Chapter eighty-three

The God at Melloreis

 

Hardacre and Viola found John’s battered body close to the bottom of the disintegrated tower. He was moving but his legs appeared useless and he could not speak. His eyes were tightly closed and his arms embraced himself. He seemed to be rocking slightly. A few feet away Whitecloak was struggling with himself, still dazed from the conflict with the Bell.

They bent over John to see what they could do, if anything. Viola touched his shoulder gently, but he just pulled away. They could have sworn that he was sobbing very gently. They pulled him up and Viola placed her arms around his shoulders while Hardacre soothed his head with his hand.

The uncovered Whitecloak was now standing but he seemed to be crying with pain. He sniffed around for several minutes groaning and cursing in his own language. Then, assuming something like a humanoid shape again, he began to stumble on towards the Vault. 

‘We’ll have to go to help the others’ said Viola, ‘we still have to try to keep him away from the Vault’

Whitecloak was sensing something in the air, growing in strength as he caught a stronger and stronger scent

‘I can smell your spoor, elf spirit!’ he shouted, triumphantly, ‘I am coming to crush your minions out of existence’  

Hardacre wasn’t moving from his master. All he wanted to do was comfort him in his mutilation. He wouldn’t even look up at Viola. He stared down at his master’s bloodied face.

John’s eyes flickered and then opened. They were very tired but undimmed.

‘Viola’s right’ he said softly, ‘we really do need to go after him’

Viola screamed, jumped up and John fell to the floor with a thump.

 ‘Be careful’ John said, ‘I’m still quite fragile’

Hardacre pulled himself together immediately, an ability that the years had honed to perfection.

‘Good work, sir’ he said. John nodded.

‘A relatively simple resistance spell, Laurence – Dai taught it me…’ he said, ‘…it’s particularly effective when your opponent is so incredibly sure of himself’

‘But nonetheless, sir…’

John stood up stiffly, dusted himself down and stared out towards Whitecloak.

‘Thank you, Laurence; but it looks like I may have to do it all over again. Perhaps now, though, I could go with some help…’

 

Rem stood in front of Whitecloak, the healer’s frayed grey robe drab in the unbearable spiritual sunlight. Whitecloak towered over him. He spoke to Rem in Tlaxacan. But Rem shook his head.

‘I will not speak in your language. You made it for slavery. I will speak in Ethian words’

Whitecloak paused, his inner brightness dimming for just a second.

‘What are you?’ he asked

‘Free’ replied Rem, still standing in Whitecloak’s way. He stared straight at him, unblinking.

Whitecloak laughed dismissively.

‘No-one is free’ he sneered, ‘you are mutated, or perverted, or both’

‘You must stop’ said Rem firmly. His head was suddenly filled with words which were only partly his. His tone and timbre changed; it was deeper, older, sadder. He seemed to be sleepwalking but everything he did he did willingly. His master had come.   

‘What?’ said Whitecloak, a tremor colouring his voice.

Rem lifted up his arm and raised his palm out towards Whitecloak. As he did this he caught sight of Viola, Hardacre and John in the distance making their way round to the Vault. His face gave no clue that he had seen them, and Whitecloak was clearly too engrossed in this conversation to notice anyway.

‘Stop the killing. Go home’

The pale heat of Whitecloak’s stare spread out over Rem, but nothing happened.

‘How can you stand?’ asked Whitecloak, perplexed.

‘You know how’  

The god’s light dimmed almost to nothing. One could almost imagine distant, cold, stars appearing in the sudden blackness of its form.

‘But why will you not help me?’ asked Whitecloak, daunted.

‘The Paths have diverged. I have turned aside’

The light inside Whitecloak reignited, but still flickered weakly. There was a long moment of uncertainty. 

‘This must be trickery…’ exclaimed Whitecloak, eventually, his light flaring back into full brightness, ‘…witchcraft’

Rem shook his head.

‘Turn back – seek a better Path’

‘No’ shouted Whitecloak, ‘no-one shall obstruct me! My victory is but seconds away’

He flowed irresistibly towards Rem. But Rem still did not move and Whitecloak could not pass through him.

‘You cannot defeat her. She is stronger than you’

‘No!’ said Whitecloak, again, ‘you lie! She is fey and feckless, like a child. And she has run away leaving only her toys behind’

Rem made no movement.

‘Nonetheless, it is so’

Whitecloak tried once more to pass through Rem’s space.

‘You are close to your end, maybe it will come very soon. Then you know that you will return’

‘Shut up, abomination’ yelled Whitecloak, ‘I do not have to listen’

‘But in any case – everyone and everything that you have killed or enslaved, their names have been placed in the ledger’

‘Do not try to blackmail me, stupid slave – I must pass’

 He tried once more to push past Rem. 

‘You will have to go around me.  And despite what you say I know that you have heard my words and that you fear them’

Whitecloak flowed to the right of Rem and then past him at a distance.

Rem started, as if suddenly awake and then turned to address Whitecloak.

‘Kill no more of Rem’s friends!’ he shouted. He fell to the floor in a dead faint, all energy drained away.  

 

John, Viola and Hardacre ran as best they could to the entrance to the Vault. Potentilla came up to greet them. She gave a big thumbs up. They all breathed a sigh of relief.

‘Kath’s ready?’ asked John eagerly.

Potentilla nodded vigorously.

‘Not quite’ she said, ‘she only needs about five minutes more’

They all sighed and sagged.

‘Right’ said John, ‘let’s keep him busy for five minutes and try to keep alive for almost the same length of time’

They could see the God squirming his way through the air towards them. John felt utterly exhausted.

‘I have nothing left’ he exclaimed, ‘what about you, Laurence?’

Hardacre looked a little startled by this remark, as if he found it inappropriate even here.

‘I have something, sir, I suppose’

John handed Hardacre an object from his cloak breast pocket. What is was the others could not see.

‘Use it well’ said John, ‘now for some small talk with an angry little god’

John leapt up from the entrance to the vault and ran towards the blue phantom. About twenty yards away he slowed to a trot. Then he waved, as if to an old friend.

‘Still here then’ he said

 The God flared and expanded to several times larger than its humanoid form.

‘How?’ thundered Whitecloak

John stood looking at himself and shaking his head.

‘Luck, I think – after all, how can a mortal resist a god?’

Whitecloak’s whole body pulsed. His voice was strangled with anger.

‘How dare you!’ he screamed.

‘I’m just a distraction’ said John, helpfully, ‘don’t let your anger get the better of you! Go and destroy the machine’

Whitecloak was in striking distance of the vault steps – he knew exactly where he was and what he had to do.

‘I can smell that it is not ready’ he boomed, ‘in a few minutes I will be master of everything’

‘Exactly’ said John, ‘the fact that you couldn’t defeat me is as nothing compared with what you will now achieve! Deal with me later!’

Whitecloak expanded further so that he towered twenty feet above John.

‘This is more trickery! I could crush you now – you surely know that’

‘Of course’ said John, nodding his head, ‘you just haven’t got round to it, yet, I suppose’

Hardacre was now just in front of the Vault, rapidly burying something in the ground.

‘You deny my power. You deny my glory?’ screamed the God.

‘Of course not, gargantuean god thing’ said John evenly, waving his hands, ‘you really are running out of time, though. Get inside the vault’

‘You will be destroyed’ said Whitecloak, his spiritual gaze now fixed only on John, ‘I will focus all my power on you and disintegrate your soul’

John shouted, ‘now, Laurence, now!’ and flung himself to one side as far as he could.

Hardacre intoned ‘brifio’ and the Zymena tree shot up from its tiny regenerating roots and grew almost immediately into a great tall floating tree. It knew no commands, but it could instantly recognise an enemy.

All of the party dived for cover, realising that any other actions would now be futile. There was a brief moment of almost unbearable silence and into it poured a curious subterranean hum. Hope, which had almost completely died, dared to spark in their breasts.

The tree lashed out at the approaching phantom. Its limbs were faster and far stronger than anything the God had experienced before. They grabbed his tenuous physical form and began to squeeze it. Momentarily, Whitecloak was at a loss. He wriggled and squirmed and bellowed with anger and anguish.

‘I will not be stopped by a tree!’ He shouted and flared up all around the enveloping branches. The tree resisted for a while and then began to wither and to burn, but painfully slowly, so that the struggle continued for several precious minutes.      

The Zymena tree burned but its fresh green leaves refused to wither completely.   Meanwhile, the God slowly seeped out of its clutches.  By now, however, the underground hum had turned into a vast cracking sound and the earth began to move violently. For a second they all thought that it must be an earthquake, and then they saw the great fissure in the ground above the vault and realised exactly what it was.

Out from the depths came the Autelephas of Ophia. Its tusks forced their way through the rock and stone and it bellowed as it reached the surface. Kath was riding it but it was very difficult to control. It thundered off in the wrong direction, rapidly travelling away from Whitecloak. It had been designed to plough through an army of soldiers to get to its quarry, but now they would be lucky if it even faced in the right direction. 

The God laughed at the sight of it.

‘Is that it?’ it said, ‘all this fuss for that! It is nothing but a toy!’

Kath wobbled about on the top of the machine, struggling to get it to behave itself. It rocked and bucked and she was convinced that at any moment she would tumble off. She looked desperately for someone who might help her. He darting eyes finally found Potentilla, lying prone on the ground next to a large boulder.

‘I can’t get the damn thing to point the right way’ she yelled, beside herself, ‘that’s all I have to do, but I can’t control it properly’

Potentilla sprang up, and ran out to beside the automaton.

‘He killed Fred, Kath’ she shouted, ‘That bastard killed Fred!’

 Kath’s face, which a moment before had been deathly white, filled immediately with blood, and the blood brought with it hatred and anger. ‘No!’ she shouted, gulping between great sobs. She reached down to the control panel instinctively and finally the elephant lumbered slowly round to face the blue phantom.

Whitecloak laughed.

‘Just this jumble of metal’ he cried out triumphantly, ‘soon! Yes, soon, my loyal followers! I will be Lord!’

The God contracted to a tiny ball of blue and white, as if breathing in, and then exhaled. An unbearable stream of light flew out to the Autelephas. Whitecloak waited for the inevitable explosion.

Something strange happened. The Autelephas’s trunk flicked rapidly in the air and intercepted the flow of light. At that instant a green thread jumped out of the trunk and grew outwards back along the trajectory of the stream. It struck the expanding blue and white sphere and held on.

‘What is this?’ yelled the God, ‘how can this be?’

Nobody spoke. Kath had her head down and was concentrating on her task, the others watched in horrified fascination and fear. 

The green thread thickened, as if it were a strong dark green vine. The watchers almost expected to see leaves sprouting on it. Then it flexed and pulled. Slowly but inexorably Whitecloak was dragged back towards the elephant. He screamed out and pulsed – his white rays and bolts spilled out everywhere, but they dropped harmlessly on to the ground.

‘You shall not!’ he screamed. There was a puff of blue as he attempted to blink away, but the green vine held him tight and he gradually got closer and closer. It was clear that he would be pulled, eventually, on to the tusks, which now began to pulsate with the same dark green light as the vine.

The God swore in his own tongue, expanding as fast as he could as if in an attempt to break at least part of himself away, and be free. But the vine did not allow it.  

Whitecloak shouted out in Archaic Elven, high and desperate.

‘Ophia! Please do not do this! How could you destroy your own? Forgive me!’   

But it was too late. The God fell on the tusks and the green light poured out of them into his spectral form. There was no battle; the green just replaced the blue completely. And then, once it had reached the bright sun at the centre, it simply snuffed that out too, like a tiny candle. The God collapsed in on itself and fell, as if a punctured ball, to the floor. That was no sound.

The Autelephas, drained of all its power, began to seize up again. It managed only a few more paces before it clanked to a halt. Kath clambered down to the ground.

One by one the watchers came to where Whitecloak had fallen. They approached falteringly, and reverentially, as befitted the death of a god. On the ground was a dark pool, which, even though it was still early afternoon, reflected a pitch black night sky with a few, very dim, stars. They stared at it transfixed, and then, unexpectedly, they all felt very sad. Viola held Kath’s hand and Kath held Potentilla’s.  Hardacre gave support to his weak and swaying master. Rem finally walked to join them and looked down at the pool.

‘He is gone’ said Rem, ‘It’s just old light. Those stars are memories of dead suns’

They all stared on as if fixed to the spot. Time seemed to slow to nothing.

‘We should to look away now, I think, dear friends’ said Rem, eventually, and they gratefully did.

Rem led the victors away from the grave, comforting them.

‘Time to begin again’