ encased the Doomfire’s head, and he raised Hellscythe high in victory. A frigid calm born of renewed purpose came as the image unraveled.
Yes. Hellscythe whispered. You need me. Never forget that.
Zeraga didn’t dignify the pernicious gloating with a reply.
Yes, lord, the legend of Ôx’xâ is widespread. Churvômbhel said, calmly corroborating Hellscythe. There may very well be more Doombringers who come into the cathedral after us, but that will matter little if we find the Horned Helmet before they do.
When. Zeraga corrected. The current leg of the journey had been quiet thus far. The eroded, featureless corridors had offered no demonic foes. But, the Doomfire could feel a faint, ethereal undulation, the sorcerous equivalent of a torch guttering off in the distance. This the devil knew to be the stygian pull of Ôx’xâ. He also knew, from his earlier conversations with Churvômbhel, that the Horned Helmet desired to claim him as much as he desired to claim it. That was undoubtedly why Nekros Gorethirster had arranged to have been summoned at the chaos altar where Zeraga had fought him before arriving at Arkynathos. That altar was also where Zeraga had become so lost in the blood-rage that he had turned on Zamyyr, the last of his living children. Zeraga perished that latter thought. Churvômbhel had also spoken of the nine demons caged within Ôx’xâ; the methods by which they had been hunted and bound; and the forging of the helmet itself, supplemented with memories from the four hundred and twenty-seventh incarnation as well as telepathic images sent by the homunculus. All of the learning had fed Zeraga’s desire to claim the Horned Helmet, growing it from mere embers into an avaricious flame. Is there anything else you know about Ôx’xâ, Churvômbhel?
No, my lord. the kuurzanaal replied. You know everything I do about the Horned Helmet.
Zeraga gave a curt nod and started moving at a quicker clip through the corridor. Soon, he could make out a pylon at the edge of his vision. On either side of the funereal gateway stood a demonic statue.
Slowing their pace, Zeraga and his companions closed the distance to the pylon, their weapons brandished. Each of the statues was a skeleton carved from black stone with violet veins running through it, and both were a head taller than Zeraga. A cloak hung from the shoulders of each skeleton, cascading down their backs. Barbutes encased their heads while shirts of scalemail armored their midsections. Their claw-like hands held rune-adorned swords. Zeraga recognized the statues as depicting Urngar, a berserker demon within Ôx’xâ, and he half-expected the statues to animate. They didn’t. Zeraga and his companions passed through the pylon.
Beyond lay an adytum with room enough to hold a congregation. A third statue, also carved from black stone with purple veins, dominated the center, depicting another of the demons within the Horned Helmet: Ira-Xul-Gar. The creature was three giant heads fused together in an approximation of an enormous globe with hateful visages and leprous skin rendered assiduously. From the mouth of each face rose a pair of serpentine tongues ending in scorpion-like tails. Many eldritch runes were carved upon the dais beneath the nightmarish statue.
Each of the adytum’s other three walls were dominated by pylons as well. Mounted above all four pylons, looking in at the statue of Ira-Xul-Gar, were horned, bestial skulls, their eyeless sockets seeming to leer ghoulishly at the newcomers.
It was neither the statues nor the skulls nor the pall of darkness that gave Zeraga pause as he entered the adytum. It was that the sorcerous tether leading him to Ôx’xâ was gone.
Which way do we go now? Zeraga asked Hellscythe.
I do not know. Hellscythe replied. I cannot sense Ôx’xâ. The weapon was normally loathe to admit such a shortcoming, but there was no gain to be had in lying. One wrong turn could easily spell the end of what it had been working toward since encountering Nekros and learning that Ôx’xâ remained on Addaduros more than five thousand years after its interment.
As if in answer to both Zeraga and Hellscythe, the eye sockets of the bestial skulls overhead and the hate-warped eyes of the statue of Ira-Xul-Gar all flared with red light, and the ground softened, becoming flesh-like. Screams of excruciation tore through the air; it took only a moment for Zeraga to realize that the voices of the screams were his own.
Zeraga conjured a hellfire sword and shield, the infernal light revealing the lurid truth. No more were the walls, floor, and ceiling made of stone. The pylons and the bestial skulls were gone. All of it was replaced by undulating expanses of Zeraga’s fair, red-tinged skin, a hundred times a hundred warped facsimiles of his countenance squalling, wailing, and bellowing unendingly. The statue of Ira-Xul-Gar lorded over the hellscape of tormented flesh, ever motionless, its eyes still as red as the ruby that crowned Hellscythe.
The sight of it all had Zeraga’s stomach twisting with disgust as his heart pounded with rage. He closed the distance to the statue with a trio of strides, shattering one of his own faces and feeling the gushing of hot gore with each step. Hellscythe’s blade whistled as it descended upon the profane altar ahead.
From out of the mouths of the nearby faces on the floor sprang wet ropes of dark flesh that coiled around the arm that held Hellscythe, suspending the weapon in midair. Zeraga hacked at the grotesque bindings with his hellfire sword, but still more erupted to entangle him in a living prison. Black smoke thick with the stench of burning flesh billowed around him.
Churvômbhel and Drahligar charged into the flesh-scape, torrents of hellfire screaming from their mouths as their hooves crushed faces and brought forth geysers of red steam. Maalik followed, sensing Zeraga’s anguish and hatred. The reanimated glayruk swept his sword to and fro like a pendulum as he advanced, cutting down more ropes of dark flesh before they could bind him. The homunculus came last, and, strangely, the tiny creature was entirely ignored by the aberrations that lashed out at Zeraga, Maalik, and the two kuurzanaals.
The combined efforts of Churvômbhel, Drahligar, and Maalik freed Zeraga. As the last of the tongue-tendrils binding the Doomfire was severed amid a wet snap and a spray of gore, Hellscythe cast the red veil of the blood-rage upon the devil’s mind. Zeraga’s body swelled with profane strength; scales and spines formed upon his flesh; his fangs lengthened.
“Slaughter!” Zeraga screamed as he sent Hellscythe’s blade carving through the air, speeding toward the statue of Ira-Xul-Gar.
The sound of cracking stone overtook all others as Hellscythe met its mark. A torrent of effulgent, purple energy, that of raw necromancy, burst from the broken stone, rising and spreading across the room, and the red light from the statue’s three sets of eyes dimmed. The statue itself began melting like candlewax. The faces upon the walls, floor, and ceiling lashed out with greater fervor, more tongue-tentacles bursting from the Zeraga-like faces until each open mouth hosted two or three. Most of them surged toward Zeraga.
Expanding his hellfire shield, the devil created a crackling dome that lashed out at the tentacles as they fell upon him, writhing flesh becoming crumbling ash in the blink of an eye. The Doomfire then shaped the dome into an inferno and unleashed it upon the statue of Ira-Xul-Gar. In that instant, the adytum became as bright as Addaduros above, and the statue was evaporated. The pall of necromancy remained, however, growing and brightening, seeming to intensify as Zeraga’s hellfire dissipated. From the deathly miasma overhead emerged the Doomfire’s latest foes.
They had once been minotaurs but belonged to that brutish species no longer. The forms of the bull-men were grotesquely distended, as though they had been subjected to the torture rack, making their normally muscular forms gaunt seemingly emaciated. Their right hands had been replaced with large, sword-like blades of burnished feyrferreus which hosted gnashing, rat-like maws brimming with maggots and other harbingers of decay. Human-like arms, pallid and sere, hung off their shoulders and backs like fruit withered on the vine.
Instinctively, Zeraga knew that the abominations had once been part of the Swords of Addaduros, now slaves to this wretched cathedral. To slay them would be to grant them mercy.
The abominations charged Zeraga, roaring, snarling, seething. From behind the Doomfire, the homunculus reached out with its six, spindly arms, and crimson streamed from each one. The six streams converged upon the gray-skinned arm which held Zeraga’s sword of black radiance. In an instant, the limb returned to the same fair, red-tinged skin tone as the rest of Zeraga’s body. A savage grin formed on the Doomfire’s face as he glanced down at the black sword once more. The might of the Eternal Darkness was his to command.
“Slaughter!” The word boomed from Zeraga’s mouth as he hacked at the nearest foe with Hellscythe. Two other abominations lunged and cannoned their blades forward, parrying Hellscythe, and more than a dozen of the creatures now formed a ring around Zeraga. He could not tell whether or not more were emerging from the necromantic pall; the press of bodies and the sanguine veil of the blood-rage muddled his perceptions. The Doomfire’s companions did not come to his aid, either. They were still mired in their conflicts with the tongue-tentacles bursting from the faces all around.
Zeraga’s black sword became a stygian blur as it swept out in a cleaving arc. One of the abominations fell as it was sliced open, its etiolated guts crackling like parchment as they spilled out and crumbled before the inimical touch of the Eternal Darkness. Another abomination had its blade lopped from its arm as it tried to parry the black sword but proved too slow. A grievous laceration opened on the side of a third abomination, the wound glowing with the dark radiance of the weapon that had inflicted it.
As Zeraga meted out his wrath, he blocked and parried retaliatory strikes with his hellfire sword, hellfire shield, and Hellscythe. Suffering and Affliction were raised and kept close to his chest, never shifting, spires of iron and gem that served only to guard the Doomfire’s life. Still, minotaur blades pierced Zeraga’s defenses by sheer quantity and the savage force that powered each swing. The Doomfire’s armor screeched as it was scored by keen edges and piercing teeth; blood rilled and jetted from his flesh as the crimson scales girding his chest, torso, and back were parted. The moribund arms on the shoulders and backs of the minotaur-abominations animated, rising and reaching for Zeraga.
The devil dissolved his hellfire shield into a coursing wave and transmuted his hellfire sword into a viper-like whip with wrathful exertions of his will. Seemingly apropos of nothing, kaleidoscopic chaos-flame flared up about the heads of Suffering and Affliction, baleful in its suddenness. The scintillating flames of Ag’graaza then leaped toward Zeraga’s hellfire like missiles hurled from trebuchets, devouring it. A barrage of excruciation followed as the blades and maws of the minotaur-abominations wounded Zeraga again and again and again.
Zeraga’s vision became clearer as the first rays of lucidity pierced the crimson pall. Susurrations of fatigue followed. The minotaur-abominations, sensing the impending moment of the kill, pressed closer. “Slaughter!” Zeraga hurled the axe and truncheon of Nekros Gorethirster to the ground as he cannoned Hellscythe into the face of his nearest foe. With a sharp, sickening crack and the hiss of jetting gore, the minotaur-abomination’s face became a sanguine ruin upon which Hellscythe feasted, turning the creature’s corpse as pallid and sere as the arms upon its back. The crimson pall thickened as new vigor flowed into Zeraga’s flesh, strengthening him and healing his wounds.
“Slaughter!” the devil screamed again as he tore Hellscythe free and sent the weapon into motion, amputating deathly hands before slicing open a chest that yielded another bounty of crimson mist. No notice did the Doomfire take of the wounds that his foes inflicted upon him now; they were as mosquitoes attempting to pierce the hide of an elephant. Again and again, Zeraga swung Hellscythe, bringing forth streams of blood with every strike, and hot knives flowed through his veins as he conjured a pair of hellfire swords and sent them speeding into the maelstrom of carnage.
The throng of foes around Zeraga melted as he reaped their souls one by one, permitting only Hellscythe to strike the killing blows. As the last of the minotaur-abominations died, Suffering and Affliction sprang up as though levitated by an unseen force. The new wielders of the axe and truncheon shimmered into view a moment later. They were more of the ghouls that had assailed Zeraga and Zamyyr during their initial descent beneath Addaduros’s surface, but these ravenous undead were as tall as Zeraga and were crowned by curled horns that appeared to have been carved from gleaming obsidian.
Zeraga was already in motion; combat ensued. Suffering and affliction became wreathed in chaos-flame as the ghouls charged the Doomfire, and Hellscythe became wreathed in hellfire. The weapons clashed in an explosion of light and sparks underpinned by snarling metal. The ghouls swung again, wielding their weapons with blind fury. Zeraga parried the strikes with his hellfire swords as he conjured a hellfire axe and swung Hellscythe, cleaving one of the ghouls in twain at the waist. The faces upon the ground devoured the corpse. The hellfire axe slammed into the other ghoul’s head, devouring the desiccated flesh and leaving behind only ashes. Suffering and Affliction then disappeared, spirited away by some unseen, eldritch mechanism of the cathedral.
The next minutes passed in more butchery as Zeraga and his companions dispatched the rest of the faces and tongue-tentacles. By the time they were done, the silence of the grave hung over the adytum, broken only by the crackling of hellfire. The eyes of the statue of Ira-Xul-Gar had gone out, and the flesh-scape unraveled, yielding to darkened stone as the adytum was returned to its previous state. Lucidity came upon Zeraga, and his body returned to its normal size and appearance as it was released from the grip of the blood-rage.
If I didn’t know any better, Churvômbhel said with a chuckle, I would say that we just walked into a trap.
Indeed. Zeraga replied mirthlessly. But, now that we have defeated it, which way do we go now? As he posed the question, déjà vu swept over him and ushered forth a memory.
*
The fulminating, shrieking reports of inferno rifles tore through the air, interspersed with the battle cries of the Crimson Dragons. At the center of the infernal storm stood Zeraga Baal’khal, the Legion Master, hacking, slashing and burning his way through the never-ending tide of demons wrought from grime-caked bones and sloughing flesh. The Doomfire and his children fought within a tenebrous adytum, the center dominated by the looming, tripled-face statue of Ira-Xul-Gar, now partially obscured by the sanguine mist swirling and flowing around Zeraga as Hellscythe drank soul after soul.
The assignment had been simple. The archdevil Bhaaz, ruler of the tenth Hell of Nyrrakhâ and a member of the Mephistophelian League, was reported to have sent three of his legions to Phev-Phen, the third of the four Furnaces of Torment which constituted the plane of Gaar’izok’no-lok. The intelligence had further suggested that Bhaaz was cementing an alliance with the native gaadivs, a race of fiends who were neither devils nor demons but rather a breed apart from either. The Crimson Dragons, therefore, had been sent to find and crush the alliance.
Thus far, no denizens of the Thirteen Hells, nor any gaadivs, had been found after hours of searching the coiling, labyrinthine halls of the mountain fortress where Zeraga and his Crimson Dragons had been directed by the spells and invultuations of their wizards. The resulting visions were supposed to have resulted in a quick victory after the completion of interplanar translation by means of their ship, the Baalkhalizar.
Instead…
From Zeraga’s dragon-faced inferno pistol burst a fist-sized globe of superheated death that evaporated his latest foes, and Hellscythe was already in motion to clear his side again. “Slaughter them all, my children, for the glory of our Legion! For Golgotha and Asmodeus!”
The death dealing became more frenetic at Zeraga’s exhortation. The Crimson Dragons spread out, fighting to secure each of the pylons that led out of the adytum. Above each of the portals hung a bestial, horned skull, silently spectating like gods of death from on high.
There are other devils in this fortress. Hellscythe said as Zeraga strode forward.
Why weren’t we aware of them before arriving? the Doomfire snapped back.
The same reason why demons have attacked us after every landing for over a century now. The powers of Ag’graaza have taken a great interest in the doings of our legion, and I suspect that was what was obscuring our divinations.
Yes, yes. Zeraga skewered another foe with his hellfire sword. What direction are these devils located in, and can you tell which legion they are part of?
From what I can tell, they are part of the Swords of Addaduros, and we must go through the left-most pylon.
The Swords of Addaduros? Confusion dripped from Zeraga’s words. Azazel was known for being the most indolent archdevil of the Thirteen Hells, surpassing even Beelzebub, who was often seen as the patron of the sin of sloth. Why, then, would the Lord of Addaduros send a battlegroup so far from the fifth Hell? The plot has thickened…
*
“This is where we went before binding Ira-Xul-Gar,” Zeraga whispered, the last vestiges of the memory falling from his mind like a half-remembered dream. “This is one of the places you spoke of, Churvômbhel.” The adytum-turned-abattoir snapped into greater focus around Zeraga.
That it is, my lord. the kuurzanaal replied.
“We go that way.” Zeraga pointed Hellscythe at the left-most pylon.
None of the Doomfire’s companions argued, and none of them noticed as the fragmented remains of the minotaur-abominations, those who had once been the Swords of Addaduros, began to stir.
*
Zamyyr’s patrician face was fixed into a grimace as a line of crimson lightning streaked from each of his monolithic weapons of sickly, orange, rune-engraved metal, the devil tightly gripping their stout hilts of leather-wrapped dragon bone. The lightning from Zamyyr’s Axxcrudyr slammed into a skittering demon that was an aberrant hybrid of horse, crab, and vulture, sending it rocking back and making room for a swarm of ant-lizard abominations to surge forward. Zamyyr annihilated them with a scathing wave of hellfire.
The devil had scarcely had a reprieve from Arkynathos’s hinterlands since the departure of Zeraga, Maalik, and their kuurzanaals. The demonic invasions that the Doomfire and his companions were questing to find the root of had only increased in frequency and intensity. Zamyyr was sure that X’kharr and X’ghorr, those demons who had been attending Nekros’s altar before tempting Zeraga into an alliance, were contributing to the invasions. No progress could ever come of an alliance between devils and demons. And, after replaying the events that had led to Arkynathos over and over again in his mind, Zamyyr feared more and more that Zeraga would return with the dreaded Ôx’xâ upon his head. Zamyyr had purposely hidden his knowledge of the Horned Helmet of Desolation; the power it offered was just as corrupting and consuming as that of the Eternal Darkness, if not more. But, what could he, a lone devil and perhaps the last true Crimson Dragon, do?
He could do what he did best: fight.
The battle kept raging, heedless of the moment that the equerry of Zeraga Baal’khal had taken for his introspection. The horde of demons ahead multiplied, adding new bodies to the undulating, protean throng. Such multiplication was one of the few constants in Zamyyr’s eons-long life. The devil had long ago ceased to enjoy slaying the minions of chaos. The feeling that had come with triumphing over them was now ashen and bitter, a terse acknowledgement that he had aided in holding off the enemy for at least a little while longer. No wonder, then, that Xa, the Overdeity of Law, had seemed so ruthless in his desire to purge the children of the Primordial Chaos-Void.
Zamyyr’s gaze swiveled about, taking stock of the situation. The forces of Arkynathos were massed all around, motley battalions of glayruks, orcs, ogres, minotaurs, and mixed breeds of all kinds, every mortal species of Addaduros thrown into a great cauldron. Between them stood the towering stone constructs known as nemihr, animated by priceless gems containing the souls of Arkynathos’s best, and most venerable, warriors. A few hundred feet behind lay the lines of circumvallation that Arkynathos’s slaves had dug as the demonic horde had been steadily pushed back, hundreds of feet of trenches, earthen ramparts, and iron spikes occupied by squads held in reserve to cover a retreat. Thus far, such a retreat hadn’t been necessary. Zamyyr would see to it that that remained so. Flexing his grip on his weapons and drawing upon their innate power, crimson lightning screamed into existence about their blades, the red runes upon them glowing malevolently.
Ahead, one of Arkynathos’s battalions distended into a crescent amid a fit of agonized screams as a newly arrived pack of demons slammed into it. They were cavalry, resembling foes Zamyyr had fought before in only the vaguest sense. The demons’ mounts were eye-level with the largest Arkynathosian minotaurs, and they were brutal, horned hybrids of bull and wolf, their thick hides like burnished gold and etched with fiery symbols that writhed and shifted of their own volition. The riders were bestial, muscular humanoids with many-jointed legs armored in crimson scales and fair, red-tinged skin fortified by tapestries of scars. Long, straight, black horns sloped back from their distended heads; their eyes were frenzied and bloodshot; their roaring mouths revealed rows of needle-like teeth. Their clawed fists gripped cruel swords, forged in the fashion of the metallic hides of their mounts, while their left arms ended in strange, multichambered guns with barrels sculpted into the visages of screaming gargoyles. Golden, segmented cables, slick with gore, ichor, and oil, sprouted from the backs of the demons’ skulls to cascade down their shoulders and backs like dreadlocks, disappearing into the thick necks of their mounts.
Eerily, the demonic riders reminded Zamyyr of his brothers and sisters, the other Crimson Dragons. Bile rose in the devil’s throat at the notion that their souls had been trapped in the Primordial Chaos-Void and sent back for this very purpose. Fate had a way of being cruel in that strange, temporal way. It was a predator that could wait for millennia before finally striking.
Using his disgust and bewilderment to stoke his hatred, Zamyyr spread his wings and flew to the aid of the Arkynathosian battalion ahead, hellfire joining the crimson lighting about his Axxcrudyr. Six of the demonic riders raised their guns, and the weapons coughed as they spat leaden death at Zamyyr. The rest of the demons cleaved and shot at the soldiers of Arkynathos directly in front of them, turning them into heaps of broken bones and gore-weeping flesh.
Torrents of fire and lightning from Zamyyr’s weapons annihilated the demons’ bullets before they could hit him. He crashed down in front of his foes a moment later, his Axxcrudyr already in motion, their runes shining balefully with sanguine light. One of the weapons took a demonic rider in the chest, throwing him from his mount with a wet, sickening crack. Zamyyr’s other weapon turned aside a sword strike before darting forward to parry another.
The cavaliers of Ag’graaza consolidated around Zamyyr, unleashing a barrage of crushing hooves, sweeping blades, and hot lead upon the devil. Agony wracked him as blow after blow pierced his armor and opened new wounds upon his flesh, and he was driven back step by step, desperation rising within him. Sweeping his left Axxcrudyr up like a maestro demanding a crescendo from his orchestra, Zamyyr conjured a dome of hellfire and crimson lightning woven together. The sorcerous barrier crackled and shuddered under the force of the demons’ next attacks, and the runes upon Zamyyr’s weapons glowed brighter as he demanded more power from them. The sheer radiance and might of what Zamyyr had created would have overloaded the senses of a mortal nine times over, but, as the dome shuddered and crackled again, Zamyyr also knew that his defense couldn’t, wouldn’t, last forever. He had bought himself a few breaths, nothing more.
The devil tapped into his innate sorcerous powers. Red, orange, and white light blanketed the battlefield as Zamyyr supercharged his dome, the eldritch construct shimmering, seething, and snarling, glowing with greater ardor.
And then, Zamyyr detonated it.
The next moments passed languidly, distended by the sheer enormity of what had been done. The hellfire and lightning reared up like a thousand-year-old dragon rising from its slumber before screaming its fury indiscriminately. Amid the apocalyptic blast, Zamyyr could barely make out the outlines of friend and foe being erased.
It felt as though more than a cycle had passed before the fire and lightning finally dissipated, and afterimages of the dead still danced in Zamyyr’s vision. For more than a hundred feet all around, the ground was blanketed in ash and dust, bones ground to sand, vital fluids evaporated to wispy vapors.
Zamyyr lowered his Axxcrudyr into a crossed guard, and his gaze swiveled about. The nearest clashes were some one hundred and fifty feet away, the lines of battle shifting to and fro in a vicious tug of war, seeming to shun Zamyyr as though he were a leper. The devil scanned the scene for any portions of the battle line that threatened to burst back toward the lines of circumvallation, and he was grimly thankful when he found none. The choice of his next conflict was his and his alone.
The pounding of hooves from straight ahead snatched the devil’s attention, and his heart skipped a beat; had more of the demonic riders come? Zamyyr’s eyes widened. The newcomers were not demons at all. A cluster of kuurzanaals galloped toward Zamyyr, sparks and embers flying from them with every stride. Upon the back of each fiendish horse was mounted an armored devil, and one of the riders gripped a pike from which hung a banner depicting a crossed fang and sword, both dripping blood, on a field of burnt sienna.
“No…” Zamyyr whispered, “No!” The Fangs of Azazel had found Arkynathos, inevitably in search of Zeraga.
Rays of superheated death screamed from the inferno rifles of the arriving devils. The next verse in the song of war began.
*
The adytum was no longer in sight, and the darkness had thickened such that it seemed as though an obsidian wall stood before Zeraga and his companions. The devil had the gut-twisting feeling that he and his party were being watched by a pair of eyes directly behind them, but, cloaked in the same blackness as everything else, there was no way to know. Zeraga’s devil-sight could not pierce the unyielding gloom, and the glow of the natural hellfire about Churvômbhel and Drahligar was gray, dull, nigh-colorless. All Zeraga and his companions could do was continue walking forward, knowing not whether they drew closer to the Horned Helmet of Desolation or their final doom.
Suddenly, soundlessly, a wall of phosphorescent flames, purple, blue, and green, appeared before the Doomfire and his companions.
What sorcery is this? Zeraga snapped.
That of Qeyy’phon Nyxaria, a demon lord. Hellscythe replied. I had an inkling that the Cat-Queen had involved herself in our affairs when I caught sight of the demon sent to assassinate you, but now there is no doubt. The only question that remains is if she has made a pact with Charaezohar’en.
On the bright side, Churvômbhel said, at least that means there will be more demons to kill, more souls to drink, all of that, right?
The question went unanswered. Zeraga was caught by the spine-gripping feeling that he was, somehow, expected. The flames parted to reveal a corridor of rich, brown loam and walls of shifting green fungus. The sight reminded the Doomfire of the Web of Oubliettes, and he would not have been surprised to learn that Razzatha’ar was plotting his vengeance, too. Sharp cracks split the air as Zeraga conjured a sword and shield of hellfire, bathing his surroundings in orange-white radiance. He then felt new vigor worming its way into his flesh. Without looking, he knew that his homunculus had sensed his unease and was lending him aid in anticipation of the coming battle. Maalik, too, had brandished his battle-blade of fiery, orange metal.
Zeraga and his companions advanced into the verdant corridor single-file, Zeraga at the front, followed by Maalik, and then by the kuurzanaals. The homunculus hovered over Drahligar. They passed by the purple, blue, and green flames, which disappeared, and the corridor opened like a blooming flower. Ahead lay a primeval forest of age-thick trees with gnarled, twisted branches; bushes bristling with thorns; and curtains of moss. Snarls, growls, and other bestial chatter could be heard all around. Through the small gaps in the canopy, spots of a sky perpetually in thrall to twilight could be seen. The light emanating from Zeraga and his companions cut into the darkness like dawn on the horizon.
By instinct, Zeraga knew the forest to be Malphaxas, the second Hell of Nyrrakhâ, yet a gnawing feeling told him that he and his companions had not truly entered Geryon’s domain, merely a fabrication, which begged the question: where were they? Zeraga was sure that he and his companions were no longer on Addaduros, but the Doomfire could not say that the forest before him was part of the cathedral either, not with a demon besides those of Ôx’xâ at work. Knowing that further ruminations would bear no fruit, Zeraga led his companions into the forest.
The shadows around them shifted frenetically, mercurially, giving the suggestion of running or flying, and Zeraga was sure that he had seen pairs of sinister, red eyes, all too common in the Thirteen Hells, glaring at his party as they passed by. The Doomfire set his face in a mask of grim resolve as he flexed his grip on Hellscythe. Let whatever foes lurked in the forest come. They would fall before Hellscythe’s blade. Their souls would feed Hellscythe’s hunger.
Yes. Hellscythe said, stoking the embers of hate within its wielder. Yes…
Off in the distance, Zeraga and his companions caught glimpses of actinic, green light spearing through the overgrowth ahead, and the skin on Zeraga’s neck started crawling as the feeling of being watched intensified. The devil swiveled his gaze about. The shadows stopped shifting.
Is something the matter, Lord Zeraga? Churvômbhel asked.
This forest is just… strange. Zeraga replied. Hellscythe, can you sense any other souls around us? The devil’s voice turned sibilant, bestial, hungry.
No. the weapon replied. I feel the same obfuscating magics that keep me from sensing Ôx’xâ.
Lovely. Zeraga’s voice was almost venomous now. Were it that he and his companions were in a place where the foes were more clearly seen and the task more straight-forward, like the Forsaken Slaughterfields of Tartarus. Or even the surface of Addaduros.
Closing the distance to the green light was slow, grueling working that saw Zeraga and his companions hacking, pounding, and burning away branches, bushes, and roots with every stride; the forest opposed those invading it by virtue of its existence. All the while, the light brightened, creating a path through the wood and the gloom.
The travelers eventually came to a clearing bathed in green effulgence that melted away the surrounding twilight. At the center stood a senescent tree, as thick as an archdevil’s throne was wide. The verdant phosphorescence came from the great swathes of glowing moss upon the tree, a lone beacon at the heart of the forest. In front of the tree, seeming ethereal in the unrelenting, lurid light, stood a heavy-set man, clad in spiked iron pauldrons, an iron breastplate, and a belt of skulls. Six ram-like horns crowned his bald head, and his legs were goat-like, covered in shaggy, gray hair and ending in thick, cloven hooves. Four bat-like wings extended from his shoulders, their crowning talons framing his head. The fiend’s tail was a green-scaled serpent with patterns of black diamonds that seemed to freely float in the light like a panoply of tiny kites. The serpent’s head was nigh-invisible save for a pair of perfervid, hypnotic yellow eyes. In his right hand, the fiend held a stout, almost brutish, iron warhammer with an inverted pentagram upon its head. The pentagram would normally have been crimson but was instead a bituminous shade in the light as the red and green clashed. The fiend’s left hand held a circular iron shield of the same make with a much larger pentagram emblazoned upon it.
Zeraga’s jaw dropped, and he glared with unfettered hatred at the other devil, all other thoughts gone from his mind. “Asmodeus.”
“Indeed.” The archdevil’s voice was rich and beckoning. “You did not think that you could hide from me forever, did you?”
“You will pay for the mistake of following me with your life.” Zeraga stalked toward Asmodeus, raising Hellscythe to strike.
“Must this end in violence, Zeraga?”
Zeraga’s mouth widened into a wicked grin. “Yes.”
As the Doomfire took his last stride toward his foe, the crimson pall of the blood-rage fell upon his mind like a curtain of lead, and his flesh began to writhe, shift, and grow with the vigor granted by Hellscythe. Zeraga’s companions spread out about the perimeter of the clearing, making space for the battle to come.
The next moment saw Hellscythe’s blade bursting into flames as it descended upon Asmodeus. “Slaughter!” Zeraga screamed.
Asmodeus blocked with his shield, and crimson lightning fulminated into existence about his hammer as he swung it. Zeraga’s black sword was already in motion. The unlight of the Eternal Darkness clashed with the hammer of the Lord of Golgotha and sheered though it, the crimson lightning about the weapon unraveling as the head dropped to the ground with a dull thud. Zeraga’s grin widened as he powered his hellfire sword toward Asmodeus’s chest.
The archdevil darted out of the way; Zeraga’s hellfire sword snarled as it met only open air. Then, Asmodeus swept his arm up. Nine shadows manifested in a circle around Zeraga, and each one formed into a gargoyle-like devil bearing weapons and armor of black metal and red runes, the Doombringers of Asmodeus.
A primal scream boomed from Zeraga’s mouth as he called upon his hellfire, sending hot knives coursing through his engorged veins. A fulmination followed as orange-white flames flared into existence about one of his right hands; they rapidly entwined and lengthened into a scourge with nine thongs. Zeraga sent the weapon into motion with a powerful sweep of his arm.
The Doombringers spread their wings and leaped back. Zeraga’s companions were already charging. “For the glory of the Legion!” Churvômbhel cried. The kuurzanaal was the first to close the distance, breathing hellfire upon the nearest foes. The runes upon the Doombringers’ armor glowed like glistening blood, and the enchantments within repulsed the hellfire. Braying, Churvômbhel cannoned his hooves toward the Doombringer in front of him.
Drahligar cut into the left of the Doombringers’ formation, immediately overrunning one of the devils and crushing their skull beneath his hooves, bringing forth a guttural cry of agony. Three of the other Doombringers whirled around and snapped their weapons toward Drahligar, crimson lightning snarling into existence about their blades. Drahligar twisted out of the way of one strike and repulsed the other two with a torrent of hellfire. The next verse in the melee then began.
Maalik was the last to arrive, pushed forward by Zeraga’s wrathful instincts and the eldritch exhortations of the homunculus. The reanimated glayruk raised his battle-blade, and metal screeched as he bisected one of the Doombringers shoulder to waist. Strangely, no gore flowed, only ropes of inky, purple-black shadows. Maalik took no notice of the phenomenon; he was already swinging at his next foe.
“You see, Zeraga?” Asmodeus said, grinning. “Now, we have a fair fight.” What remained of the archdevil’s hammer started bubbling, and then it was growing, regenerating completely in the blink of an eye.
“That changes nothing,” Zeraga hissed, “You will still die.” Lunging, the Doomfire swung Hellscythe and his black sword.
A torrent of hellfire screamed from Asmodeus’s hammer and washed over Zeraga, leaving blackened patches upon his flesh. What little pain he felt came through as a distant, blunted needling. Hellscythe and the black sword continued on their arcs, and Zeraga threw his hellfire weapons into the fray, the crimson pall upon his mind thickening.
Asmodeus disappeared in a burst of shadows before the wrathful barrage could hit home. Barking in frustration, Zeraga whirled around only to find that his foe wasn’t anywhere in the clearing. He saw only the undulating press of black, orange, and red that was the surrounding melee.
“Coward,” Zeraga snarled.
Laughter, baritone, sinister, and seemingly disembodied, came from all around, at which point excruciation tore through Zeraga’s blood-rage and wracked every fiber of the devil’s body. A howl burst from his mouth as he fell to his knees, his hellfire weapons snapping out of existence, his black sword shuddering and wavering. Desperately, Zeraga tried to rise. He couldn’t. White clawed at the edges of his vision.
Churvômbhel and Drahligar forced their way through the remaining Doombringers to get to their lord’s side, propelled by the magical flight inherent to their kind. The homunculus stretched its arms toward Zeraga and sent streams of crimson energy flowing into him; they looked like liquid rust in the ambient light. And Maalik continued fighting the Doombringers, his arms rising and falling, his battered flesh not yielding to wounds that should have killed him nine times over.
Zeraga felt a small measure of succor from the homunculus’s energy, like a balm upon a raging infection. Torment still unrelentingly stabbed the devil’s flesh, and his vision was now completely white from agony. He screamed again. Slowly, the white yielded to memory fragments from the depths of Zeraga’s mind. This was not the first time Asmodeus had tortured him. Together, the fragments formed a horrific tableau of a bleeding Zeraga prostrating himself before a triumphant Asmodeus, his serpent-tail lapping up the gore on the floor. Dozens, hundreds, thousands of times.
And yet, Hellscythe said, you allow that subjugation to happen again while I sustain and strengthen you with my might?
No. The word came as a low rasp from that abyssal, primal part of Zeraga’s mind. “No!” he cried. Planting Hellscythe in the ground, the Doomfire forced himself to rise.
Lord, behind you! Churvômbhel called.
The blinding white had just started to recede from Zeraga’s vision; he couldn’t hope to move fast enough. All Zeraga heard was the roar of an inferno, and the excruciation rushed back into him, intensified ninefold. He fell back to his knees, Asmodeus’s mocking laughter enrobing him.
*
Spiritgorger grinned. Had he been merely a beast, he would have been slavering. Zeraga’s torment was so exquisitely tantalizing, and it took all of the demon’s willpower to keep him from pouncing and devouring the Doomfire’s soul right then and there. From Arvani’s memories, as well as Zeraga’s own recent displays of combat, Spiritgorger knew better than to attack while the devil’s allies were so close, especially the traitor Apollyon. Instead, Spiritgorger toyed with the Doomfire. Many thousands of years and countless souls had allowed the demon to develop powers beyond many of the wizards of his kind, and rare were the times when he was able to exercise anything approaching the full extent of those powers; Qeyy’phon Nyxaria demanded that he complete his missions as quickly and efficiently as possible.
In that regard, this mission was different. Zeraga Baal’khal was a quarry unlike any other, and, in many ways, similar to Spiritgorger himself, with the most prominent being that their souls were of a composite nature. Every soul devoured by Spiritgorger had its will and might added to the egregore that was the demon’s consciousness; Zeraga’s soul contained four hundred and thirty-one distinct parts. Four hundred and twenty-eight of those parts were the devil’s incarnations. The other three belonged to archdevils of the Thirteen Hells: Asmodeus of Golgotha, Zaryolah of Dis, and Satan of Pandemonium.
Each passing moment gave Spiritgorger more flashes of memory from the infernal aggregate. Not slaying Zeraga became ever more taxing; Spiritgorger reminded himself again of his current task: subdue the Doomfire long enough for Charaezohar’en and the other eight demons of Ôx’xâ to prepare for their inevitable battle with him as they emerged into freedom.
Drawing up more of his sorcerous power, Spiritgorger sent a fresh wave of excruciation coursing into Zeraga, smiling with malevolent glee. As it was written in Zeraga’s tomb, the damned of the Thirteen Hells had no reason to envy the Doomfire. No, no reason at all.
*
Had it been only a moment? Or a cycle? Or a year? Zeraga did not know. There was neither a beginning nor an end, just a shimmering, oppressive white that blocked out all else, at once ephemeral and permanent. Zeraga couldn’t feel pain anymore. He was isolated from his own flesh and marooned in his mind, his last sanctuary. He knew he couldn’t stay there. But, how was he to find a way out?
“Zeraga.” It was the voice of Sha’eryzhura, purring, beckoning, soothing.
Zeraga’s gaze swiveled about, trying to pinpoint the source of his beloved’s voice, hoping beyond hope that he wasn’t being deceived for a third time. For a moment, there was still only unrelenting white. Then, off in the distance, like a speck on the horizon, Zeraga saw a form. He was running before he knew it; he didn’t know how he was running. The form became larger and more distinct, and Zeraga’s vision sharpened. There was no denying what he saw.
Made radiant by the field of white, there stood Sha’eryzhura, her voluptuous form enrobed in a luxurious, red gown. Her dimpled cheeks framed an inviting smile. Her scarlet eyes shone with passion. Zeraga ran faster, closing the distance to her with stride after ground-eating stride. His jaw dropped as he took his last step. The mere sight of his lover’s beauty filled him with hope and joy. In this moment, all was right.
“Sha?” Zeraga whispered, “Is it really you?”
The Fire-Bride smiled and giggled. “Let’s get you out of here.” She turned around and started walking away.
His gaze glued to her gently bouncing blonde hair and swaying hips, Zeraga followed. Sha’eryzhura eventually stopped in front of a door. It was a rectangular, stone slab outlined by a seam, as though it were part of a larger wall that wasn’t there. Line after line of glowing, vermilion runes, stout, blocky, and angular, undeniably Nyrrakhân, were carved upon it.
“This is the door of my tomb on Golgotha,” Zeraga said, “Have I died? Am I about to lose all that I have fought for?”
“Do you think that I would lead you to your doom, beloved?” Sha’eryzhura replied. Gently, she kissed Zeraga’s cheek, sending a shudder down his spine as her lips brushed against his skin.
Zeraga laid his hand on Sha’eryzhura’s arm. “Please. I just need to know that you are real.”
The Fire-Bride smiled. “Hopefully, this will be proof enough.”
Leaning forward, Sha’eryzhura planted her lips on Zeraga’s, kissing him for a long, passionate moment. The devil moaned as he found his knees shaking and his posture melting, and he gasped as his lover pulled away.
“Was that real enough for you?” Sha’eryzhura asked with a smirk and a chuckle as she planted her right hand on her hip.
“Yes.” Zeraga nodded and took a deep breath to regain his composure.
“Good. Open the door.”
Zeraga nodded again as he reached out and touched the seam that separated the door from the white all around. A loud click came from a hidden, internal mechanism, at which point the door started opening inward with a coarse, grinding sound, revealing a tenebrous pall beyond.
“After you,” Sha’eryzhura said, gesturing toward the darkness.
“You are coming though, right?” Zeraga replied.
“Of course I am, beloved.”
A chunk of lead formed in Zeraga’s gut as he passed through the portal. Quickly, too quickly, the door slammed shut behind him. He glanced over his shoulder and saw his fear manifest: Sha’eryzhura wasn’t there. Once again, he had been tricked.
Growling in frustration, Zeraga turned his gaze back around. He stood within a rectangular room, about twenty feet wide by thirty feet long. The walls, floor, and ceiling, all made of eroded stone, were webbed with cracks and smeared with dried gore, much of it crusted to a rust-like color. Runes could be seen amid the bleak tableau; many of them were only half-there, and none of them glowed like those upon the door. At the center of the room stood a dilapidated stone throne adorned with a fragmented bas relief of a memento mori pattern. A senescent man with tight, sallow skin and dark circles around his eyes sat upon the throne, and he wore a tatterdemalion robe. In his right hand, he grasped a long, needle-like quill; both hand and quill were constantly in motion, a single scratch at a time, as he wrote in a large, leatherbound tome floating in front of him.
The scratching stopped as the man turned his gaze upon Zeraga. “It has been quite some time since last we met, Doomfire.” His voice was low, rasping, wan.
“Who are you?” Reflexively, Zeraga stepped back. “Where am I?”
The scribe’s chuckle sent him into a fit of coughing. He took a deep breath to recover himself. “I should have expected this.” His lips, resembling the yellowed, crackling parchment of his book, curled into a smile. “You never remember me.” He chuckled again, more restrained than before. “My name is Mirin Nivisar, and we are in the Eternal Darkness.”
Zeraga’s face twisted into an expression of confusion, and he blinked his eyes. Neither the room nor the scribe changed. “I do not see how it is possible that we are in Ur-Dûr-Valatî. My companions and I had entered the cathedral of Ôx’xâ where we fought through hordes of demons before coming into a strange forest. I know not where in the multiverse that forest is, but it is there were my physical body is being tormented…” Zeraga’s voice trailed off as he tried to make sense of it, wishing in vain that he could just tap his feet together three times and be back where he had been, where he was supposed to be. “You have to be either a memory or a figment of my imagination.”
“Few have seen as much of the multiverse as you, Doomfire. In your hundreds of lives, you have seen worlds rise and fall. You have been to planes wrought from life and death. You have seen the paradoxical infinities reconciled within the Primordial Chaos-Void of Ag’graaza. Is it really so hard for you to believe, then, that perhaps, what you are experiencing is a memory while what I am experiencing is reality?”
“Does it matter?” Zeraga shook his head in frustration. “I need to find a way to end my torment, to slay Asmodeus and claim Ôx’xâ. Can you help me with that?”
“Every time we have met, you have been restless and impatient.” Mirin chuckled like a father amused by his overeager child. “Always wanting to be anywhere other than here.”
“Can you help me or not?”
A long moment of silence passed between Zeraga and the senescent scribe. Finally, Mirin answered, “Yes. I can help you, but only if you give me something first.”
“What have I to give to you?” Zeraga laughed sardonically. “I am not even a physical being right now. For all I know, I’m finally giving in to insanity, or death.”
“Oh, no.” Mirin echoed Zeraga’s laugh. “Your will is much too strong for either of those; it is partially for that reason that you cannot permanently die. As for what I want, I want your blood. It is what has sustained me through this inexorable legion of millennia.
“You see, the Eternal Darkness is home to a pantheon of death gods known as the Ix’raggax, and I am their scribe, tasked with recording every death in the multiverse by name, cause, and the plane to which the souls go.” Mirin paused, smiling. “The Thirteen Hells have done very well for themselves.”
“That also means that you have recorded each of my deaths.”
Mirin nodded. “All four hundred and twenty-seven of them.”
The possibilities of what that knowledge could be used for flashed through Zeraga’s mind. Hungrily, the devil stepped closer to Mirin and his book.
The scribe held up a warding finger. “Not so fast. As I have said, I will help you, but only if you give me some of your blood.”
“Fine.” The word rushed out of Zeraga’s mouth, and he closed the distance to Mirin. “What must we do?”
The scribe’s tongue, black as night, slid across his sere lips. “Hold out your arm.”
Zeraga obeyed, at which point a serrated, bone knife appeared in Mirin’s hand. The scribe set the point at the beginning of Zeraga’s forearm, where it met the elbow, and dragged the knife along the devil’s skin, opening a long, thin gash from which beads of blood oozed. Opening his mouth and lowering it to the cut, Mirin began to drink. His fetid breath grated against Zeraga’s skin while the chill of death slithered through his flesh. With each sickening slurp, vitality returned to Mirin’s skin until it was a fair, red-tinged tone not unlike Zeraga’s own. Only then did he pull away, licking the last droplets of blood from lips that were now a healthy pink with a tongue that was still black.
A sigh of relief slid out of Mirin’s mouth. “It has been too long. Too long, indeed.” His voice was now as rich and vibrant as his body.
“And now you’ll help me,” Zeraga replied flatly.
The scribe chuckled. “Yes. Ask your questions, and I shall answer.”
“Were you the one who created the figment of Sha’eryzhura to bring me here?”
“I know nothing of how you came here, only that you are here now.”
“Have you written of her in your book?” Zeraga’s voice quickened, his tone becoming urgent, impassioned.
“I have.” Mirin nodded. “The death of one of the Fire-Brides of Pandemonium is a rare and momentous occasion that does not go unnoticed.”
Zeraga’s throat went dry as all of his hopes for his beloved shattered. His posture wilted. “How did she die?” he whispered.
“She heard of the final fate of the Crimson Dragons, how you were slain by Ahriman and the rest of your children were butchered on Ag’graaza. Driven mad with grief, she gathered her two closest sisters and sought a reckoning with the First Demon. You know what happens next.”
Zeraga’s hands clenched into fists, and his body started shaking. “Sha’eryzhura didn’t come with us to Ag’graaza.”
“I cannot say.” Mirin shrugged. “I only record deaths.”
In his heart, Zeraga knew the truth. Sha’eryzhura had been absent, and he could not help but wonder if events would have turned out differently if she had been there.
“Would you like to know the fates of your previous lives?” Mirin asked.
The word “Yes” almost sprinted out of Zeraga’s mouth, but he stopped himself. For as much as he wanted to know, there was no telling how much time was passing for his physical body and his companions while he lingered in this place that he still wasn’t sure was real. That led to another notion: if Asmodeus was responsible for the torment which had brought him here, was the archdevil somehow responsible for creating this place and luring him to it with a figment of his lover?
“I need to leave this place,” Zeraga said.
“Very well,” Mirin replied, “You need only go back through the door from which you came.”
Zeraga was not sure how such a thing could be possible, but this place had already defied his notions of what reality was supposed to be, and he was not about to prolong his time in it by asking more questions. Turning away from Mirin, the devil stepped toward the door.
“I do have one last thing to tell you before you leave,” the scribe said.
Zeraga paused but didn’t look back.
“We will meet again,” Mirin continued, “You will come to the Eternal Darkness, and you will find me. You will ask me for that which you refused only a few moments prior. When you do, my price will be much higher.”
Zeraga gave no reply, instead pushing on the door. The hidden, internal mechanism emitted a loud click, and the door opened outward with a coarse, grinding sound. There was only darkness beyond, thick and unrelenting. As Zeraga passed through the door, it closed and locked behind him, seemingly of its own volition. Despite himself, Zeraga looked back over his shoulder.
The door was gone. He was nowhere. Perishing any notions about the nature of oblivion, the Doomfire walked deeper into the darkness. It felt as though he were descending a staircase. When he caught sight of a scintillating, green light off in the distance, he started running as though his life depended on it, trying not to think about the fact that it probably did.
*
A riot of greens flooded into Zeraga’s vision, and he could faintly feel the pulsing of aches and pains as the sinews of his flesh writhed, his consciousness dawning with awareness of the present. In what was both an eternity and an instant, everything snapped into focus around Zeraga. He flexed his muscles as he rose, pleasantly surprised that the dull aches and pains remained exactly that. Churvômbhel and Drahligar stood next to him, and the homunculus hovered a few hand lengths behind. Maalik stood directly in front of Zeraga, his battle-blade brandished.
Asmodeus stood in front of the monolithic, senescent tree, enrobed in the light emanating from the moss behind. His posture was relaxed, and his mouth was turned up in a casual smile, as though he were waiting for a cup of wine rather than the rising of Zeraga Baal’khal, the Doomfire.
Zeraga’s face twisted into a baleful scowl as he hefted Hellscythe, glad to feel its familiar weight in his hand. “You are going to die.”
“Are you really going to start this again, Zeraga?” Asmodeus asked, his voice laced with the amusement of a father watching his child repeat a familiar mistake. “After everything I have done for you?”
Wrathful instinct sent Zeraga hurtling forward, screaming, “Slaughter!” as the red pall of the blood-rage fell upon his mind. The next moment saw him hacking at Asmodeus with Hellscythe, infernal flames exploding into existence about the weapon’s blade. Asmodeus blocked with his shield; Zeraga’s black sword was already in motion; Asmodeus sidestepped. Orange and white light enrobed the combatants as Zeraga conjured a hellfire sword. A moment later, Asmodeus’s hammer slammed into Zeraga’s side with meteoric force, sending him staggering back as crimson lightning raked the Doomfire’s flesh, leaving no part of his body untouched by the thundering, searing pain.
Zeraga recovered his footing and telepathically commanded his companions to attack. Churvômbhel and Drahligar charged; Maalik was a mere stride behind. By the time they closed the distance, the kuurzanaals’ fiery forehooves rising, Asmodeus disappeared, replaced by a churning mass of darkness shot through with heatless, soundless flames of purple, blue, and green. Zeraga howled with unsated fury, and the blood-rage left him, replacing his unfettered hatred with smoldering frustration.
This isn’t like Asmodeus. Zeraga said. As he spoke the words, the same gnawing feeling that told him the surrounding forest was not Malphaxas returned, stronger than before.
No, it isn’t. Hellscythe agreed. That wasn’t Asmodeus at all, merely another deception.
Do you think we are still in the cathedral?
Hellscythe gave the telepathic equivalent of shaking its head. The glowing tree tells me that we are in the forest known as Ix-Karg-Nhar, another part of Ag’graaza.
But you can teleport us back to the cathedral, right? Zeraga asked.
No. Hellscythe said. Teleporting all five of us is difficult as it is, and the power of chaos obscures the cathedral. Any teleportation I attempt will be thrown off.
Still, we should be able to get back to the cathedral from here, given that it partially exists in Ag’graaza and partially in Addaduros. Zeraga reasoned.
Ideally, yes. Keep the image of Ôx’xâ at the forefront of your mind and start walking.
Zeraga nodded and turned his attention to his companions. You all heard that, right?
Indeed. Churvômbhel said, speaking for everyone. Lead on, Lord Zeraga.
Conjuring a mental image of the black, horned barbute that was Ôx’xâ, the Horned Helmet of Desolation, Zeraga Baal’khal started walking out of the clearing.
The End
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Next Chapter: Machinations
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