The Divided Knight - Chapter Thirty

“The markings on your sword are remarkable. I haven't seen anything like them in a very long time.”

The voice woke Thaddeus from the most peaceful, dreamless sleep he'd had in longer than he could remember. Opening his eyes and sitting up, he found he was still in Aylander's family shrine. A faint, bluish light – not unlike the light which had filled his dungeon cell back when this had all started – lit the room, showing him Zoe still fast asleep where she'd lain beside Thaddeus after they'd made love. It also showed him his sword, suspended in the air in the middle of the room, the runes etched into its surface glowing with the same light that, it seemed, they were the source of. But were they? The sense of raw, untempered magic in the air that Thaddeus felt was so intense, it amazed him that it didn't tear him apart. How can Zoe sleep through that?

“She sleeps because I wish it,” the voice that had awoken Thaddeus said. It was a man's voice, his words calm, yet full of power. “My words are for your ears, alone.”

“Who are you?” Thaddeus asked. “Why can't I see you?”

“You cannot see me because I cannot yet manifest physically in your world. As for who I am, it surprises me that you have not yet reasoned that out for yourself. I am Adarion, the last survivor of the Divine Council. To you, I am one of those you would name Gods Above.”

Thaddeus had to force down a sudden urge to prostrate himself. He was being addressed by a god? Something about it made sense, though – how many other impossible things had already happened to him, after all? If it were true, however, why didn't Adarion want Zoe awake? Wasn't she his priestess? Why would what he had to say be only for Thaddeus?

“You have an inquisitive mind, Thaddeus,” Adarion said. “At least, you do now that you are whole. Before, your mental faculties were, shall we say, somewhat lacking.”

“Well,” Thaddeus said, trying to keep the insult he felt out of his voice, “I wasn't myself back then, was I?”

“Indeed.” Adarion sounded amused.

“What did you want to tell me?”

“Part of it, because of the changes I sense have been made to your sword, it seems I no longer need say. The rest of it, though, you, and you alone, must hear. If you are to become what you need to become, I must be freed. I must be able to once again manifest physically in your world. However, the only way I can be freed is if the Sundered Halls are also opened, which will once again unleash the Demon Lords on creation. Many will suffer if I am freed, but many more will suffer if I am not. Just as so many have suffered since the Divine Council fell and the last of the Nightslayers perished.”

“Solanas could have freed you, couldn't he?”

“Yes, but as you know, he did not. Faced with the consequences of freeing me, he walked away, condemning himself to a life of loneliness and regret. I understand why he couldn't do it, of course, and I do not judge him, but imagine what he would have become had he taken that last leap of faith. Order could have been restored after eons of chaos and division, and the Divine Council itself might have eventually been reformed. All of that can still happen, provided you do what Solanas couldn't.”

“And what happens if Atraxos frees you before I can?”

Adarion didn't answer right away. “Atraxos the Black is of no consequence,” he said at last. “The Hidden King will slay him the moment the Sundered Halls are opened. However, if you are not there, at that same instant, the Hidden King will also slay me. I am no longer powerful enough to face him alone, or to reseal the Sundered Halls once they are opened. If you do not find my Amulet first – my Amulet which, in truth, is nothing more than a key – or, if you are not there within moments of Atraxos finding it, then there will never be another Nightslayer, and the Demon Lords will at last hold sway over the cosmos. They will become the new Divine Council, and there will be nothing but chaos until the end of time.”

“I could stop Atraxos from finding the Amulet,” Thaddeus said. “I can still kill him before he even gets close. And then I could just walk away.”

“You know how false that is, Thaddeus. Even as powerful as you've become, without becoming the Nightslayer you could never kill Atraxos as he is, now. He may not be one of the Demon Lords – which he is not, despite his beliefs to the contrary – but he is still more powerful, now, than he has ever been. As you are, Thaddeus, all you could hope to do is kill Atraxos's host body, and, this time, there would be no prison to lock his essence away. He would find someone else to possess. And that someone might even be you.”

“I have to become the Nightslayer, then.”

“You do. Now, there is something I must know. How much do you love the family you have found?”

Thaddeus frowned. Why did Adarion need to know that? And, besides that, couldn't he already tell? “They are my family,” Thaddeus said. “They are my wife, and my brother. I would do anything for them. Even if it meant dying.”

“You will not need to die for them,” Adarion said. “Not yet, anyway. But it is that drive, that single-minded drive, to do all that you can for the ones that you love that will make you embrace what needs to happen in order for you to become what it is that you must.”

“What does that mean?”

“You will know when the time comes. Until then, Thaddeus, farewell.”

There was a sudden, brilliant flash of white light, and then everything went dark as Thaddeus lost consciousness.

“You look like you didn't sleep very well,” Zoe said.

It was early the next morning – about an hour before dawn according to Aylander, who had at least had the sense to make sure Thaddeus and Zoe were decent before barging into the shrine and waking them up – and they were gathering their things together for what Thaddeus hoped was going to be the last leg of their journey. Strapping his sword to his back, Thaddeus looked at Zoe and said, “I don't?”

“No,” she said. “Bad dreams?”

In the back of his mind, Thaddeus had a sense that something had happened to him while he slept – something important – but, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't remember what. Had it been a dream? He didn't think so. But, if it hadn't been a dream, then what had it been? “To be honest, I'm not sure,” Thaddeus said. He paused, frowning. “I do remember talking to someone, though.”

“Really? About what?”

Thaddeus shook his head. “I'm not sure. The memory's fuzzy, like dreams are, sometimes, but, whatever happened, I'm almost positive that it wasn't a dream.”

They left the shrine. Not long after, they stepped out of the ruins of Aylander's family home, emerging into a predawn light that was made gray and ominous by the unending mass of clouds in the sky. A short distance away from the home, Aylander stood, hands behind his back as he looked off into the east. As Thaddeus and Zoe came up beside him, he looked at them, nodding his head slightly in greeting.

“I would think a newly married man would sleep better than it looks you did, last night, Brother,” Aylander said.

“He had troubling dreams,” Zoe said hastily, cutting Thaddeus off before he could make the remark that immediately sprang to mind. She smiled at him, and the mischief that danced in her eyes made Thaddeus wonder if she could read his thoughts. “Apparently, being in the arms of the woman he loves wasn't enough to keep his mind off of what lies ahead of us.”

Aylander gave a small smile. “Indeed.” He looked at Thaddeus. “Shall we go?”

Taking a deep breath, Thaddeus looked off to the east. There, just visible in the predawn twilight, a line of cliffs could be seen – the base of the Plateau of Leng. Closing his eyes, Thaddeus pulled the light toward him, and again came the feeling of being caught up in a wave. Almost unconsciously, he checked to be sure Zoe and Aylander came with him – they did, of course – and then, what seemed a few brief moments later, they all stopped.

It wasn't just before dawn, anymore, when Thaddeus opened his eyes. Full day had come – though, being in Eltara as they were, everything was still dull and gray – and they were no longer in the small valley that had been home to Aylander's childhood village. Instead, they stood in a hollow that had been carved halfway up the side of a jagged mountain. The hollow, Thaddeus understood, had been carved at some point in the distant past in order to make a place to hang a pair of heavy iron doors – the heavy iron doors that comprised the Gates of Eclipse. Those doors should have stood closed before them, now, but, instead, they were open. It was impossible to walk through them, however, as the path was blocked by a creature much larger than the drakes had been, but which shifted in and out of reality as they had. The creature was a wyvern, and the feeling of wrongness that radiated from it made Thaddeus feel like he wanted to vomit.

“A wyvern!” Zoe asked. “What's it doing here?”

“The better question, I think, would be why are the Gates of Eclipse already open?” Aylander said.

“Atraxos opened them,” Thaddeus said. “He got here before us.” He drew his sword. “And, somehow, this wyvern is his.”

The wyvern shrieked. Thaddeus raised his sword over his head and charged.

The Divided Knight - Chapter Twenty-Nine

Despite its being located somewhere on the Plateau of Leng, the exact location of Aldraden had been something that very few Eltarans outside those who had lived there had ever known. Before he'd contacted the Demon Lords for the first time, and thus become fixated on finding the Amulet of Adarion, Atraxos the Black had dedicated his life to learning all he could about Aldraden in the hopes of one day stepping through its gates and claiming it, and all the secrets it held, for his own. Now, as he shambled across the cold, barren, broken surface of the plateau that was supposed to be its home, Atraxos found himself growing desperate, knowing that, if he didn't find Aldraden soon, there was every likelihood he would be beaten to the chamber beyond the Gates of Eclipse and lose all chance he had of seizing the amulet whose powers would complete his ascension to godhood. And what if I find Aldraden and there's nothing there? he wondered, not for the first time, the thought followed by a wince and a furtive glance upward as something shrieked in the clouds overhead.

The shrieks had stalked Atraxos since he'd set out across the plateau. Though he had yet to see it, he figured the creature behind the shrieks was likely a wyvern, as its voice, while still that of something large, did not have the booming, roaring quality the legends associated with dragons. It puzzled Atraxos that the wyvern hadn't dropped out of the clouds to attack him – he was alone, it was a Creature of the Abyss, and all the magic in the world wouldn't be able to protect him from it. And why hadn't he felt the sense of wrongness the legends said accompanied the Creatures of the Abyss? In fact, hadn't there been a few times since he'd started walking that he'd actually felt reassured when he'd heard the wyvern's shrieks? Hadn't hearing them made him feel like he wasn't so alone?

Your soul has been touched by the Abyss, Atraxos the Black.

Atraxos froze. The voice inside his head had been sepulchral, as if death, itself, had spoken to him. Who is it that speaks to me?

I am the creature you call wyvern.

Atraxos looked up, again, but all he saw were the endless, gray clouds. You say my soul has been touched by the Abyss. Is that why you do not attack me?

Indeed it is. And I will not attack you. I will aid you, in fact, once you find the means that will allow you to touch me and harness me with your powers.

All of the legends Atraxos knew were very clear about how it was impossible to affect Creatures of the Abyss with magic. But hadn't those legends largely been crafted to frighten the people who would hear them from dabbling in things which might unleash the beings they talked about on the world, again? Why would legends like that mention that there were ways to touch Creatures of the Abyss with magic? Doing so would defeat the very purpose of their existence. What means do you speak of?

You will find it in ruins of the city you call Aldraden, which, even now, you are very close to. Though I cannot describe it to you as its properties are outside of my comprehension, you will know it when you find it. And, when you find it, I will be yours.

You will be mine? Enslaved entirely to my will?

Yes.

Then why tell me? Won't being enslaved to me rob you of your freedom?

It will, but it will also give me a purpose. No longer will I fly through these skies aimlessly, driven only by my instinct to feed.

As he listened to the wyvern's words, Atraxos slowly became aware of the ancientness of the entity that spoke them. There was something familiar about it, as well, something that reminded him very much of dealings he had had with constructs. Constructs were tied to spells cast by those who created them – the spells became, in essence, their purpose – but there had been times when those spells failed, leaving behind a mindless automaton that couldn't be destroyed and which had the potential to rampage across the countryside with nothing to stand in its way. Were the Creatures of the Abyss like that, too? Beings that had been created long ago by powers beyond imagining that, in the eons since, had lost the purposes – the spells – that they had been created to carry out? Who created you, wyvern?

Ancient and terrible beings who lived at the dawn of all creation. Even if I could remember them, your mind would not be able to comprehend any description I would give.

What purpose did they give you?

I cannot remember. Nor can any of my brethren. Though we are the last surviving of their works, our creators are forever lost to us.

Atraxos started walking, again. Overhead, the wyvern shrieked, which brought a smile to Atraxos's lips. That smile grew as, up ahead, the ruins of a city emerged from the murk that enshrouded the plateau. There was no doubt that those ruins were Aldraden, the fabled Vault above ground, the place that would give Atraxos the power to harness a creature that should have been impossible to harness and, at the same time, give him the means to overcome the meddling of Thaddeus Alvarem and his Spellbreaker whore.

Your thoughts are grandiose, Atraxos the Black. Be sure that they do not turn out to be delusions.

The words made Atraxos scowl. Of course his thoughts wouldn't turn out to be delusions. How could they? What – who – could stand in his way once a Creature of the Abyss was under his control? No one else would have the means to touch it like he could. No one.

Once he entered the ruins of Aldraden, Atraxos began to feel a tug on his magical senses. It pulled on him like a lodestone, urging him forward. Following the tug, he began to navigate the vastness of the ruins, a ball of magelight cast before him to illuminate his path. As he walked, Atraxos paid no mind to the wonders he knew lay all around him – none of them mattered, now, and he had no time to be delayed by any of them.

When at last he came to the source of the tug, Atraxos was puzzled by what he found. Wedged in a crack in one of the two walls of a room that still stood, a metal disc gleamed in the magelight. That the disc had been placed deliberately in the hope of someone finding it there could be no doubt. Atraxos probed the disc with his magic, checking it for traps, but he found nothing. The disc was his for the taking, but still he hesitated. Who had left the disc, Atraxos wondered, and why did it seem so much like it had been left specifically for him?

“What are you waiting for, Atraxos? Take it.”

The specter that spoke appeared without warning, stepping from the shadows on Atraxos's left. Atraxos recognized the specter immediately, and had to fight to keep himself from flinching reflexively away. “Solanas?”

“Yes,” the specter said. “And don't bother trying to find the spell that's casting me. I masked it, and it will self-terminate as soon as you take the disc.”

Atraxos hadn't sensed anything before the specter's appearance, so it had to be true that the spell casting it was masked. Only that shouldn't have mattered. Atraxos was one with the Demon Lords, now, and it should have been impossible for anything magical to be hidden from him. Unless the Hidden King lied to me. “Why do you want me to take the disc?” Atraxos asked.

“Who says I do?” Solanas asked. “That disc will give you the ability to harness a Creature of the Abyss, which, quite frankly, is a power no one should be allowed to possess. Look at me, though. I'm just a specter cast by a spell. Nothing I could do would be able to stop you from taking it.”

“You were the one that left it there, though. I know you were!”

It was a long time before Solanas spoke again. “Perhaps I was,” he said at last. There was a sudden, icy gust of wind, and, for an instant, Solanas's spectral form seemed to waver like smoke. “Perhaps I did leave it there, after having the Sprites make it for me. Perhaps even then I was planting the seeds of my redemption, not knowing, but hoping – hoping – someone would come along someday and find the disc. Someone who had become so desperate to find the Amulet of Adarion that they were willing to touch a being that should never be touched.” Solanas looked at Atraxos. “Are you that desperate, Atraxos? I sense that you are. But, what if I were to tell you there was another way? What if I told you there was a way to get to the Amulet without using that disc? What if I told you you could get to the Amulet without it costing whatever is left of your soul?”

“There's nothing left of my soul, Solanas,” Atraxos said. “You should know that better than anyone. Besides, even if there was some small part of it that could still be saved, why would using that disc endanger it? That disc will make me immune to the wyvern's touch.”

“That's where you're wrong, Atraxos. All that disc will do is allow you to touch the wyvern with your magic. Yes, you'll control it, for a little while, but, the entire time, what's left of your soul will be eroding, feeding the wyvern just as sure as it would have if the wyvern could have taken it all at once. And you know what it will mean once it has finished feeding on you, Atraxos. Do you truly want to suffer like that? Do you truly want to go through eternity experiencing that kind of torment?”

“What do you care how much I suffer? You and I have always been enemies, Solanas. Wouldn't it please you to see me suffer? Would it not bring you joy to know that I am tormented by the nothingness of the Abyss? I find your sudden concern for my well being laughable.”

“You were a good person once, Atraxos.”

Atraxos laughed. “Good! That word means nothing to me, and I find evil to be just as meaningless. I am who I am, and the only things that have ever meant anything to me are knowledge and power. I have knowledge, and the Demon Lords have given me power, but the Amulet will give me the power of a god. I will take that power by any means available to me, and I do not fear your warnings about my soul.” He reached out with his magic and the disc leaped from the crack to his hand. A chill passed through him as his fingers made contact with the metal – as the humans put it, it felt like someone walked over his grave – but Atraxos ignored it as he grinned at Solanas. “Do you have anything else to say, old friend?”

Solanas's specter began to fade away. “You should have listened to me,” he said, the words a whisper that drifted away on the wind.

For a time, Atraxos stared at the empty place where Solanas's specter had been, realizing as he did so that, with the specter now gone, he was unlikely ever to see his old enemy, again. Knowing that Solanas was gone, that Atraxos would never again have to deal with the man's schemes – which had always been more formidable than facing him in combat – should have been a relief, but, instead, Atraxos felt a sense of loss. Who else but Solanas could ever pose him such a challenge? Who else but Solanas could ever prove to be such a worthy opponent? Certainly not Thaddeus Alvarem, who, despite having ascended to the level of Battlemage, could never hold a candle to the force of nature that had been Solanas the Elder.

Atraxos looked at the disc in his hand. There was nothing special about the metal it had been constructed from – simple copper – and there were no markings or runes on its surface such as there normally were on enchanted objects. There was power within it, however, power that, Atraxos sensed, only needed a slight magical nudge from the holder of the disc to be unleashed. And so Atraxos gave it that nudge.

Lightning lanced up from the disc and struck the low hanging clouds. A larger bolt then struck downward, followed by a deafening clap of thunder that knocked Atraxos off his feet and left him dazed. Pushing himself back up, Atraxos shook his head to clear it – not even aware of how normal the act was, of how little it was like the actions of someone as powerful as he believed himself to be – and looked at where the larger bolt of lighting had struck. The creature that stood there was as black as the night itself, and would have been invisible had it not been for its glowing, red eyes and the way its skin seemed to shimmer like polished obsidian. Giving its wings a single, leathery flap before folding them down against its back, the wyvern looked at Atraxos and Atraxos heard its voice in his head: I thank you, Atraxos the Black.

It was his! The wyvern was his! But where had the disc gone, and why did it seem he hadn't actually used his magic to gain control of the creature? Fool! Does any of that really matter? It's yours, and with it under your power nothing can stop you. Nothing!

Approaching the wyvern, Atraxos used his magic to mount it, and, as soon as he had, the creature shrieked and rose into the air. Once above the city, they turned east, and, though he had never been there before, Atraxos suddenly knew just how close they were to their ultimate destination. By morning, they would be at the Gates of Eclipse, and, even if Thaddeus and his witch arrived at the same time, getting through them would be child's play. As the wind whipped at him on the wyvern's back – wind that, instead of feeling bitterly cold as it had, before, now felt almost hot – Atraxos threw back his head and laughed, the wyvern shrieking along with him.