An angel’s road to hell

104. Of fire, flames and a little bit of last chances

Ahri Arete

The smell wasn’t as bad as one might imagine. The continuous scrambling and scratching was another matter. The noise produced by an army on the rise was horrific, a constant, piercing pressure against my ears that made it impossible to focus on anything but the moving assembly of spare parts and limbs before me.

Mordred and I had retreated under the shadow of the statue, Reia alongside Shassa’s withered body between us. Eight stone claws pinned her to the ground and even though the wounds had dried up long ago a distinct metallic odour still lingered around her prone form. Her eyes were closed, shrivelled and blind, eight deep holes on top of her head like windows to an empty room. Reia was still and pale, her mind had fled from the sensations that were racing through their connection, from the pain that had flooded her once the spell had started working.

Viyara was hovering in the air, sparks of magic running along her talons and fangs while she surveyed the amassing horde. Her tail twitched in agitation like that of a cat before it was going to pounce and beat against the statue like the biggest drum of war. We waited in silence, every second stretched on for an eternity, the only thing that marked the flow of time was the slowly growing sea of bodies before us and the distorted mumbling of Mephisto that reached us from the top of the statue. Words of power that slowly seeped through the enchantments made the statue tremble, different formations flaring brightly from time to time before they dimmed again and disappeared beneath the black granite.

Every muscle in my body was shivering with fear and anticipation and if it hadn’t been for the fact that every moment we stalled was another moment for Mephisto to work his magic, I’d have thrown myself forward just to be done with the excruciating wait while the number of our enemies swelled before my eyes. I saw the towering constructs of stone, magic and a spark of transcendent energy, spawned from my blood and the long forgotten spells of a dead wizard at the very cusp of immortality. My eyes roamed over the scattering spiders, miniature imprints of Shassa’s spirit, channeled through Reia while we had activated the previous portal. Chimeras, brought to life through Viyara’s blood and undead monstrosities, linked to the darker parts of Mordred’s soul, stumbled to their knees and finally rose with unnatural, choppy movements. Luckily only four of us had been required to open the last seal, otherwise we would have had to deal with Mephisto’s spawns as well and I could just about manage without facing whatever would have crawled out of his demonic ass.

Another wave of power was ripped from Shassa and I thought I could hear her groan, even though I wasn’t sure if spiders were capable of producing such a sound. Her emancipated legs twitched once, that, I could see, and the brightest torrent of light as of yet burned through the statue and dispersed among the fiends. As if it had been a signal they had all been waiting for, they rose and turned to us, dead eyes and constructs of magic focusing on us with the intent of a predator that had spotted its prey. The wait was finally over.

“Viyara, remain close to us and don’t soar too far over the army. If you go down over there, we won’t be able to help. 10 minutes. Hold fast for 10 minutes and keep those two alive. Here they come, good luck.” As far as Inspiring speeches went, I probably didn’t deliver, but we all knew what was at stake. The spider had been brutally honest when she had told us about the traps and defensive measures that had been constructed around her prison and if Mephisto had appeared in time to tell me that Cassy might wake up on her own, I’d probably have told her to get the hell out of Reia’s mind. Admittedly, her claim that the feedback from the stimulated seed would be enough to tear the time stream apart without her presence buffering and absorbing most of the impact had made my fur stand on edge but it wouldn’t have been enough to send me head over tails down a dark, dangerous hole in the ground. Well, maybe it would have been but I’d like to think that I wasn’t as impulsive as Cassandra.

When I tightened my grip on the blade in my hand and got into position to welcome the first wave with open arms I couldn’t help but smile at the irony. Me, down here fighting a battle I couldn’t hope to win, only outlast, while she was up there, somewhat safe and I was the one who still lamented her recklessness. I fanned out my tails for better balance and added:

“We can’t allow the golems to reach the statue. We don’t even know how we can damage them except for Viyara’s flames and they don’t work fast enough. If they get to Reia… I’ll try to keep them busy if they come too close while you keep the smaller ones at bay. Agreed?” Mordred grunted an affirmation and Viyara breathed a jet of silvery golden flames across our heads and into the roiling wave before us. Corpses and spiders went up with a shower of sparks, their very essence devoured by her hungry fires. The first blow had fallen and as if the floodgates had opened the horde surged towards us.

The fight was gruelling, an endless succession of blurry silhouettes and distorted faces that rose and fell with every movement of my blade. Purple fluids coated the stone around us while Mordred and I laid into the advancing horde with reckless abandon and Viyara whirled over our heads, her short bursts of magical fire illuminating the hall with silvery light from time to time. We sowed death and destruction and for the first minute or so we managed to hold on. That was, until the golems entered the fray. A towering construct of magic and stone loomed above us from one second to the next, its spear held high above his head. “Watch out,” I screamed and ducked to the side, my wings catapulting me out of harms way.

Sharp metal and sizzling magic descended with the force of the proverbial brick wall and a cloud of dust rise from the spot I had just vacated. Mordred had managed to jump out of the way as well and when the golem’s back was still bend from its swing, Viyara crashed into it, a spitting ball of fury and fire that wrestled it to the ground. The two behemoths fell with an earth shattering impact, the statue pulverised under Viyara’s mighty limbs. But that wasn’t the end. A surge of blue light rose from the destroyed golem and wrapped around Viyara’s like a blanket. A deafening scream immediately ripped from her throat and in the flickering light I could see her scales deform and melt under the punishing spell while a wave of enemies slowly swallowed her up.

“Viyara,” I howled while I pushed off the ground and tried to somehow get enough space from the reaching limbs around me to rise into the air. I struggled and fought against the onslaught and with a powerful twist I pushed my wings through the encroaching bodies, turning them into blazing torches. Without hesitation I used the brief moment of calm to flare my wings and fly to Viyara’s side. Soaring this close over the heads of our foes wasn’t the best idea I had ever had, the whiplike tail of a chimera that hit me out of nowhere and send me tumbling into their ranks removed any doubt I might have had.

Like a stone from a sling I was shot into the thick of it, my body tearing a path through the army on its way down. The heat from my wings turned me into a veritable comet as I was hurtled through their ranks and finally struck one of the chimeras full in the chest. To me it felt like I had just collided with a mountain.

Pain pulsed from my broken leg along my ruptured skin and towards my pulped ribs and my vision began to flicker while I desperately fought to remain conscious. Viyara’s heart wrenching screams echoed close by but they seemed to come from a badly tuned communications crystal, sometimes loud and clear, sometimes fuzzy and distorted. Groggily I tried to get to my feet but before I could persuade my damaged muscles to resume their duties, a fresh wave of agony raced along my nerves when ripping claws latched onto my limbs and tried to tear me apart.

Panic flooded my mind, I didn’t want to die, I couldn’t, not before the time was up and suddenly I understood why Cassy was always taking her powers further than she should. If failure was unthinkable you’d do what you had to, the consequences be damned.

It was easy, unbelievably easy, as if the energy that was churning around my core had just been waiting for a chance to burst forth. I didn’t have to do anything, I simply had to allow the unending flood of heat and fire to move freely, to finally flow unhindered and it happened.

The pain that tormented me disappeared in an instant, brushed way by power and flames. My wings ignited with the wrath of forgotten aeons and a ravaging maelstrom of fury and fire roared to life around me. I could feel my very blood boil in my veins, my skin aglow from underneath, but it didn’t bother me, all that mattered was the tingling of power at my fingertips and the clouds of ash that silently rained down around me. A red hot haze obscured my vision when I floated in the air, held aloft by nothing more than pure will alone. Flakes of charred skin rained down from where the flames were bursting through and I knew my body was breaking down further every moment but at least for now, I stood tall.

With a thought I pushed more energy into my wings, the four feathery limbs turning into small suns that burned behind my back with unending hunger and ferocity. “Enough.” My voice was calm and quiet but it resounded with enough force to batter the fiends closest to me to their knees while their bodies started to smoke and shrivel under the immense heat. I spread my wings wide and brushed against the blue cocoon of light that still held Viyara prisoner. Sparks and cracks appeared immediately, red veins spreading from wherever I touched it and like heated glass in the snow it shattered. A high pitched chime reverberated through the hall and Viyara’s cries cut off.

I knew I didn’t have much time, so I didn’t waste the precious few minutes I’d be able to hold on. Like a cleansing wildfire I blazed forwards, turning stone into glass and limbs into ash. With every second, more and more energy surged from my core until it felt like the world was burning with me at its centre. Swaths of undead and spiders vanished behind flaming curtains and wherever my wings came in contact with stone or flesh, acrid smoke was soon everything that was left. In a frenzied dance I made my way deeper into the horde, hoping I could cause enough damage to halt their advance, to stall them for just a few minutes.

Once or twice I thought I saw the shadow of a golden dragon close by, smashing through the holes I had torn into the solid wall of bodies like an enraged beast, showers of blood and torn body parts exploding into the air around her frenzy but she disappeared quickly again behind the sea of falling bodies. I couldn’t focus on her anyways, the ebb and flow of battle had consumed me and I didn’t think about what I was doing anymore. One step was followed by the next, strikes effortlessly glided into pirouettes until it felt like I wasn’t fighting anymore but dancing to the hidden rhythm of the waning life around me.

My vision dimmed and still I fought, my hearing became muted but I didn’t stop, the flow of energy that coursed through me became distant but I kept going. Golems, chimeras, spiders, undead they were all consumed like kindling, blackened soot and charred patches of stone and glass the only thing that escaped me until the embers in my blood died down. The strain had finally been too much and in its rage the fire had consumed its host. I felt my life drain away, a last bit of sustenance for a final explosion of red flames and then, darkness came.

Cassandra Pendragon

I was on the cusp of another dream. I could feel the stirring memories like a tickle in the depth of my mind but they didn’t swallow me. Something kept them at bay, like an alarm it held my focus and didn’t allow me to submerge myself in the scenes from my past.

At first I didn’t mind, exhausted and sleepy as I was but after a while, the constant pressure was becoming unnerving. I wanted to make it stop which made me wonder where I even was to begin with. Somewhere between sleep and lucidity my thoughts crawled along at a snail’s pace but I still was somehow aware and with that I realised that there was someone else with me, a strange presence at the edge of my mind that kept me from descending into my dreams. The knowledge sparked curiosity and before I knew what was happening, images reached me, a continuous stream of emotions and memories. It was an introduction of sorts, a “I come in peace even though I might seem a bit scary” message paired with the most crucial information I had missed in the last few minutes and a distorted, eight eyed face.

Apparently I had the dubious honour of meeting an ancient spider, the very same one who had taught Amon in ages past. I couldn’t say that the revelation had me reeling, but it felt nice to be right once in a while. She had sent me bits and pieces of her past, enough to understand what was going on. Cast down by her former disciple she had been confined to this prison until an aspiring sorcerer had used her as a stepping stone to reach for the spark of immortality until he was cast down by none other than Amazeroth.

The remains of the artefacts he had created were the source of our trouble, Amon’s meddling with the shards of the mana heart had activated the seed hidden in the statue I was sleeping on. Shassa, that was her name, could feel every pulse the seed sent out to energise the mana heart and the backlash when the wave of power recoiled from the torn channels, destroyed when Amazeroth had annihilated the sorcerer’s works and caused the cataclysm. Terrible as it was, it also seemed to be the one saving grace because from what she told me, nothing short of changing the past would get us out of there in one piece.

After I had collapsed, again, I might add, Mephisto had tried to change one of the defensive spells to revive Shassa, the rest of my friends buying the time he had needed with their life. Unfortunately that surge of power had been the straw that had broken the camel’s back, so to speak. The strained spell formations that kept the seed together were collapsing this very second and as soon as they were gone, time would crack and the time stream would realign, brushing away everything in its way, which included us at the moment. Luckily Mephisto had used some of my blood in his attempt which had allowed Shassa to reach for me as soon as she woke up and felt the spells disintegrating. Which had led us to were we where now, nowhere in particular while the mind of an exhausted kitsune communed with a spirit from ages past.

I was tempted to call bullshit, but since we weren’t talking directly, it was a damned sight harder to lie. Panic and fear surged through me, not particularly for myself but if what the spider had said was true, Ahri and my friends were dead right that very moment and if I didn’t meddle with our past they wouldn’t have a future. I was still missing crucial parts of the puzzle but there wasn’t much of a choice anyways. Just like Ahri hadn’t hesitated to follow the spider to save me, I would do whatever I could, even if that meant trusting a creepy, eight legged monster.