The 13th God (The Cycle of Galand Book 8), page 60
Wessen tried to pull away at the last second, as he'd done to Blays earlier, when Blays was trying to deepen the wound. But Dante wasn't aiming for any specific part of the god's heart. It was so huge that, despite Wessen's contortions, Dante was still able to drive the stinger into the left side of it mid-beat.
Wessen screamed. His heart shuddered. The head of the stinger burst into vapor beneath Dante as the last of the limb dissolved. He kicked himself around just in time to throw a hail of nethereal darts into the tips of two of Nolost's limbs right before they could stab him again. His entire body throbbed. He moved into the ether within himself and sent it to the spreading tendrils of venom in his side and back, ignoring his leg.
He glanced back and froze. Wessen's heart was beating fast, but it looked unharmed. Another pair of stingers were stabbing toward Dante. He didn't have time to cut one of them close enough to the base to jab Wessen a second time. He could only demolish their tips. Nolost, guessing what was on his mind, withdrew by several yards.
The venom pushed deeper up Dante's veins with every beat of his heart. Fighting to quell its spread, he thought he heard himself scream.
But it wasn't his voice. It was that of the Chained God.
His heart had grown a spiderweb of black lines. The gaps between the lines shrunk as each of the lines thickened.
Wessen looked up from his heart to meet Dante's eye. "What have you done to me?"
Dante choked out the words. "What I had to."
A clap of thunder made him wince. Wessen was jerking at his chains of neuma and soma, fighting so hard to free himself that he tore open ancient scars around the wounds. Thunder rattled again, louder and louder, as red and blue lights flashed in the distance. Gladdic and Blays had been maneuvering around Nolost all this time, Gladdic harassing the entity with ether, but they'd come to a stop, looking about themselves. Even Nolost hung motionless, uncertain.
Wessen screamed harder, first in agony, then from something much different. With a sickening pop and crunch, he pulled his right arm free of the beams of light that pierced it. His right leg followed, then his left. His face had gone white as a cloud, the cords on his neck bulging like they might tear loose, too. Getting his right hip loose was the worst of them all.
Finished, he looked down at himself. His body was so bloody and mangled it was hard to look at. Flesh hung in tatters, and in several places Dante could see exposed bone, a godly version of how the lich had looked when he'd forced his way back to life.
But for the first time, Dante saw no pain in Wessen's eyes.
Wessen closed them. "I am free."
His body began to glow. The light was green and warm like summer morning sunlight on the leaves and even when it was so bright it made Dante's eyes water he couldn't look away from the beauty of it. Wessen was soon no more than a silhouette within it. The silhouette became a shifting rainbow, and though Dante saw no coherent images within it, he somehow knew it was an expression of time, an unimaginably long one, that had first been filled with wonder and joy, and then became only constant pain punctured by unbearable agony.
Except at the very end. When the release from it had been sweeter than any of the moments he'd known before that pain began.
The rainbow went black, and Wessen was gone. The outline of his body remained and Dante almost thought he could see the silhouettes of mournful faces gazing back through the hole in the world. Then the green light faded, and nothing remained.
A roar of thunder ripped through Pholos.
You don't know what you have just done.
"Well whatever it is," Blays said, "you don't sound happy about it!"
The entity swiveled a part of itself toward Blays and lunged forward, opening a beak-like mouth from what had been a featureless lump a moment before. More thunder pealed, the loudest yet, and the air itself shook as soma and neuma burst forth just a few hundred feet away. Nolost stopped and swiveled a part of himself toward the two portals behind him. After a long stare, he rushed away at an angle from them, the darkness of his form blending into the darkness of the environment around him.
"Where did he just run off to?" Blays said.
"He must not have liked what awaited him in either of the portals," Gladdic said. "And I do not like what awaits us here if we delay any longer."
He made way toward Kelen, towing Blays along with him. Dante had managed to clear the sting in his side from his blood, but the one in his back was still working its way up his torso, toward his heart and head. The light of life had slipped from his grip. He felt his body tightening as he tried to take it up again.
"Dante!" Blays yelled. "What are you doing?"
Dante tried to answer but his jaw was locked. The darkness reached toward his heart. Above him, a crack raced across the sky, gleaming redly. The thunder was more frequent now, almost continuous. Another crack opened far beneath him. Pholos was falling apart much faster than he'd imagined, and they still needed to get through not one but two different portals before they were home.
"Dante!"
With an internal shudder, he coaxed the ether out from the depths of his self and sent it up his darkening veins. Where it found the venom the two forces wrapped around each other like dueling snakes. The ether kept climbing higher, yet shivered to a stop just outside his heart. He could barely expand his lungs and his vision was starting to narrow.
The crack in the sky pulled apart. Its edges were still an angry red but its interior was black and so empty that it made Dante even dizzier to look at. More seams in the fabric were unraveling in all directions. Dante closed his eyes and silently screamed.
The ether popped upwards and he sent it crashing into the thick tendril of venom that hung just below his heart. The light poured over it, surrounding it. The venom slid loose, plummeting down through his veins and flushing away.
Freed of his paralysis, Dante gasped for air. He still had the sting to his leg to contend with, but he struck out toward the portal, relaying himself forward through the nether with most of his mind while trying to maneuver the ether down through himself to the black, worm-like substance reaching up his thigh toward his hip.
Blays floated in front of the portal to Yent. "What were you doing?!"
"Not dying," Dante said. "Now quit waiting for me, will you? You're going to have to drag Kelen all the way down the tunnel!"
Blays sucked air through his teeth, then nodded. Gladdic steered them forward, and the three of them vanished through the doorway.
A red line appeared not ten feet in front of Dante and he had to swerve hard to avoid the spreading emptiness. As he passed by it, a wailing sound passed from within it. He couldn't tell if it was the wind or something far worse.
Something flew past his face so fast he didn't hear it until it was right on top of him. The heat of a flaming rock flashed across his face. Others streaked like shooting stars across the void, which was now striped everywhere with red.
He came to the portal and was for a moment deeply confused if it was the one to Yent or the one to the Realm that Wessen had opened for the lich. Another rock whizzed behind him and he ducked his head. He took one last look behind him, out at the collapse of Pholos, heart of Olastar, the world that linked all others together. Then he stepped through the portal.
35
After the lightness of Pholos, he staggered under his full weight. The walls of the tunnel were manic with the motion of the stars, which skipped every which way, searching for a way out that wasn't there.
The others were nearing the far end, Blays carrying Kelen by his arms while Gladdic stooped under the weight of his legs. Dante hurried after them, catching up as they stepped through the other end of the portal.
A lush, warm jungle snapped into place around them. Dante found himself looking up at two very threatening-looking gods waiting a short distance from the portal. They relaxed, just a little, as they saw the four mortals.
Blays laid Kelen on the grass. "He's hurt. Hurry!"
Carvahal crossed to them more quickly than seemed possible. He waved his hand over Kelen. "His mind is no longer with him." He passed his hand over Kelen's face. "Then you were able to escape from him, at least?"
"Nolost?" Dante said. "We held him off. Carvahal, we killed Wessen. Olastar is collapsing as we speak."
Carvahal looked up in wonder. "You did it? Truly?" Then he blinked, looking at Dante square on. "You took it onto yourself. The lichstone."
"It was a good thing I didn't have you destroy it. And I have the feeling it's going to come in very handy in purging the rest of Nolost's armies."
"Incredible. Incredible!" Nether spiraled from Carvahal's hand and into Kelen. "Want to know the truth? I didn't ever think you'd pull it off. I just wanted to give you the glory of dying in the try."
The last of the shadows sank into Kelen's brow. His eyes flew open, and he jerked upright. "Did we do it?"
"Wessen's dead," Blays said. "It's all falling apart."
Kelen sat stunned, blinking. Tears fell from his eyes. "It's over. It's finally over. The rest of my people can live in peace."
"We would never have reached Pholos without your aid," Gladdic said. "You saved not just your own people, but ours as well."
"You played something of a part yourselves," Kelen said wryly. "Thank you for coming to find me in Gharadain. I never thought I'd see this day."
Behind them, a ripple passed over the face of the portal. Dante's eyes widened. "Time to leave. Thank you for everything, Carvahal. I'm sure there was more than we'll ever know."
The god smiled. "Get back to your world, mortals. It's yours alone now."
Blays lifted his hand in farewell. Maralda, who'd stayed silent, did the same. Dante looked to the others, then jogged to the other portal. He supposed that, before they'd reentered Pholos, he should have asked Maralda to set up another one back to Narashtovik, or somewhere close to Nak and the others. But it was too late for that now. Anyway, they'd ridded Rale of the entity. Their task wasn't over yet, but they'd have time to find their way home in the end.
Maralda shouted in shock. Dante glanced back, stumbling at what he saw. Darkness was flooding out of the portal they'd come to Yent through, a thick vapor that roiled across the ground like a deadly poison. Carvahal's face was bent into a snarl and he surrounded his hands with a terrifying light. Nolost ignored him, emerging from the portal in a sudden burst.
The entity sped straight toward Dante. Carvahal ripped into it from the side, black smoke blooming between the trees, but Nolost didn't swerve an inch.
Dante threw himself to the side and jabbed nether into Nolost's fore. Light glared from Gladdic's hand and Blays' spear. Yet the entity was unconcerned with any of them. It beelined for the portal. As soon as Nolost's leading edge touched the doorway, it pulled the rest of him through in one big slurp.
"This feels so much like an ambush from the other side," Blays said.
"We have to go anyway," Dante said. "The tunnels could tear apart at any second."
He braced himself and dashed through the doorway. Tentacles snapped at him, scraping his arms and the side of his face as he turned it away, but Nolost wasn't slowing down. His body was so big it filled the passage from floor to ceiling and Dante's stomach dropped at the thought that he might simply sit in the exit until the moment the portal collapsed.
The stars on the walls were all packed in a ring around the portal behind him, bashing themselves senselessly against it. The floor shook violently, throwing the three of them from their feet. A crack opened under Dante's right hand and he yanked it back before it could be annihilated.
Blays had managed to turn his fall into a somersault, and he vaulted to his feet and sprinted after Nolost, cutting down a couple of tentacles as they came at him. The floor shook harder, staggering him into the left wall.
Dante ran after him. Rends were opening up and down the tunnel, and instead of inky blackness they became dark mirrors, showing dim images of Olastarians, people of Rale, and others that Dante had never seen before. Dante knew somehow that the people were all real, and that the images were not just from the past, but also of the future—though of course there was none for Olastar, and Rale's was still uncertain.
You thought you could expel me, didn't you? Nolost said. Pathetic, rot-brained dullards! You have only insured you will never be free of me.
He came to the far doorway, hanging before it, tentacles swaying as if in a wind, almost like he was waving at them, mocking them. Then he entered it, and it pulled him forward with unnatural speed, delivering him back into their world.
Blays leaped over a hole in the floor that showed an image of an old woman sweeping her floor, the dust twinkling in amber rays of sunlight. The ground rattled as Dante neared the hole and he had to throw himself to the side to stop himself from falling into it. Ash-like flakes fell from the ceiling as Gladdic grabbed the collar of Dante's cloak, helping him back to his feet even as Gladdic ran forward.
The last of Nolost's vast bulk vanished through the portal. The surface of it began to bubble like water being brought to a boil. Holes were opening all across the floor and Dante had to juke back and forth with every step, glancing constantly between his feet and their surroundings.
It had all been fairly quiet until then, with little more than hissing noises, their own footsteps, and the whoosh of a draft down a hallway, but there now came an unsteady and inhuman moaning, as if Olastar itself was mourning its own death.
Blays came to the last doorway and turned to watch them.
"Go!" Dante yelled.
Blays stood vigil where he was. The roof was now falling in shards while the once-placid stars streaked madly in random vectors. In a few more seconds there would be more gaps in the floor than solid ground.
Even as Dante had this thought, the ground just ahead of him wholly fell apart, leaving nothing but the mirror-like visions all the way from the left wall to the right. He stared at the gap dumbly as the moans of the tunnel shifted to a terrified whine.
Blays lifted his spear, preparing to try to vault the hole and then vault back across it carrying Gladdic and Dante with him, an effort that would all but certainly result in the death of all three of them.
"Don't!" Dante said.
Before Blays could disobey him, Dante reached into both walls. He didn't know how he did it. Instead the knowledge shot up from some hidden part of his mind. The walls appeared locked in form, as solid as stone. But even stone could be moved: and the walls, after all, were no more than nether and ether.
He pulled them downward, opening voids to right and left. And laid the two elements out before him, in a path reaching all the way to the portal, where Blays waited on a thin ledge that hadn't yet collapsed.
Dante bounded onto the path without bothering to test it. It was solid as stone, just as he'd known it would be.
"How did you know how to do that?" Gladdic said as they approached the portal.
"Because the lich did," Dante said.
Blays grinned and ducked through the doorway. Dante again prepared himself for battle as he leaped headlong in behind Blays. Yet as he popped out the other side, thudding into the ground and knocking the wind from himself, Nolost wasn't waiting there.
The entity soared into the sky above the swamps, tentacles and tatters fluttering behind it like a disgraced battle flag.
Heat rushed over Dante's back as the portal exploded behind them. An invisible boot kicked him so hard he flew back to the ground. All the world seemed to sway hard back and forth, as if all of its tethers had been severed except for a single thread that it now hung from. Dante was seized with a sense of vertigo even worse than when they'd first entered Gothon and he'd looked up to see the land hanging over him. The world jostled and tilted and just when it seemed like the last tether must be ready to snap, the jolts softened, then came to a stop—although the hectic sloshing of the swamp confirmed that it it had been more than in his head.
Dante sat up. His ears were ringing and his head hurt but when he looked inside himself he saw no major harm.
"He's right, isn't he?" Blays collected himself, wincing, and pulled himself to his feet. "We didn't expel him from Rale. We trapped him in it."
Dante pounded his fist into his thigh. "Why didn't he just go back to the Becoming?"
"He surely tried," Gladdic said. "He was searching for a way back to it when he flew away from us in Pholos. But whatever he tried failed. His only choice was to travel to the Realm, or back here—and he knew that if he dared set the feet he does not have into the Realm, the gods would never stop hunting him until he was dead."
"But if he's trapped in Rale, he'll have to stop trying to destroy it."
"He will do no such thing. His existence does not depend on Rale's; if it ceases to be, he will still be there. Even if it would hurt him to destroy it, he would still do it. Does he seem to you a being of reason? He must destroy. He has no choice."
"That means we did all this for nothing. We exterminated another world, and cut ourselves off from the gods forever, and it didn't change a thing."
Blays gave him a scornful look. "Did that blast liquefy your brain? We might be cut off from the gods, but that means Nolost is cut off from the Becoming. He can't bring anything new here. He might not even be able to keep inflicting his plagues."
"But we're still going to have to kill him."
"As I said, he will not stop," Gladdic said. "But we have disarmed him of many of the weapons he once wielded."
"So we're still screwed," Blays said. "But maybe not quite as hard as before. That leaves one question, then. How the hell do we kill an entity?"
Dante shook his head. "Whatever the answer is, I don't think we've even come close yet." He paused, staring unfocusedly out at the birds and flies winging around through the swamp. "The Burdan rah Saylan."
"The what-burden? What's that?"
