Lightbringer - The Patron Saints of the Damned III

Exousia struggled to remain calm as she entered the caverns behind Roach. She had sensed several powerful demons behind them for what felt like a few hours. And the energy that they produced was getting stronger as they quickly caught up. They seemed to be the same ones that she had blazed with fire … and one other familiar one. Hades had been right. The Madness in Ammon was close behind. Exousia looked to her companion and said, “We’re not going to make it to the other side with enough time to traverse the entire prison before they catch up.”

“Don’t worry,” Roach said with a wicked smile. “I know a shortcut that they won’t be able to fit through. Okay, maybe that skinny one. But you can take one demon, right?”

Exousia nodded, feeling a slight bit of relief at the notion that it was possible for them to make it. Still, she was going into the Lightbringer, a being whose insanity and thirst for power were things of legend. And though the incarnation of Mr. Green sounded less insane than many others, he seemed ambitious enough to make up for it. This prospect was daunting to say the least. Exousia asked, “You said you never met Mr. Green?”

“Not that I remember,” Roach said, scratching his head around one of his short horns. “According to the guards, something I did something really pissed in his drink. Not literally, I think … I hope … I think he would have killed me if that had happened. But you get it; he didn’t like having me around.”

“But he kept you anyways,” Exousia said, trying to piece together what sort of being the Mr. Green incarnation of the Lightbringer might be and if perhaps he could be won over to help in the coming war against the Creator. She also wondered if he’d sensed the value in Roach’s abilities with direction. Exousia continued to wonder until she heard something that made her jump.

“Exousia!” screamed a cacophony of voices from the entrance of the cave, which was now but a quarter mile behind them. The voices spoke as one, with unparalleled rage. “You should not have come here. You should have left us in peace!”

Exousia’s heart raced, despite the tight hold she tried to keep on hier nerves. She was struck by the memory of her final moments–of Ammon’s eyes being taken over by the splintered amalgamation of spirits. No, she couldn’t let her fear get it the way! Exousia tried to think clearly, making a mental note of what the Madness had just said. She’d been right; it had been the real Ammon who had wanted her to come to this realm, not the Madness.

Roach then lifted a hand to stop them both. He knelt to the ground and began to crawl into a small hole. This must have been what he was talking about earlier, because he barely managed to squeeze through the opening. Exousia had to nervously wait as her companion forced his hard-shelled body through. She looked back, sensing the same spirits as before, and hearing their footsteps.

A light was ignited further down the tunnel. By the brief light, Yana revealed herself in the darkness as her weapon scraped against the stone wall. Her warriors were still with her, as well as several dozen more demons.

Exousia dropped to the ground and frantically began to crawl into the now-vacant tunnel. The thought occurred to use her magic to try to collapse the tunnel behind her. But Exousia decided not to risk destroying what might prove their only way out.

Someone began to bark orders, likely Yana. “A battalion for each of the entrances you were assigned; do not let them escape. My squad on me.” There was only marching in reply and a ferocious flare of anger from Ammon’s aura.

Roach and Exousia did not speak. They crawled as fast as they could, moving until they reached a point where they had to climb straight up by pressing their back against a side of the chimney-like tunnel.

Once they could no longer hear Ammon’s soldiers, Roach said, “I’d recommend that you not look down.”

“I’m not,” Exousia said with a shake of her head.

They moved up a bit further in silence before Roach said, “Are you sure? You got really quiet.”

Exousia reflected for a moment, realizing that her thoughts had drifted to a story. “I was just thinking about a story from my childhood. Do you know of the god, Odin?”

“The one with the bad eye-sight?” Roach asked.

Exousia couldn’t see his face to know if this was a joke, so she assumed that it was. “The warrior who sacrificed his eye and eventually himself in his fight against Ragnorak, which he knew would destroy him and everyone else.” Like so many other gods, Odin was said to have feared an apocalypse that they had foreseen but could not describe. It was the same mad idea that Tezcatlipoca had infected Ammon with, the one that made him think that the world would end if the Creator were not destroyed.

“I don’t really think all that self-sacrifice stuff is all it’s cracked up to be,” Roach said as if he’d thought about it for a while. “Going out in a blaze of glory is what you do when you get tired and want to keep your honor. But if you really think about it, wouldn’t you be able to do more good if you keep on? Once you’re gone, it’s over. Sure, you get to sleep but let’s not glorify ourselves too much for wanting to take a dirt nap.”

Exousia thought about this but then noticed a faint orange glow. They were getting close to an exit. It was just in time, too, because her legs were starting to burn from exertion.

“See? I was pretty sure we’d make it!” Roach said, reaching down a hand to help pull her up. His face contorted a little, and he corrected himself. “I mean, I was pretty certain. Very certain, in fact! And here you were, thinking of dying in this tunnel like a Viking God. Good thing you have me around to talk you through all your crazy ideas.”

Exousia took the demon’s hand and ignored his banter. Once she was on the ledge, she looked over the expanse before them. It was quite a bit smaller than the enormous cavern where the rest of the demons lived, but it was still massive. Smaller mountains and cliffs filled the horizon, and countless holes to other caves covered the walls. Just in his immediate area, Exousia could see thousands of them at various heights. This was one of many mechanisms by which the Lightbringer was kept prisoner here.

“This way,” Roach said, sliding down a dusty hill to what looked like the ground level of the cavern. “A few more hours and we can make it to the palace. I take it that’s where you want to go?”

Exousia nodded. “I’m going to see if the current incarnation of the Lightbringer can be reasoned with. If we could at least get him to lend us an artifact of some sort, we might be able to even the odds in the war to come. At least, unless I manage to fix Ammon and he happens to have a different plan. If I can get to him through Yana and Attel.”

“You can take them … can’t you?” Roach asked.

Exousia thought about it. “I don’t know if I could beat them in a fair fight … so I won’t let it come to that.”

Roach cheered. “I like the way you think, I’ll make a craven scoundrel out of you yet!”

“We could opt to make you a warrior, instead,” Exousia said, not under any genuine illusion he would take her up on it. “You could help me fight the two of them, even the odds.”

“And risk damaging my pretty face?” Roach asked. “No thank you.”

Exousia shrugged and continued to walk. As she did so, she sensed a dim thrum of energy from the distant mountains. It was hidden, so much so that it had to have been purposeful. And while the energy was not burning or imposing like any sort of threat, Exousia had the feeling that she too was being sensed.

-O-

Megan stepped out of the pool of water; she did not dare to look back into the pool at her own body. She didn’t even turn around until Dufaii had taken it away through a portal. In the meantime, Megan reflected on how it felt to be a soul without a body. To her surprise, it felt fairly similar. The major difference was that she felt lighter and less … constricted. Whereas before, the burning of her skin had made her feel like her body would literally crack open, the damage to her soul was less immediate–more like she had a horrific sunburn. As Megan moved around more freely than ever before, she got the feeling that damage and fatigue were no longer things that would easily stop her from going on. For her purposes, this seemed useful. However, for eternal torment, she imagined that being able to fall apart, go into shock, or really lose consciousness would have been a mercy. The thought sent a shiver through her.

Dufaii returned shortly after with the word that her body was safe in a hospital bed.

Fighting the confusing urge to either cry or vomit, Megan asked, “What do we do now, then?”

Dufaii replied, “We find the leader of this place, a demon named Hades, and get word about the situation here. We tell her all we know about the situation in Heaven. With any luck, she will know where we might be able to find Ammon. And if we can find him, chances are that we will find Exousia.”

Michael studied him for a moment before he reluctantly nodded.

Maeva walked forward with a stone bowl, which was filled with some crimson paste. “You will need this for your skin.”

Megan looked at her hands, already feeling the effects of the dryness on them. While it was not as gruesome as what had happened when her physical body had been exposed, her skin was becoming flaky and pale. And her throat felt more parched than it ever had; even swallowing was painful. As soon as Megan dipped her fingers in the paste, however, the pain in them diminished. She spread it all over her skin, sliding her hands under her clothes until every part of her was covered. The relief was almost instant. She wished for a moment, that there was some kind of balm she could put in her brain to relieve the voices that were not her own. Instead, she tried distracting herself with conversation, saying, “Thank you. What is in that paste?”

The demons and Abha looked between one another, as if asking some unspoken question. Maeva said, “I do recommend not thinking about questions like that too much.”

Megan nodded and reached her hands into the pockets of her red jacket. Inside, she could still feel the brass-knuckles she’d stolen from Heaven’s barracks, as well as her gun. With it out of ammunition, she decided to discard it there.

Maeva then handed her what looked like a water skin. “You’ll know what this is before long. Likewise, I wouldn’t ask or think about it when you do.”

Megan felt a tight knot of revulsion form in her stomach, but she nodded. Then she asked, “Are you two not coming with us?”

Maeva and Abha both shook their heads and the latter said, “The exit to Hell must remain guarded.”

“And it’s past time we left,” Dufaii said. He nodded grimly at Abha and Maeva each, took the bag of angel heads, and then began his walk into a nearby tunnel. Michael and Megan followed behind. The path forward was winding, with so many routes that Megan could not imagine anyone being able to make their way through it. They would pass several dozen turns before taking one, with no possible mark to show the correct way. She wondered if this was part of the natural horror of the realm she was in, or if it had been done by the demons. It was possible to imagine either scenario.

They walked for what felt like an hour, the light from the unseen torches around them becoming steadily dimmer until they were in total blackness. In the distance, faint echoes of footsteps and voices could occasionally be heard. Whenever they were, Dufaii would pause and furrow his brow, as if the sounds perplexed him.

“What is it?” Megan eventually asked.

Dufaii shook his head and said, “Lots of presences … and I thought maybe one that might have been familiar. These tunnels do not normally see much use.” Then, they walked yet another hour, or two, or countless more. The passage of time seemed like it was stuck, like it could have been bounding forward or not moving at all. The only markers that Megan had were her thirst and the way her body felt more dry and miserable as she remained between the other two. But they eventually found their way into the soft glow of orange light, and finally stepped into an alien land.

It was a cave the size of a county, with stars in the sky, infinite patches of darkness, a city that rose from the ground to meet the ceiling, holes that went down forever, and a faint whistling sound that came from everywhere at once. It was like a tea-kettle in a room so far away that she could barely hear it. Was it the sound of … screaming?

“Down!” Dufaii shouted, throwing the three of them to the ground, none to gently

Megan gasped, trying to catch her breath from the tackle as she saw and heard some sort of projectile whistle past where she’d been standing. She tried to react, reaching into the pockets of her robes for the edged brass knuckles.

Michael was up first, standing in front of both her and Dufaii, his sword ready. He was looking up at nearly twenty shadows dropping from the darkness above, as if they had been laying in wait.

“Captain Buer, they have an uncorrupted human!” shouted a being whose voice was like a hiss. “It’s Michael with the Godkiller!”

“Exousia?” roared another demon, presumably the one named Buer. He dropped to the ground before the rest of them and revealed himself to be the lion version of some kind of centaur. Like all demons, he had black eyes and four goat legs over a sleek feline body. His humanlike upper body had bronze skin, and a magnificent mane encircled his otherwise normal head. The demon carried a sword in one hand and directed his companions wordlessly with the other. They landed on every other side of Megan, Dufaii, and Michael, as well as above them.

Megan realized that her back was touching the rock wall behind her when her head softly struck the stone. They were trapped … and these creatures thought that she was Exousia! Her breathing became more frantic and rapid as she looked all around her for a way to escape. But all she could focus on were the weapons pointed at her.

Michael roared and swung his massive claymore at the lion demon blocking their way.

But Buer dodged under the attack and closed the distance between them.

Megan saw her opportunity; she lunged and drove the pointed edge of her brass knuckles into the more human part of the demon’s back. She then sprinted past the demon–back toward the cave they’d arrived from. Her plan was to hide in one of the many dark tunnels. However, when she returned to where it should have been dark, she realized there was now light coming from further within. Someone was approaching! She looked back and saw that Dufaii and Michael had followed her. They too were looking back and forth, no doubt hearing the marching coming from both sides. They were trapped!

Finally, a series of figures turned the corner–arriving from the exit of Hell. Facing her, with a torch in hand, was Gabriel. His face was severe, and he seemed as surprised to see her as she was to see him. Then, more angels turned around the corner behind him. First came Raphael, leading a heavily armored team of angels that poured in until they filled the first half of the long tunnel. And when nearly fifty had pressed through, someone else appeared.

It was … the Creator. They stepped forward, still in the shape of the small child with paint on their apron. They looked confused for only a moment before taking on an expression of understanding. Then, their eyes looked further into the tunnel at something else. Megan turned also to see what they were looking at. Dufaii and Michael were still there with their swords drawn. Behind them, the same twenty or so demons that had chased them from the mountain. These demons froze in confusion when they saw the Creator and Archangels.

The angels drew their weapons. The demons, their faces filled with fear, did the same even as several of them shuffled several paces back. And Megan realized that she, Dufaii, and Michael, were trapped in a tunnel with armed warriors getting ready to attack from both sides.