The Traitor God

Chapter 33

The door to Lynas’ warehouse dangled half off its hinges. A looter had taken an axe to it judging by the great gouges in the oak and the blackened corpse sprawled outside that was welded to a stick topped by a blob of deformed metal. It was no great loss to the world – only a fool would take an axe to something protected by big glowing Arcanum wards.

I stepped over the lump of stupid meat and bone and made my way over to the window, hauling my leaden body up and through, smearing a trail of blood across the wall. I dropped the murmuring crystal core of the Magash Mora, denting the floorboards, and slumped down into the regal comfort of the Esbanian merchant chair, desperately trying to think of any way to get out of this mess.

Harailt was dead – if he was lucky – but that didn’t let Nathair off the hook. That traitor needed to burn, but how was I supposed to kill a sodding god? I’d done so once before, and as I scrabbled frantically at the locked doors in my mind a snatch of ethereal music whispered through my memory. I doubled over, vomiting and gasping as agony exploded in my skull. The seals were weakening but there was not enough time to pry them loose. I couldn’t hope to face Nathair head-on, but even if I could come up with something desperate and sneaky enough to have a hope of thwarting him, he would rip that plan from my mind and body before I ever succeeded. Fuck fuck shitting fuck. There was no way to hide it from him.

Destroying the Magash Mora was more important than revenge for Lynas; whatever else happened, that thing could not be allowed to live again. My nails dug into the smooth curved armrest. An idea began to coalesce. I knew what had to be done, and what I’d need to sacrifice to do it. I could never tell him anything about a plan if I physically burned out that part of my brain afterwards. I swallowed my bile and did not hesitate.

What was I doing? My head hurt like I’d been stabbed with a spear. Why was I standing in the middle of the room facing the back wall where a majestic tapestry of gold and red hung? My left hand twitched and trembled and I seemed unable to stop it. The regal merchant chair had been dragged from its corner to the centre of that wall, and behind it the foreign king’s woven image bestowed his blessings. It looked like a seat for an arrogant prick. Was I giving Nathair a damned throne to sit and gloat on while I grovelled at his feet and begged for mercy? No, that wasn’t my style.

A small sack sat open on the floor in front of me, containing two glass jars. My index finger throbbed as I noticed blood beading my fingertip, a small wound already healing. In the centre of the room a circle of fresh wards surrounded the crystal core, inscribed in my own blood but not yet activated. Blood was a potent medium to channel magic but it made me uneasy; even using my own was too akin to sorcery for my tastes.

Wind gusted through the gaps in the front door. Shutters strained at their hinges as the building creaked and groaned, trembling at the god’s unhurried approach. My enhanced senses told me I had only minutes left before his arrival.

I probed my memory, trying to find out what had just happened, and discovered a hideous gaping wound, a dead zone where part of my brain had been burned out. I gagged, shivering in horror at the self-mutilation. A thousand pathways of thought and their connected memories were broken and burnt along with that single tiny piece, the effect cascading through everything, changing what it meant to be me. I had mutilated and killed Edrin Walker and now a new me stood in his place. I clenched my trembling left hand, now sure it was a symptom of crude and hurried self-butchery.

Somehow I knew what I was supposed to do. Dazed, I placed both hands inside the circle and activated the matrix of wards and protections I’d woven through those the Arcanum had previously set up to protect the warehouse. The hiss of stray magic caused the hairs on my arms to stand on end. It was a work of brute force rather than finesse, but in my experience finesse was vastly overrated – a shovel to the face was every bit as good as a fancy sword.

My circle of wards drew power from the crystal core and fed it to the warehouse’s outer security. This was it, the last toss of the dice. For a moment I felt faint; I was at my limits and didn’t have much more to drag out of my wreck of a body. I sagged, face slick with sweat and my tunic plastered to my back.

Unsure of what to do next, I examined the small sack. Inside were two fluted glass bottles with broken seals, filled with some sort of dirty brown liquid instead of exotic alcohol. I was meant to glass the whoreson and then throw my strongest wind-wall at him. Well, fair enough… if you couldn’t trust your past self… and knowing me I’d probably had some vicious surprise in mind.

I was as ready as I was ever going to be, but I didn’t fancy dying looking like a penniless drunk who had choked to death on his own vomit so I used a little aeromancy to scour all the sweat, grease and blood from my body with blades of air, ridding me of my unwashed stink. I let the congealed mess slop across the doorway, then straightened out my ragged coat and raked my hair back into some semblance of order.

As I stepped inside the warded circle my skin tingled, pins and needles stabbing. I gripped Dissever tight and faced the doorway. My wicked knife exuded a subdued and nervous hunger. I hefted one of the glass bottles and wondered what kind of deadly magic I’d brewed in such a ridiculously short time.

At least he had the good grace not to keep me waiting. Dust drifted down from the rafters as the building began to shake. A twitch of pain heralded the shattering of the outermost alarm wards. I took a deep breath and nailed an insolent sneer to my face.

The door crumbled at his touch. In my Gift’s eye the god blinded like the sun. To my mortal eyes he looked like a wiry little rat-faced shitebag scarred by pox and poverty and the boots of better men, no different from a thousand Docklands scum apart from crimson glistening orbs instead of eyes. He stood at the threshold with blood dripping from clawed fingers and strings of gore drooling down his chin.

The god’s gaze slicked across the room. “Ah, yes, Edrin Walker. So good to see you.” His mind – so bloody strong! – hammered into my own. The probing was clumsy but the strength behind it was gradually buckling my defences inward, allowing him to catch whiffs of stray thought. I was glad I’d burned away all knowledge of my plan.

“The feeling is not exactly mutual,” I replied, struggling to keep the tremble from my voice. “You’ve always stood for freedom and independence, Nathair, so I beg you to turn back from this madness. Nobody else has to die.”

His head cocked to one side. “Freedom and independence? Ridiculous. You mortals have always ascribed meaning where there is none. I care nothing for what the grubbing maggots of this city do beyond providing me amusement. The only freedom that has ever mattered is my own.”

Gods, selfish bastards the lot of them. “Well, then, I don’t suppose you’d care to piss off and die?”

“Tsk, is that any way to talk to your patron god? Give me the crystal. In exchange I will heal your dying friend. That is your heart’s desire is it not?”

He knew it was. Bile seared my throat as his words tortured me. This was Charra’s only chance, but as much as I loved her I couldn’t doom the world for her. “She’s not the sort to choose her life over everybody else’s,” I said. What was left of her life was hers to spend, not mine to gamble away.

His gaze drifted to the crystal core pulsing in the centre of my circle of wards, its jaundiced light staining the room. An eye ticced. His lips twisted into a snarl and he reached for it, hand passing through the doorway. I squeezed my eyes tight.

The world flashed red and white. An almighty concussion rent the air. Splinters of wood rained down around me. When I opened my eyes again blue spots danced and Nathair stood in a smoking crater where the doorway had been, frowning at his charred arm. Blood dripped from a few tiny wounds to hiss into the floor.

I swallowed. Those wards would have painted the walls with me. “Hey arsehole,” I said, every bone in my body screaming to dive out the nearest window and make a run for it. Instead I made him angry. “You helped kill Lynas, you rat-faced imbecile. You will burn for that. When people ask me how you died I’m going to tell them you choked on your own stupidity.”

Lips drew back and his jaw yawned unnaturally wide, teeth elongating into fangs. He surged towards me and slammed headfirst into my second web of wards. Only, these were not designed to harm, but to hold. The crystal core flared bright, its obscene power strengthening my defences.

The god’s advance slowed, then stopped as the crystal pulsed faster. I smiled. “That’s right, you witless scrotum scraping, I made that crystal the keystone of my wards. If you want to break free you’ll need to destroy the very thing you want so badly. Suck on that, you muck-snipe!” A god was likely all that could; the plan to use the alchemic bomb had been a long shot at best. It would be a pyrrhic victory if he destroyed it before tearing me limb from limb, but what more could a mere magus possibly do?

He looked from the crystal to me, then shrugged. “I’ll acquire another. I have all the time in the world now.”

My jaw dropped.

Tentacles of blood, strangely solid, erupted from his back. I ducked as they stabbed towards my face, piercing through layers of my holding weave. They slammed to a stop against another barrier only a hand-span from ripping out my eyes. Wards crackled and hissed as the tentacles inched forward, forcing their way through. The crystal core hummed and pulsed. Unencumbered by any possible warding, the god’s mind was free to batter deeper into my own.

I gritted my teeth. Hold, damn you. Hold! With him temporarily immobilized, I flung the first of my bottles then the second. One shattered across his face, the second against his naked chest. They didn’t explode. There was no eruption of deadly magic. They just left brown sludge oozing down his body. The room stank of shite.

A scream burst from my lips as I twisted my magic into a wind-wall and blasted him with every fragment of strength I could muster. A howling gale briefly tore at him, shedding droplets of filth like a stinking rain into the night air. The wind dwindled to nothing, the strain too much to continue. I sagged, and we stared at each other in silence for a long moment.

“That was all you had left?” he said. “One last, futile insult?” He laughed, wiping tears of blood from his eyes. “Shit, piss, blood, and soured wine. Ah, Walker, you always did amuse me. It must have been blind, idiot luck that you managed to kill Artha.”

He expanded in my mind, magical aura growing until it felt like he would crush me by weight of presence alone. He stepped forward and the crystal core of the Magash Mora shrieked and shattered, instantly overpowered. A hundred dead pieces tinkled across the floor. The warehouse plunged into a gloom filled with a roaring maelstrom of magic that tore at my Gift.

He grabbed for me and I jerked back. Clawed fingers tore a hunk of hair from my head, bringing tears to my eyes.

“Oh,” he said. “A magical adaption to sense air movement, most interesting. Very painful to have it ripped out I would imagine.” The Thief of Life shook his head with exaggerated sadness and tossed my hair aside. “You could have been so much more, little tyrant. You could have been so useful if you had not fled from me and destroyed what was mine.” He pointed a finger and I slammed face-first to the floor, crying out as a rib snapped, Dissever falling from my grasp. He tutted. “Pathetic. You have taken all the fun out of this, but perhaps I can find a use for you, once certain adjustments have been made. A shame it leaves the subjects somewhat devoid of imagination. For you, however, I would consider it an improvement.” He leaned down and briefly caressed my scarred cheek with a clawed hand. I winced as a nail gouged a bloody furrow. I heard a sucking of fingers. “Ah, a new flavour of mageblood. A little sour.”

I groaned, tried to rise, failed. “You expect me to serve a pathetic god slaved to his foul habit? You are a fool who allowed himself to become addicted to mageblood provided by a self-entitled arsehole of a blood-sorcerer.”

The weight pressing down on me doubled. Face-down, struggling to breathe, all I could see was a gory foot as he stroked my throat with long, gnarled toenails.

“I will become the sole God of Setharis, and of this world,” he said. “For too long have I been concerned with petty thoughts and limited creatures. And duty, always that dreary duty and the endless task of guarding this realm.”

He snarled, bloody saliva dripping onto my cheek, searing a trail across my lips. “You think me addicted to mageblood like that cretin Harailt? Your imagination is far too limited. I intend to give part of myself to every creature that crawls, swims and flies upon this world – a drop of blood swimming in the veins of all creatures, as it already does within my worshippers. All life will become one with me, and all its magic will flow into their One True God. There will be no more Gifted, there will only be Nathair.” His eyes burned with all-consuming lust for power. “I will ascend to a new existence beyond that of what you call a god, a great power able to extend my dominion across all realms near and far.”

“What of Derrish and Lady Night, the Lord of Bones or the Hooded God?” I groaned. “Won’t they stop you?” Keep him talking, something screamed inside me.

“The gods of Setharis are bound here by enchantments the likes of which you cannot conceive, and which no god can break. The Magash Mora, however, devours all magic.” He smirked. “I trapped them below the earth and sacrificed this city to free myself from the chains that bind them still, and I would do so ten times over if needs be. I no longer suckle at the same teat of power as those so-called gods, the very power that binds us to this place. Blood is a stronger source by far. The Scarrabus’ art of using mageblood to grow the Magash Mora showed me the path to true power.”

I shook my head, not understanding.

He sighed. “I always forget how ignorant you little creatures are. Have you never wondered why the soldiers of Setharis are called wardens? The title has meaning. The gods of Setharis suckle power from the fever dreams of the Imprisoned, that hoary old beast entombed in the heart of the Boneyards, kept slumbering for untold millennia by our constant effort. In ancient days when even the Scarrabus were young, the Imprisoned devoured entire realms, and would again were it to wake. I could not contest the gods of Setharis directly lest our battle wake the beast and doom us all.” He cackled. “No more, no more – let those foolish gaolers remain chained to their charge, tortured by the effort of keeping it dormant. Oh blood-blessed freedom, after all this time! Soon I will leave this decrepit city to travel the wide world, and then on to other realms. I will grow in power as worshippers flock to accept my blood, and then in time I shall return to devour those false gods and the ancient beast they guard.”

His eyes misted over. “Where shall I go first? What new lands shall I see?” Then he blinked and licked his lips, eyeing me hungrily. “First I must uncover those secrets squirreled away inside your head. You think them secure, but I will have them. Nothing can be hidden from me, not even by the power of false gods. The Arcanum cannot help you and your friends cannot save you. Submit!”

His eyes flared with power. Distilled agony shrieked through my body, pain that nothing living should ever feel. Bones cracked, flesh bulging grotesquely from my torso, organs moving and tearing. His thoughts crashed into me, impossible to resist for long. I screamed, pleading for him to stop.

A shadow flitted into view behind him. He saw it reflected in my eyes and a clawed hand stained with my excrement reached for whoever dared interfere.

A shadow cat tore it off at the elbow. The hulking black beast barrelled past, jaw chomping down on the still-moving hand covered with my scent. The god and I locked gazes for a drawn-out moment, realisation dawning at the same time. My piss, shite, and blood had been in those jars and I had blown a cloud of my scent and magic out into the city. At the moment he smelled more like me than I did.

Hissing filled the air as the rest of the pack slid from the gloom. Nathair growled and grew in height and bulk, defensive tentacles sprouting from his body as five more great daemonic felines leapt from the shadows, claws slashing. His remaining hand tore the face and jaw from one charging shadow cat. Tentacles wrapped around two more and lifted them struggling into the air. The faceless cat slammed into him like a charging horse, trampling him beneath clawed feet before crashing blindly into the wall. The two shadow cats still free of his grip pinned him down and began ripping huge chunks of blood and bone free. Their daemonic fangs and claws proved far more effective than Skallgrim axes.

The crushing weight lifted from my chest. I bit my lip bloody trying to keep the screams in, flailed for Dissever, found it and rolled away from danger. Dissever’s rage was the only thing keeping me conscious. I managed to wedge myself against the wall under a rack of shelves as blood and meat rained down all around me. The tentacles holding two shadow cats aloft contracted, snapping thigh-thick spines like dry twigs. Jets of black blood splattered the walls and steamed into dark mist.

A muffled screech to my left drew my eyes to where the first shadow cat had been eating the god’s hand. The severed limb had dug its way into the beast’s throat, gouging bloody holes as its huge head whipped from side to side trying to dislodge it. The faceless daemon spasmed on the ground nearby, spraying ichor as it busied itself with the task of dying.

My body shuddered at the mere thought of attempting to move, never mind escape. Something popped and twitched inside me, an organ or muscle sliding back into place. Blood filled my mouth as I bit the inside of my cheek. A magus could survive most things, but this…

The god surged upright, throwing two massive corpses at the doorway, smashing gaping holes through the stonework. Half his face was a ruined mess of shattered bone and jellied brain, but it didn’t seem to matter. He began a frenzied attack on the other two shadow cats, fang to fang and claw to claw, his terrible ferocity forcing the hulking beasts back.

He laughed off the mortal wounds as his hand plucked a huge feline head from its shoulders like a child picking a flower. Ribbons of pulsing blood wrapped around the other in front of him and pulled the screeching daemon apart one limb at a time.

The cat choking on his other hand rolled and writhed across the floor as the severed appendage savaged its way deeper down the creature’s throat. The cat tried to vomit up the hand, struggled until the hand’s owner caught up with it and stamped on its head, crushing the skull to a pulp. The faceless shadow cat was the last, its flanks heaving and bloody froth pooling around its throat. The god bent over and buried his fangs in its neck, a nauseating lapping and slurping accompanying the feast. The severed hand crawled out of the other corpse and scurried back home to his wrist while the corpses disintegrated into black mist.

Coughing racked me, my ribs cracking as blood sprayed from my mouth. His expression was utterly bestial as he scurried over on all fours to sniff me. The light of reason returned to his eyes and he reached under the shelves to drag me out by the throat, dangling me in the air like a deranged child holding a puppy.

I plunged Dissever into the arm holding me, but I didn’t have the strength to cut deep. Ecstatic power flushed through me as it feasted on god’s blood. The Thief of Life winced, slapped my hand away and wrenched Dissever free. The black barbs tore chunks of his flesh out with it.

“What a nasty toy,” he said. “You have no idea what sort of horror you formed a pact with. Not that it matters now.” His hand squeezed. Dissever resisted for a few seconds, then shattered.

I threw up my right arm to protect my eyes as chaotic magic and metal exploded, needles of black metal piercing my hand. I convulsed as the dark spirit that was Dissever burst free of its prison, and from inside me, with alien glee.

Free! It shrieked in my mind. Dissever was no spirit born from the magic of this world, but was instead some sort of vile daemon. The Shroud between realms tore as its essence surged into the sea of magic that lay beyond the barrier, returning to whatever blood-soaked daemon realm had birthed it. With a small thunderclap, it was gone and the Shroud healed. But not all of Dissever had left me: lurking in the back of my mind remained a small fragment of red hunger and blackest mirth. Our pact was still intact and from elsewhere Dissever watched and waited, expectant, hungry to see what I would do next.

Nathair dropped his jaw like a laughing beast. “If you had known how to play with it properly then you might have posed me more trouble, but never mind, we shall have plenty of time to spend together in the coming days. What fun we will have!” He grinned, exposing jagged teeth like a laughing shark. “I admit that Harailt’s little pack of daemons surprised me. I had attributed your previous actions to desperation and now I am forced to admire your base-born cunning. A fine attempt, but futile. Now, back to this secret you possess.”

I grimaced and tried not to pass out. “Why are you so interested in what’s in my head?” I felt him inside me as an oily slick spreading and seeping into every crack in my defences.

“Somehow you killed Artha, mortal. His death was beyond me and I want to know how the likes of you managed such a feat.”

I spat a big glob of blood and mucus into his eye.

He didn’t blink or wipe it off. As it slid down his cheek his tongue stretched out to lick and swallow even as his feral mind-probes sliced my thoughts open like a butcher gutting a rotten pig. I was too feeble to resist. “You really don’t remember killing a god, do you?” he said, amazement in his voice. “Ah, there is the cause.” His power roared through me like a flood. Every part of me screamed in terror as Nathair tore my dire secret free from its prison.