Realm Wraith (30 page)

It spoke with a voice like smoldering coals, its words overshadowed by an alien tongue Rayne couldn’t fathom. It was all simply noise to him, and from the menacing tone, the creature wasn’t trying to be understood. It was spreading fear, tormenting Rayne, and he didn’t know if he was going to be eaten right there, or tortured first. His mouth opened and shut, but his voice would not obey. He knelt there gawking, forgetting about the heat as he could not even look away from this monster.

The creature hissed something, reaching out a vaporous black hand to him. Rayne still couldn’t force his vocal chords to work, though he still tried. The desire to live screamed inside him, but he could not bring himself to submit to this unknowable being. He glared, summoning up all his strength and feeling his voice, weak and raspy as it was.

“Tomordred’s scarier than you are,” he sneered.

The hellfire around him roared, and the smoke plumed to greater heights. It gestured, and the ground trembled, cracking open as massive chains burst free and seized Rayne.
They were enormous, each link the size of Rayne’s own head, and they glowed red-hot, their searing energy singeing his flesh. His efforts to scream came out as nothing but a strangled squeak, his voice crushed by oppressive heat. He fell on his hands and knees as the blazing metal burned its way into his skin.

Smoldering orange light grew within each of the creature’s many eye sockets. Its voice rumbled, speaking final words as it rose into the sky, becoming part of the swirling flame that consumed the skies. A growing laughter followed, so loud, that when it ended, the ringing in Rayne’s ears was the only thing he could still hear.

He felt quite helpless now, which seemed to be a recurring curse. He struggled with full fury against the chains, but his actions bound the links to him tighter, their bright steel cutting and igniting his flesh to bring greater agony. He ceased his frantic thrashing to keep the chains from becoming even tighter, and flopped over the ground. He wanted to scream, to cry, to lash out and tear apart every single soul in this place to satisfy his anger, but there was nothing he could do anymore. He dug his fingers into the crystal beneath him, scratching it deep.

A frozen wind swept past him, a numbing, Arctic aura emanating from his very skin. The cold did not bother Rayne at all, but to his delight, the metal chains cooled, becoming as normal iron. They quickly began to heat again, the power of this realm far greater than anything Rayne could muster, but the faint relief helped clear his mind, allowing him to think again. His body trembled. That creature was far beyond him. What was he thinking, being so defiant?

But that wasn’t the issue now. He was chained to a falling rock, above a flaming landscape hotter than the surface of a star, and dropping fast. He had to get out of here, before the inevitable happened. Yet as hard as he focused, he still remained in chains, pinned to the rock. Whatever they were, they kept him from willing himself away, pinning his soul in one single place. His hands brushed over them, but they dug too tightly into his skin, and he couldn’t just wiggle free. He tried to freeze them with his hands, and though frosty ice crept from his fingers over the metal links, it only cooled them briefly, before the intense heat melted it into water.

“Dammit!” he swore, smashing the ground with one fist.

He paused, and ran a finger over the smooth surface. He couldn’t break the chains, that much was obvious. But what if he broke the ground? Each chain was embedded in the crystal. He didn’t know how deep. A cracked crater surrounded the point where each one had broken through. He ran a hand over the nearest one, and felt ice spreading from his fingers. It didn’t last long, and quickly melted. But there was a reaction, and he watched the cracks spread further. Again, he froze the ground, and the cracks spread further. He grabbed the chain and pulled, shattering the ground in a straight line. The cracks spread like spiderwebs in a chain reaction, covering the entire ground, branching deeper into the crystal formation. Rayne heard a deep rumbling, and a massive crack spread beneath him, as the crystal shattered with one final, dying shriek.

Suddenly he wasn’t on the ground anymore. There was no ground. The chains fell free, still wrapped around him, and the shattered remnants of the crystal plummeted into the boiling plasma far below. He plunged after it, his heart rising into his throat as encroaching death stared him in the eye. He wiggled around in the chains, prying them free from his scorched flesh. Without being attached to anything, they had more give, and he pulled them off his arm, then over his torso. At last the final loops fell free, and the entire set of chains fell away from him. He saw the broken crystal fall straight into the molten surface below, set ablaze by incomparable fire. The chains fell quickly, and Rayne didn’t have time to waste. He closed his eyes and concentrated, imagining someplace far away from the very embodiment of Hell.

* * *

The fiery vortex vanished, replaced by a disgusting bog filled with rolling blobs of fleshy pink landscape and marshy areas filled with blood, surrounded by viscera covered trees, and pervaded by a rotting stench that floated on thick, pale orange fog. Incredibly unpleasant, but this was clearly the domain of another god, and Rayne hoped it would be a little harder for Tomordred to track him here. Not to mention that other monstrosity. He stepped back a little, closer to the trees, before he noticed the drooling, snapping mouths covering them.

“Ugh, that’s vile!” he spat. He had difficulty talking, as the stench was so overbearing it filled his throat the instant he opened his mouth, prompting him to almost vomit. His flesh still ached, badly burned from those chains, blackened wherever the metal had touched him. Brushing his fingers over the injury brought some relief, but the pain left him half-delirious.

Something clutched his shoulder, then. Rayne flung out his hand and grappled whatever had grabbed him, freezing it solid.

“Ow!” Darrigan roared, dragging his hand back. Rayne’s eyes widened.

“It’s you!” he exclaimed.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?!” The demon glared at him, clutching his frozen appendage.

“Sorry, I thought you were—”

“You thought I was Tomordred.”

Rayne couldn’t make eye contact with him, and stared at the ground in shame.

“I knew it. That was definitely him dragging you through that portal. The question is, what could possible attract his attention so thoroughly that he’d reach between dimensions to grab you, hrm?”

“I may have gotten on his bad side.”

“A bad side is all he’s got. It’s usually not a problem if he’s not aware of you.” Even without making eye contact, Rayne felt the reaper’s gaze burning right through his soul. “I don’t know how you escaped, but once he’s fixated on you, he will never stop hunting you. You’re screwed, you know that.”

“I outran him.”

“Tomordred can’t be outrun.” Darrigan cocked an eye, noticing the burns all over Rayne’s body. “Oh, tell me you didn’t return to Azaznir’s domain.”

“It was an accident!”

“Did anything see you?”

“No,” Rayne lied. “Please, you’ve got to know some way I can evade Tomordred.”

“This is why I warned you never to go there! He’s a thousand times more powerful than I could ever hope to be! I can’t protect you from him!”

The ice faded from Darrigan’s hand, and he wiggled his fingers.

“I see you’ve learned to take advantage of that chill of yours,” he mused. “I’m impressed. But it won’t save you from Tomordred.”

“It did once. I caught him by surprise.”

“You mean you angered him further?”

“Yeah. That too.” Rayne sat down on an enormous femur that lay stretched beside a blood-filled pond, like a mossy log, but much more gruesome. “I guess I’m not going to last much longer. I can only escape him for so long; he won’t listen to reason. Everything I do just makes him more furious at me.”

“It’s a shame.” Darrigan sat down next to him. “I liked you. But I guess you have a terrible gift for attracting attention out here.”

“Is there
anything
I can do? Is there something that he’d fear? Some way to get me off of his radar?”

“He fears nothing. Why would he? Apart from his god, little else is more powerful than he is.”

“Is there nothing else?”

His reaper friend stood up from the log, pacing, an odd sight to see from such an imposing demonic specter.

“You cannot conquer him, or reason with him. Your only recourse is to evade his grasp for as long as you can. But he knows your soul; your aura can be sensed keenly by him.”

“My aura?”

“Every soul has its own unique energy, whether they be mortal, demon, or god. Think of it like a melody, with distinct rhythm and harmonies, easy to recognize if one knows how to listen. And he has become in tune enough with your broken little melody to track you.”

“Is there a way to bring it out of tune? Can I hide it? Change it?”

“Maybe if your soul was so badly damaged it left you a mindless shadow of your old self. Is that what you want?”

“Not really.”

“You may have a small chance. In his own realm, he is king. He is almost as intricately connected with it as his master, and should you so much as blink past it, he will know. But outside of that realm, he will be less aware. Should he seek you out, he will find you, but because time passes differently here, he will not know when you are here and when you are back in your body. He may not always be looking for you, and if you avoid drawing his attention, then you may evade him.”

“And how do I avoid drawing his attention?”

Darrigan raised his bony hand into the air, flakes of ice falling from it to the fleshy ground. “This power. Did you use it before he found you?”

“I used it when I went to save Miranda. I couldn’t walk on all those bugs, so I froze them.”

“This power comes from your soul; when you use it, he senses you more easily. That is how he knew you had returned, and that is why he sought you out.” He looked at his hand. “And you used it again. We shouldn’t stay here.”

He snatched Rayne’s hand up and pulled him from the marshland, back onto neutral ground. They stood there in the mud, alone together, though Rayne could sense the others not too far away.

“In the realms of other gods, his power is limited. You are actually less safe on neutral ground, but I prefer not to risk incurring the wrath of any more deities.” Still gripping Rayne’s hand he drew him towards him, forcing him to make eye contact with his glowing white oculars.

“From now on, you must not use that cold of yours unless you absolutely have to. Because he will know; he will seek you out!” He let go, causing Rayne to fall back into the mud. “But, should his tentacles find you, feel free to use it as much as you wish. It won’t help you, but it’s not like you’ll need to hide yourself by then.”

“I’ll try.”

He watched, solemn, as Rayne got back up on his feet. “You can’t evade him forever. Even a fool’s dream of more than a year would be lucky. You can’t escape this place, and he will never give up his pursuit until you are eaten, or until you are dead.”

“I know. But I’m not prepared to just throw myself into those jaws and let him take me. Not without a fight. We’ll just see how long I can run away.”

“Suit yourself.”

They walked a bit, towards where the others still waited.

“Rayne!” Apolleta exclaimed, running up to meet him. “What happened?! What was that thing?”

“I, well—”

“It seems Rayne has attracted some unwanted attention,” Darrigan spoke what Rayne couldn’t find the words to say. “It has nothing to do with any of you, but if I were you, I wouldn’t get too close to him. Unless, of course, you seek to join him as the quarry of a beast beyond measure.”

“What the hell did you do?” Apolleta gasped. “You’re covered in burns!”

“Yes, it’s rather bad,” Darrigan mused. “Those marks look an awful lot like chains.”

“Well they’re not,” Rayne retorted. “Coincidence.”

Darrigan didn’t look like he believed him.

Gabriel pushed Apolleta aside to glare at Rayne. “Wait a goddamn minute! Are you saying, by being here, he’s leading some monster to the rest of us?”

“Don’t worry,” Rayne said. “I’m the one in trouble. If he tries to grab me again, I’ll run, and he’ll come after me. None of you mean anything to him.”

“And what if he decides if he can’t catch you? He’ll come after the rest of us, that’s what he’ll do!” Gabriel spat, fear hiding in his voice.

“He doesn’t know you. You’ve never been to Nen’kai’s realm, so he won’t recognize you as anything more than a wandering soul. He only wants me because I’ve been there, and because I escaped from him.”

Darrigan glared. “How do you know that name?”

“Tomordred told it to me. Before he tried to eat me.”

“You got him to talk to you?”

“Only for a moment. Negotiations failed quickly.” Rayne felt Gabriel just staring at him during this exchange, but ignored him. “This was last night. I did not get nearly as far tonight.”

“But we’re safe?” That was all that seemed to concern Apolleta.

“If you ever end up in a world of water and ice, you’re as dead as I am. And that will be it.”