Chosen Of The Gods

Ilista shuddered as she stared at the image. The man glaring back out at her had dared to challenge the Lordcity from this very temple a century before. She felt a strange kinship with him. Both of us traitors to the throne, she thought. Her eyes went back to the ruby crown in his hands.

“The Miceram,” she noted. “He stole it?”

“No!” Durinen snapped. “Not stole. Claimed it, as his due. He was at Vasari’s side when he died. He held him in his arms and heard the Kingpriest name him heir, but there was no one to witness those words, so it came to war. Here he ruled until he died untimely, and Ardosean seized the throne. We Little Emperors have kept the truth alive, ever since. We alone know where he hid the Crown.”

“Hid it?” Ilista pressed. “Why? Surely, if he’d used it-”

“Then people would have called him a thief, as you just did.” The patriarch shook his head as Ilista flushed in embarrassment. “Whoever wears the Crown may rule, but Pradian wanted the people’s respect. He meant to win the war on his own terms, then reveal the crown to affirm his claim. He would have done so, too, but for one killing arrow.

“Your next question,” he added, raising a hand as Dista’s mouth opened to speak, “is why none of his heirs have simply do

Beldyn and Ilista looked down the page, and Ossirian craned to see as well. There, written in archaic calligraphy, was a verse:

E Pradian Miceram nomid, e saw, nouton aulcam si adomfrit cilid, beton ‘tis cir boniit, bareis op onbordas. Bebo ninlugit attaid sum ib torpit.’

“And Pradian took the Crown of Power,” Durinen recited, shutting his eyes, “and concealed it beneath the temple he had built, saying ‘Let this remain here, guarded from the unworthy. Let the way not open until it is needed again.’

“We have all tried to bring it back, we Little Emperors,” he went on, “and we failed. The door it lies behind did not open for Theorollyn, who was first after Pradian, and it has opened for none since.”

The study was silent as Beldyn read the text again. His eyes settled on Pradian’s hard countenance, then rose to meet Durinen’s stare. “Where does this door lie?”

“In the catacombs,” Durinen replied. “There is an old fane there, far beneath the Pantheon. Its location is written elsewhere in the text you hold. But beware. The door is only the first-”

It happened so fast, Ilista barely had time to note the sudden chill that bit the air within the study. The shadows in the corner nearest to the Little Emperor came alive, bleeding outward like ink spilled on a page. A horrible noise, like a hyena’s mad cackle mixed with the droning of carrion flies, filled the air as they enveloped Durinen. Two green slits appeared within them, flashing like storm-trapped lightning. He stiffened in its nightmarish embrace, the color draining from his face.

Eyes wide with terror, the Little Emperor opened his mouth to scream.

The darkness tore out his throat.

Blood sprayed from Durinen’s body, turning the front of his robes bright crimson in an instant. Ilista heard someone scream, then realized it was her own voice as warm droplets spattered her face. The Little Emperor stood erect a moment longer, making a ragged, gurgling noise as he clutched at the dark, wet smile that had appeared beneath his chin. Then the darkness let him go, and he toppled face-first to the floor.

No one moved. Dista’s mind cast about, trying to make sense of what had just happened. Her gaze rose from Durinen, lying in a spreading scarlet pool, to the shadow-thing that was changing now, taking on solid form-sinuous and wavering. Its poison-green slit-eyes narrowed on Beldyn.

She knew then, with a sudden rush that robbed her of breath-knew why it was here. It was no coincidence-the creature had been sent to kill the LAghtbringer. What horrified her most, however, was the certainty of who had sent it.

Palado Calib, she thought. Kumos, what have you done?

Time slowed as the shadow demon stared at Beldyn, tensing like a coiled serpent. It eyed him warily, wavering as it regarded the aura of light that cloaked him. He stared back, his eyes wide with fear for the first time since Ilista had known him.

A loud ringing filled the air, and time sped up as Ossirian jerked his sword from its scabbard. “Guards!” he barked. “To me!”

The door burst open at once, and the two bandits who had stood watch outside the room burst in, weapons at the ready-then stopped in their tracks, their jaws going slack as they saw the Little Emperor’s gruesome remains and trie shadow looming over the scene. They blinked, their faces turning the color of chalk.

The shadow didn’t hesitate. Whirling, it rounded on the guards with a snarl, then flowed across the room with a grace that was at once beautiful and horrific. The men froze before it, transfixed. It ripped the first man apart with three quick sweeps of its claws, hurling the scraps aside in a gory shower. The man’s partner screamed, panicking, turned to run-and died just as swiftly, a single talon of shadowstuff, as solid now as iron, punching through the back of his skull. He dangled lifelessly from the demon’s claw, then went down in a heap when it jerked free.

Seeing his men fall, Ossirian hurled himself forward, swinging his sword as the shadow turned back toward Beldyn. He hacked at it viciously, a mighty two-handed blow that would have cleft a man in two from neck to groin, but the creature was no man. The weapon passed through it as though it wasn’t there and bit into the wood-paneled wall behind it. Ossirian stumbled, thrown off balance, and barked a vicious curse.

With another shrieking laugh, the shadow grabbed his head in its claws and squeezed. Ossirian screamed, then a sickening crunch cut him off, and his arms and legs drooped. The demon let him go, and he fell beside Durinen, blood streaming from his nose, mouth, and ears.

It had all taken less than a minute.

The shadow hovered over the corpses, four ruined things that had once been men. Ilista thought, oddly, of Cathan, the boy from Luciel who had sworn to protect Beldyn. He would be a fifth, now, if he were here. A mercy, perhaps, that he was not-but neither was anyone else.

Except for her.

She watched, her whole body turning cold, as the demon turned toward Beldyn once more. It hissed, long blood-dripping claws flexing, and she knew she had to do something. Strangely, there was no fear-only sorrow that after all she had gone through, it came to this. She reached to her throat, drawing out her medallion from beneath her robes.

“Paladine,” she murmured. “Please be with me.”

The shadow leaped with a snarl, an arrow of darkness streaking across the room. Dista was quicker, though, reaching out with her free hand to shove Beldyn aside. He stumbled back with a shout, slamming against the wall.

“Efisa, no!” he screamed.

Ilista ignored him. Instead, she yanked the medallion free, its chain snapping, and thrust it forward as the shadow struck her. Its claws sank into her flesh like spears of ice, and the pain was horrible, a hundred times worse than when the wyvern’s talons had struck her, but she shoved the pain aside, pressing the medallion into the heart of the shadow demon as its talons ripped her open. The creature’s laughter was all around her, sounding like a hundred leering madmen. Red mist fogged her vision, but she blinked it away, forcing her breath out in a shout, fearing she would never draw another.

“Scugam oporud!” she cried, her breath fogging in the shadow-born cold. Demon begone!

The laughter twisted, turned into a furious scream as silver light flared, filling the room.

Silence, darkness.