The Destroyer of Worlds (21 page)

But Ally held him back. She struck at him for her family, both adoptive and blood, but more than that lent her blows power. She fought him for Earth, for Arran’s world, for Arran and Lithon and Mary and the uncountable others who would perish if Marugon succeeded. 

She pushed him back, their battling spirits moving closer to his body. 

Marugon roared, a new desperation entering his attacks. Pincers and claws burst from his spirit, tearing and stabbing, the full force of his black magic ripping at her. But Ally endured, beating aside his attacks, striking back at him. Again and again her hand plunged deep into his chest, glowing with the white magic. 

Marugon flailed at her, trying to pierce her defenses. Ally shoved him past the bomb, to the edge of the chasm, and hurled his spirit back into his body. 

The straining magical energies exploded. 

The backlash hurled Ally back into her body. She reeled as she felt her flesh settle around her once more. The same backlash hurled Marugon backwards, sending him sliding backwards across the Great Seal, almost into the vast chasm at the Seal’s edge. For a moment Ally thought Marugon would tumble into the abyss. He grasped at the edge, groaned, and pushed himself back. He tried to sit up and fell back, shuddering in pain.

Ally swayed, the Chamber spinning around her. Exhaustion weighed her down, her bones feeling as if they had been transmuted into lead. She started to fall, and a strong hand seized her arm and kept her from falling. Arran stood besides her, Lithon holding a pair of guns. 

“Arran,” she said, blinking sweat from her eyes. She felt weak, drained to the core of her being. And she had won the spiritual fight. 

She could only imagine what defeat had done to Marugon. 

“Are you wounded?” he said. Sweat dripped down his face, his eyes hard and grim, but he seemed uninjured. 

Ally shook her head. “No, no. I’m…shaken, that’s all.” 

Arran looked to where Marugon lay twitching at the Seal’s edge. “Is he dead?”

“No,” said Ally. “Not yet, anyway. But he doesn’t matter. Watch him for me.” She broke free from him, hurried to the bomb, and flipped the lid open. A display of blinking lights stared up at her beneath four switches. The timer flashed, ticking away the seconds. Two minutes and thirty-nine seconds remained on the clock. Ally tugged at the switches and found them locked, remembering the key Marugon had hurled into the void. She thought for a second, then pried open the bomb’s control panel. A tangled nest of wires hung inside. She began tracing the wires to the timer. 

“No,” croaked Marugon. He tried to sit up and fell back to the Seal. “Stop. You must…not…” He began to mouth a spell, his fingers tracing trembling designs into the air. 

Ally turned and said a word. White light flashed over Marugon, flinging him back against the Great Seal. “It’s over.” She traced the wires to the charge that would set off the bomb, hoping radiation was not leaking through the metal. If she cut those wires, the timer would go off, but its signal would not reach the detonator. 

“Stop,” said Marugon, rolling onto one elbow. “Stop this.” He lifted one hand and tried to chant, his voice shaking. 

“You don’t have the power left to stop us,” said Ally, pulling a long knife from her belt. “It’s over, Marugon. This is finished.” She lifted the knife to the wires. 

“It is finished. So despair,” whispered Marugon. 

Ally began to saw at the wires. The time flashed one minute and fifty-nine seconds. She had to hurry. 

“Despair,” said Marugon. He began to laugh. 

“Be silent!” said Arran, stepping towards the fallen Warlock with a sword in one hand and a gun in the other.

“Destroy the bomb,” said Marugon, his voice echoing. “I care not. I may have failed, but you have lost everything. All your kin on Earth are slain. All your blood kin are slain. You have won! But it has cost you everything.” He laughed again. “What have you left? Victory has brought you naught but ashes and ruin. Despair!”

Ally blinked, staring at him, the bomb forgotten. A small corner of her mind screamed for her to turn away, to ignore his words. But she knew he was right. Her adoptive family had perished. How much blood had been spilled? The High Kingdoms were destroyed, and her home in Chicago had been burned to ashes.

She had no place to call home.

She had nothing left.

“Ignore him, it’s a trick,” said Arran, lifting his weapons, “he’s using the Voice…”

“And you two?” said Marugon. “The last Knight and the last King? King of what? Ruins and dry bones. Both your families are slain. And you, bold Knight! You are nothing more than a Ghost! Your brethren are slain. Your kin are slain. You have nothing left, either of you. You have defeated me, but you shall lie down and die.”

Arran groaned and slumped to his knees, his weapons clattering against the Seal. Ally tried to rise, but could not. Sobs choked in her throat. To what avail? They had defeated Marugon, but at lost everything. 

The bomb’s clock ticked away, unnoticed.

###

Lithon gasped, clutching his temples. 

Grief flooded through him in sickening waves. He remembered Katrina and Simon, lying in pieces on the dining room floor, their blood splashed across the walls, the floors, his face…

He sobbed and looked down at the ice-coated Seal. Marugon was right. There was nothing left. They might have been victorious, but had lost everything…

Lithon blinked and looked up. Ally knelt by the bomb, shaking, and Arran had fallen to his knees. The bomb’s timer kept flashing. 

The bomb was still on. They hadn’t won after all. 

Lithon shook his head. His parents were dead, yes. But he still had Ally. He still had Arran. He had grieved for weeks, and he knew what grief felt like. But this grief felt…strange, alien, as if someone had put it into his mind. 

He tried to push it away. 

Suddenly the grief melted from his thoughts like snow in the sun. 

Marugon had put it into his mind, he realized with a shock. 

Lithon turned around and saw Marugon shuffling across the Seal, moving like an exhausted old man. He scooped up Arran’s gun, limped to the bomb, and leveled the weapon down at Ally. His lips spread in a hideous grin.

“No!” said Lithon. He raised his guns and fired. Puffs of black smoke burst around Marugon as the bullets crumbled into ash. Marugon cursed and stepped back, moving behind the bomb. 

“Damn you!” said Marugon. “You miserable child! Why, why, will you not die?” 

He took aim and fired. Lithon dodged sideways, still firing. Most of his shots missed, plunging into the void behind Marugon. The few that struck the Warlock burst into ash. Lithon’s guns clicked empty, and he shoved them back into their holsters. Marugon fired again, and the bullet whizzed past Lithon’s ear. His feet slipped and skidded on the cold metal. 

“Damn you!” said Marugon.

The timer flashed twenty seconds. 

Panic rose up in Lithon’s mind. Marugon didn’t matter. Lithon didn’t matter. If that bomb went off, then nothing would matter ever again. He had to get to that bomb. He took a step and almost slipped on the icy metal. 

Slipped…

And Alastarius’s Prophecy had said that he would overthrow Marugon.

An absurd idea took hold. 

He yelled and sprinted for Marugon. 

Marugon snarled and fired. His first shot went wild, and his second almost hit. His third would have hit, but Lithon flung himself down, legs smacking into the seal, and the bullet whined over his head. 

He slid across the icy metal like a thunderbolt. 

His boots slammed into the bomb and threw it forward. It smacked into Marugon’s shins, and the Warlock yelled and lost his balance, staggering back several steps. His heel slipped over the edge of the Seal. Marugon’s arms spun, fighting for balance, eyes pouring hate and rage into Lithon.

Lithon kicked.

The bomb slid into Marugon’s knees. 

Marugon howled and tumbled into the great chasm, vanishing into the darkness. 

Whispered shrieks of despair rose from the chasm, so terrible that Lithon covered his ears. 

The bomb tottered at the edge for a moment, then fell after Marugon. 

###

The despair vanished from Ally’s mind. 

The bomb! She had to disarm the bomb! 

But the bomb was gone. 

So was Marugon. 

Lithon lay at the edge of the Seal, staring into the void. Arran staggered to his feet, hurried to Lithon, and pulled him back. 

“What happened?” said Ally. “Where’s Marugon? The bomb?”

Lithon blinked. “I pushed the bomb into him. They fell.”

Arran shook his head. “So it was true.”

“What?” said Ally. 

“Alastarius’s Prophecy. He was right after all. Lithon did overthrow Marugon.”

“Or push him…”

The bomb went off.

It seemed like a star burst into the void. Blinding white light blazed from the chasm and the holes in the walls. Ally shrieked and covered her eyes as walls of blue fire lashed out. For a moment she thought the fire would leap up and devour them. But it stopped at the edge of the void, splashing as it struck some invisible barrier. The very stone of the Tower howled with strain. The floor shook and trembled, and the runes in the Great Seal blazed with emerald light. The roar and the light seemed to go on forever.

Then it faded away. The shaking stopped, and the light dwindled. Ally shuddered and let out a long breath.

“We’re alive,” said Arran.

“I think so, yes,” said Ally. 

Arran shook his head. “How?”

Ally thought for a moment. “The bomb…it detonated in the void. The Tower was not built to withstand attack from within. That’s why Marugon brought the bomb here. But the Tower was designed to withstand attack from without, to keep the children of the void imprisoned. It’s impervious to external attack. Not even the bomb could bring the Tower down from the outside…”

The floor began trembling. Green light crawled from the edges of the holes, and the Seal thrummed. New stone seemed to grow from the edges of the holes, crawling up to seal them shut.

“What’s happening?” said Lithon, staring at the shrinking holes. 

“The bomb,” said Ally. “It was an attack on the Tower. It’s sealing itself, repairing the damage.” Her eyes widened. “With us still inside.”

“We’ve got to get out,” said Arran.

“Which way?” said Ally. The great chasm that had swallowed Marugon began to close itself. 

“The doors to Earth?” said Arran. “The way to my world, our world, is closer.”

Ally made up her mind. “Then let’s go that way.”

“Run!” said Arran. 

They sprinted across the Seal, through the Chamber of the Dead, and into the corridors of the Tower once more. The Tower trembled around them, green lightning crackling up and down the walls. Rubble leapt from the floor, attaching itself to walls. In other places fresh stone grew from the breaches as the Tower’s spells bound themselves once more. Growing fear filled Ally. Would the Tower seal itself, leave them trapped within for ten thousand years?

Time passed. 

They ran into a great chamber, thousands of balconies ringing its sides, the ceiling vanishing into darkness. A yawning gallery stretched ahead of them, and a vast archway opened onto a bleak gray waste.

Massive stone doors began to swing shut over the archway. 

“Go!” yelled Ally. Lithon outran them and slipped through the doors. Ally lifted her hands and cast a spell. White light sputtered around her fingers, and the doors hesitated, shuddering, the groan of stressed stone filling her ears. 

“Go!” said Ally. “Get through the doors, now!” 

“No!” said Arran. He shoved her, his arm wrapping around her waist. They tumbled out the door, down the steps, flipping over and over each other. 

Ally gasped and came to a halt, the cold sunlight of the Crimson Plain falling over her face. 

Behind them, the doors to the Tower of Endless Worlds slammed shut.

Chapter 15 - Scandal

Anno Domini 2013

No one ever quite unraveled the mystery surrounding the late Senator Thomas Wycliffe.

Initially, the police found themselves baffled as they searched his ruined compound. No one had ever seen bones of such strange color and material before, and the presence of five hundred naked men and women only clouded matters further. Not a one remembered how they had come there, or what had happened, or what had happened to their clothes. A few had dark memories of chains and lightless chambers, but refused to speak any more of it.

To make matters worse, both the President-Elect and Vice President-Elect of the United States of America had disappeared. Agents from the FBI, the CIA, and the Secret Service combed over the rubble. Wycliffe’s corpse, or what remained of it, was discovered in a pile of rubble outside 13A. Eventually forensic examination of the charred bones proved that he had been shot to death. William Jones was found a few blocks from the disaster, wandering the streets and babbling to himself. The investigative agencies gained no further information from his nonsensical ravings. 

The beginnings of a national tragedy formed. Newscasts ran programs on the brave and heroic life of the martyred Senator Wycliffe, while pro-Gracchan blogs wrote long posts hinting that perhaps the power establishment had caused his death. 

Then someone tested the dozens of powerful and illegal weapons lying strewn about the compound. 

Ballistics tests proved that at least a dozen of them had been used in the November rampage. Analysis of the warehouse rubble showed that a colossal amount of firearms and explosives had been stored there. Furthermore, teeth and chunks of bone found in the rubble belonged to Vasily Kurkov, a notorious Russian criminal chief. Kurkov was wanted by the Russian police, British MI5, the French police, Interpol, the Japanese military, the CIA, and at least a dozen other investigative agencies, not to mention more than a few private individuals. Total bounties on his head totaled about ninety-seven million dollars. 

Agents put the pieces together. Documents founded in Wycliffe’s damaged office buildings confirmed their suspicions. 

What began as a national tragedy soon transformed into the biggest scandal in American history. 

The FBI arrested Wycliffe Consolidated Shipping’s board of directors and the Gracchan Party’s leadership in one fell swoop, catching several of them as they attempted to flee the country. Their testimony matched the findings in the compound’s debris. Soon it became clear that Senator Wycliffe had made his fortune in arms smuggling, kidnapping, and some sort of illegal scientific experimentation. 

Overnight, Wycliffe went from a hero of the people to a scheming fraud. Both old media and new portrayed Wycliffe as a tyrant in disguise, a lying demagogue, a blacker villain than Benedict Arnold, John Wilkes Booth, and Lee Harvey Oswald rolled together. Some even claimed that Wycliffe would have become the next Hitler. 

William Jones resigned the Presidency, gave most of his personal fortune to charity, and spent the rest of his life in an assisted-living care facility in California. The FBI concluded that he had been tortured into compliance with Wycliffe and let him be. The Presidency passed to a much-surprised and delighted Speaker of the House.

The Gracchan Party itself disintegrated in less than a month. With Wycliffe dead, Jones insane, and the top leadership in federal prison, the Gracchan Party collapsed. The few die-hards that remained splintered into a dozen radical fringe parties; the neo-Gracchans, the Anti-Wealth Front, the True Gracchans, the Wycliffe Memorial Party, and others. The scandal took a long time to die away, but the controversy never did. Wycliffe had sold guns and arms in massive amounts, but no one ever quite figured out who had been buying. In addition, the mystery of the five hundred naked people never received satisfactory explanation. The FBI concluded that they had been kidnapped for the purposes of weapon experimentation, an explanation that satisfied no one. Beyond that, the strange deaths of Simon Wester, Katrina Wester, and Heloise Francis were never solved, and no one ever did find Ally and Lithon Wester. Even stranger mysteries surrounded Wycliffe; the black bones, his failed venture in tobacco, the sightings of hideous winged beings. 

Within a year, a host of books, made-for-TV movies, and websites appeared, each arguing a different explanation. Some said Wycliffe had planned an armed coup. A few more radical documentaries claimed Wycliffe had been contacted by beings from another planet. Some claimed that a chain of disappearances in the Rocky Mountain states were proof that some of the strange winged creatures still prowled the nation. 

Congressional committees were appointed. Historians and journalists alike received awards and doctorates for their studies and writings on the matter. The five hundred people rescued from Wycliffe’s compound found themselves pestered for incessant interviews. But despite the investigations, the books, the movies, the journals, no one ever quite figured out what happened, much to the amusement of those who knew the truth.

###

“I still don’t trust you,” said Conmager, starting at the man across the fire. 

They sat on a wooded hill somewhere in western Montana. The forest smelled of wet earth and the coming spring. Thousands of stars blazed in the night sky, along with a half-moon. In the distance Conmager saw the craggy silhouette of the Rockies. 

“Quite wise,” said Dr. Krastiny, “quite wise indeed. And you haven’t even played cards with me yet.” He wore an ugly flannel shirt tucked into dirty jeans. 

Kyle Allard grumbled and sat down by the fire. 

“Is Mary ready?” said Conmager.

Allard nodded.

Conmager grunted, satisfied, and poked the fire with his cane. “I don’t trust you, fine. But I don’t understand why you wanted to help us.

Krastiny shrugged. “I don’t entirely understand, myself. Call it repentance, of a sort.”

Conmager snorted. “I doubt you’ve ever repented of anything in your life.”

“I still think we should have shot him,” said Allard.

Krastiny yawned, stuck a bratwurst on a camp fork, and held it over the fire. “And I’m quite pleased you didn’t. I told the same thing to that Arran Belphon fellow.” He sighed. “This, I must say, is the life. Quiet air, open country, splendid scenery. It reminds me of the Urals down by the Ukraine.” He shrugged. “But I’ve been helpful, you must admit. That winged demon in Wyoming would have killed you, if I had not helped.” 

“True enough,” said Conmager. They sat in silence for a moment. Conmager pulled some burgers from the cooler, dropped them on a pan, and put it on the fire. 

“How many of them do you think are left?” said Allard. 

“The burgers? Couple dozen, so long as we keep them frozen in the cooler…”

“No, no,” said Allard. “Them. You know. The winged ones.” 

Conmager looked into the trees. A shadow moved. “Just one. I only think a half-dozen got away from the compound. We’ve taken five. So one left, unless they fathered offspring, which I don’t think happened.”

Allard nodded. Krastiny took a bite of his bratwurst and sighed in contentment. 

“Do you think they’re alive?” said Allard.

“Who?” said Conmager. “The winged ones…”

“No, no,” said Allard. “Ally and Arran and Lithon.”

“Oh.” Conmager grunted. His bad leg ached in the damp. “They succeeded, we know that. Earth’s still here. If they’re alive…” He thought about it. “I think so. Of course, I can’t know that. The seals on the Tower doors will last for ten thousand years.” He would never see the world of his birth again. That troubled him, but not much. He had come to love Earth, in all its horror and magnificence. “But I think they’re alive. Arran would have taken them back to the High Kingdoms.”

“So what do we do when there’s no more winged demons?” said Allard.

“Real estate,” said Krastiny.

They looked at him. 

“That’s where the long-term money is, I think,” said Krastiny. “Tangible assets.”

“No way,” said Allard. “It’s in stocks…” 

The shadow in the trees moved closer. Red eyes burned in the darkness. Conmager yawned, picked up his spatula, and flipped the burgers. A winged demon stepped out of the darkness, standing at the edge of the firelight. Conmager made no sign he had noticed the beast. Neither did Krastiny and Allard. The demon came closer, blood-blackened claws rising from its fingers. 

Mary stepped out from behind a tree, a black spear in her hands. Before the beast could react, she flipped the switch and plunged the spear into its chest. Blue lightning crackled up the shaft, and the winged demon howled and dropped to the ground, twitching. 

“Good job,” said Conmager, rising with the aid of his cane. 

“Bravo,” said Krastiny, drawing his gun. “A thrust worthy of Athena herself.”

“Thanks.” Mary frowned. “I think.” 

“Shall I finish him?” said Krastiny. 

“I think Conmager should do the honors,” said Allard.

The winged demon tried to stand. Mary reached over and twisted the spear. 

“Very well.” Conmager lifted his cane and closed his eyes, white light flaring over the cane. Conmager stepped over to the winged demon, positioned himself, and swung the cane like a golf club.

It landed with a satisfying crack.