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As he had hoped, Suroth followed.
On the roof of the chamber, resembling the teeth of some enormous mythical beast, there hung huge dripping stalactites. A quick glance below and he saw the Nomad leader leering up at him, his eyes glistening with a madness that would not be satisfied with anything other than Remy’s death.
Remy flapped his wings all the harder, increasing his speed, seemingly on a collision course with the ceiling fangs. Straining against the increasing pain in his shoulder, he lifted the Pitiless axe, swinging the razor-keen blade into one of the hangings of ice as he passed alongside. Darting between the chunks of falling debris, Remy struck at the next, and one after another, huge pieces of the ceiling ice rained down on the ascending angel.
At first Remy thought his efforts had failed, the Nomad leader able to maneuver through the falling rubble as he continued to ascend. But one of Suroth’s powerful wings was struck by a large chunk of ice, sending the Nomad leader spi
Remy dropped, following the rain of debris to the chamber floor. He hovered just above the ground, searching for Suroth’s body, imagining it buried beneath the tons of ice. Bodies of fallen angels who had been killed by pieces of the falling ceiling littered the ground. He could see others peering out fearfully from patches of shadow, having escaped their brethrens’ crushing fate.
He doubted it would be long before they were again drawn to him.
Touching down, Remy suddenly realized how weak he was, his legs barely able to support his weight. He dropped to his knees upon the ice, looking around the chamber.
His eyes touched upon the body of Madach, lying bloodied and twisted upon the ground, protected from the falling rubble by Lucifer’s pall.
Remy pushed himself to stand, stumbling over the shattered pieces of ceiling ice to reach his reluctant partner in this insane endeavor. The battle-axe slipped from his grasp, but he did not bother to retrieve it. He lowered himself to the ground, pulling Madach into his arms.
“Hey,” he said, giving the fallen a gentle shake. “Are you still with me?”
Madach’s eyes flickered open, looking into Remy’s fearfully.
“It’s all right,” Remy reassured him. “I think we might’ve actually averted the disaster.”
Remy chanced a look toward the sarcophagus; though large chunks were missing from its surface, none of the blows had actually managed to break through to the inside.
He felt Madach’s body stiffen in his arms.
“No,” the fallen angel stated, shaking his head. “No, it’s not all right at all.”
The explosion immediately followed upon Madach’s words. Remy watched as the blood-covered form of Suroth rose from the rubble of the broken ceiling.
Steam wafted up from his soaking robes, his features twisted in a combined grimace of rage and agony. In his hand he still clutched the hilt of the Pitiless katana. The blade had been snapped about midway down, but Suroth had still managed to hold on to his weapon.
Twisting away from the still-thrashing Madach, Remy scrambled for the battle-axe. Maybe this was what Hell was for him, one countless battle after another, feeling his humanity slipping away inch by inch.
Suroth opened his mouth to speak, his jaw hanging crookedly. It looked quite painful as he forced the words from his mouth.
“With the end… I bring about the begi
Remy tensed to fly and was shocked when Suroth changed the direction of the blade, pivoting to point it at the sarcophagus.
Snaking arcs of angelic power emerged from beneath the angel’s wet and tattered robes, tentacles of magick that snaked down the length of his arm, flowing into the hand that clutched the broken sword.
A blast of angel fire, far stronger than anything the Nomad had conjured yet struck the front of Lucifer’s personal prison.
The chamber was filled with a searing blue light, a magickal energy continued to flow from some vast reservoir within the Nomad leader.
Remy knew what was happening, and that it was now too late to stop it.
Suroth was sacrificing his angelic life force and adding it to the magick his kind had mastered so many mille
Lucifer’s pall had begun to glow white, the intense heat radiating from the stone prison causing the moisture from the melting ice to evaporate, filling the chamber with a roiling steam that made it nearly impossible to see what was happening.
Remy was drawn to the sarcophagus, flapping his wings aggressively to disperse the hindering mist. He was at least three feet from the pall when the magick pouring from Suroth abruptly ceased. A thunderous blast followed as the case exploded, lifting him off his feet and tossing him through the air.
The silence that followed was deafening.
Knowing that the unthinkable had occurred, Remy stood.
The steam had begun to fade, a roiling layer of fog undulating like something alive close to the chamber floor. He moved toward where the stone coffin had once stood, broken pieces now scattered about the floor.
As he moved closer, he saw kneeling amongst the fog and rubble, the form of a man. Remy froze, staring at the shape that suddenly stood and turned to face him.
It was Madach who stood in the remains of the sarcophagus.
Remy’s angelic instinct was immediately on alert. Something is wrong—horribly, horribly wrong, he thought as he strode closer, ignoring the pain that attempted to cripple his body.
Standing beside Madach, Remy sca
Lucifer was nowhere to be found.
Remy felt their presence just as the screaming began.
Horrible shrieks and wails echoed through the prison chamber, and he turned toward the cries of misery.
The Thrones hovered in the air, their round, roiling bodies crackling with repressed Heavenly power. Tendrils of humming energy leapt from their bodies, lashing out at any and all who dared come too close.
The fallen screamed as they died. They came en masse, unable to stop themselves from rushing toward the creatures of Heaven, hands outstretched, desperate to once again touch the light of the Almighty.
As the fallen were killed, their once-divine forms exploding into clouds of ash, the Thrones paid little attention to their demise. All eyes—each and every one of the large, piercing orbs that covered the seething masses of power—were fixed upon Remy.
He could feel their gazes burning into his flesh and then he heard their roaring command.
“End his life.”
Their voices were overwhelming, like every sound in existence—the beautiful and the harsh, the melodic and the earsplittingly painful, all combined to give them voice.
Remy immediately dropped the battle-axe at his feet, bending forward, covering his ears with his hands, though it did him little good, for the Thrones spoke inside his head as well.
“I… don’t understand,” Remy cried. It took every bit of strength he had remaining to stay on his feet.
“Do as we command before it is too late,” the Thrones cried. It was like having an atomic weapon set off inside his skull.
Still bent over, Remy looked up into the multiple eyes of his tormentors, squinting through their radiance as he attempted to understand what they wanted of him.
“I don’t…”
The orbs of divine power surged closer, tentacles of energy moving across the ground, bodies of dead fallen exploding to drifting bits of nothing at their pernicious touch.