I Don't Want to Be the Hero Vol. 3, page 27
Daggerdare suddenly slipped and went to her knees, and I saw Scrapple press down onto his haunches. The song had become louder, almost deafening, and there was barely enough room for the four of us to breathe. I knew we could go no further.
Reaching out with my ability, I attacked the tentacle beast’s core. Its terrible heart flowed with filth and broken magic. But the beast was far bigger than I could have imagined.
We had never seen the horror’s true shape, it was a leviathan invading in from the void. It was only able to shove its smallest limbs into the confines of the Library. We had exited from the world of reason and entered its domain, one defined by undulating flesh and unending madness.
Even with all the limbs that we had hacked off and all the ichor we had shed, we had only managed to inflict a minor wound to the thing. They were more than a papercut to its insane perspective.
I felt like an ant trying to destroy a god.
Slowly, I fell to my knees, my ability pushed back by the sheer improbability, the insanity around me. A gibbering, cackling sob pushed up my throat, and I knew if I started laughing I’d never be able to stop.
And then I felt it. A powerful, unifying presence behind me, like a lighthouse shining out across the darkness.
Its light pushed back the madness and darkness, and I suddenly felt the strength of the others around me. Daggerdare’s vitality pulsed into my limbs, strengthening my resolve and my spellbreaker ability. And I could almost feel Krencha’s impossible bravery and heroic spirit embolden me, pushing me to fight harder, to win against impossible odds.
And behind all this I felt Annowan, binding us together, uniting us as one against an unbeatable foe.
Reaching out, I felt all of us assault the beast’s heart as one. Our strength was combined, becoming a thousand times stronger than any of us acting alone.
The mouths cried out as I honed our will into a single piercing blow, which tore through the thing’s core.
Chapter 24
Like a body ejecting a splinter, the tentacle beast forced us out of its bulk, its death spasms sending us tumbling back towards the Library.
We emerged in a spray of ichor and gore, landing heavily on one of its thrashing limbs before crashing to the chamber’s floor in a heap.
“That was amazing,” Krencha huffed as she pulled herself upright. She was a hideous mess, with bits of blubbery skin hanging off her armor. Still, when she lifted her visor to smile, her expression was radiant.
“Mother Tree be praised,” Daggerdare agreed, her hand pressed against her side.
I painfully climbed to my feet, glad to see I had managed to avoid breaking any new bones. Wiping my face, I saw Thalie and Gilly were nearby.
When the beast had died, it had almost destroyed the chamber in its final frenzy. Most of the floors and walls were battered and broken, and I could see where more holes had been punched into the room, revealing the decaying and broken remains of the Library.
The thing had crushed and killed the remaining wardens and necrotic angels. I could see several limbs and broken bodies crushed under its still twitching mass. If there were any kinless assassins left alive beforehand, they were definitely dead. Thankfully, Gilly and Thalie had avoided that fate, though they looked as exhausted as we were.
Gilly limped over, holding her nose. “Damn, you stink!”
Resisting the urge to embrace her, I instead suddenly remembered that one of us was missing.
“Annowan!” I hollered.
“I think she’s over there,” Thalie pointed.
We got up and worked together to push through the tangle of dead tentacles, which was still spasming and twitching. Thankfully, its mouths were silent, and we could hear two people speaking.
Breaking through, we emerged into the center of the chamber. Ahead, Annowan was crouched down, blood streaming from a dozen different wounds.
The Bitch was standing unevenly in the middle of the chamber, right below the Lament of Heaven. Annowan’s sword was spiked through her gut and into the floor. I could tell she was leaning on the blade, which was the only thing keeping her upright.
“Not too shabby,” she admitted, blood trickling down her chin. “You actually know a few moves Lilith doesn’t.”
Annowan grinned. “I will surpass her and then destroy you.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself!” The Bitch was impaled and dying, but her words still thrummed with power. “I acknowledge that you won our duel, but I believe that I still won the day.” She glanced upward. “And here comes my prize now.”
The last of the failsafe around the Lament of Heaven fell away, the remaining golems falling with it. A resounding crash filled the air, and we were blinded by a blast of air and dust as the rocky shell hit the floor.
“Stop her!” Annowan yelled as she tried and failed to get back onto her feet.
“Follow me!” Krencha grabbed my arm and pulled me along as Scrapple charged towards the center of the impact.
The mole-dog easily leapt over the rocky wreckage, revealing the Bitch still standing in the middle of the room. Streams of bright, terrible magic poured off the fragment and into her. Her eyes were lit up like two pyres, and her mouth was open in a constant, unending howl of joy. Her chest was lit up from within like a blazing lantern.
I could see more magic leaking through the wounds in her body, and coils of black, greasy smoke were coming from under her armor. Her vessel was burning alive as she consumed the fragment’s power.
We tried to get close to her, to stop her, but the light and heat were too much. I could feel Scrapple’s fur singe as he tried to muscle us closer.
I felt weak, my ability sputtered and responded sluggishly when I called upon it.
I can’t stop her from being reunited with her fragment, I realized.
But I could keep her from devouring all of its power.
Covetous, hungry magic poured out of the fragment, anchored to the Bitch’s dying vessel. Reaching out, I felt my mind burn as I got closer to the terrible connection, searching for its weak point.
“Mal!” I heard Krencha scream, but her voice was distant, faint. All I could see, hear, or feel was the fragment’s power being channeled before me.
And just like that, I snapped the connection apart.
In one humongous burst, the Lament of Heaven exploded, directing all its remaining power upward. The beam tore through the remains of the ceiling, vaporizing it. Beyond, the hungry void devoured and dispersed the magic, scattering it to eternity.
Dimly, I came back to myself. I was cradled on Scrapple’s back; the three of us had tumbled down into the center of the room. The Bitch’s vessel was nearby; it was little more than a charred bit of flesh still impaled on Annowan’s blade.
Impossibly, its head turned to look at me with empty, leering sockets.
“Spoilsport,” it muttered before the whole thing crumbled into a pile of ash.
It took us nearly three days to escape the Library after that.
Evacuating the now empty artifact chamber, we found shelter in a nearby room that was miraculously still intact. We nursed our wounds and regained our strength. Few words were uttered, and only when necessary. All of us were still in a state of shock from the day’s insane events.
Before falling asleep, I made sure to place the stone spirit fruit as far away from us as possible.
After a short, uneasy rest, we began climbing.
The Library had ceased shifting and changing after the destruction of its power source, but thankfully the spatial magic that maintained its structure didn’t immediately collapse.
“Spatial magic is something my grandmother and mother were experts in,” Annowan said during a break between ascents. “I know very little about it. But from what I’ve seen, pocket dimensions tend to remain for a bit, even after their cores are destroyed. If we’re lucky, we can try and anchor this place after we escape, to keep it from disappearing entirely.”
Most of the next few days were spent climbing and trudging through the ruined remains of the jumbled structure, using my ability to trace the elusive signature of Annowan’s seal on the front door.
The remaining wings had been torn apart and rearranged based on the Bitch’s desires. Their contents; all the artifacts, books, scrolls, and artwork had been rendered down and torn apart to build the vainglorious monuments to her perceived greatness.
I was glad that we had found the few clues we had regarding Revekar and one of the remaining general’s tombs. Annowan was hoping Charlix could find more information about the last general by sifting through the wreckage, but I wasn’t sure.
I was of the mind that we should just grab what we could and blow the place to smithereens.
We dug upwards, pushing through the wreckage and often detouring around impassable areas. Scrapple would help me, lending his nose to finding trails and passages that lead towards the exit. We only stopped when we had to, resting for a few hours before pushing on.
The whole place felt haunted, like some desecrated tomb. Darkness and shadows loomed everywhere, with the lights out, leaving Annowan to illuminate the way with her magic. She had been healed after her battle with the Bitch Goddess’s vessel, but she was still weak, drained from the fight.
Surprisingly, she allowed us to help and support her as we continued to push towards freedom.
The only respite we had was when we stumbled onto the botanical wing at the end of the second day. Its door was open and thankfully its greenhouses and atriums were mostly untouched. Beyond the glass ceiling, the sunny sky was gone, replaced by the colorless, shapeless, chaotic vista of the void.
Stumbling, we made our way to the holly grove. I once again tucked away the stone spirit fruit before we all collapsed and slept under the tree’s protective shade.
The next morning we finished off the last of our supplies and resolved to escape. We refilled our canteens from a watering hose, then made our way back into the remnants of Velka’s Library.
We were in better spirits, the peace brought by the holly having let us rest and actually sleep well for the first time in days.
“We need to inform grandmother about the Bitch’s plans as soon as possible,” Annowan said as we climbed. “If the Bitch was telling the truth, and she is sending her agents out to retrieve her fragments, then our search teams are looking for the wrong thing.”
I thought of Charlix’s report, and the searchers finding nothing but empty ruins and ransacked cities. “I imagined the search teams were looking for tombs and burial chambers, they could have easily passed by where the real prize had been.”
“Distressing,” she sighed, “but if we act quickly, we can do our best to stymie the damage.”
“Plus we know where another general likely is,” Thalie added. “If we can keep a third out of her grasp, that will slow down her plans.” She frowned, “Whatever they really are.”
The Bitch said she wanted the power to remake the world, but she spoke nothing of her methods. I thought about the storm of souls she had consumed over the centuries, slowly rebuilding her power, till she was strong enough to strike out at the world at large. Even without her generals, will she be able to do what she says and remake Amalgam?
Krencha slapped me hard on the back, breaking me from those disturbing thoughts.
“Thanks,” I kissed her, before grinning at Gilly. “Just like you asked, it sounds like we’re going to a warm, tropical island.”
“Me and my big mouth,” the dragonkin groused.
It was getting late in the day by the time we located the exit. Annowan barely had the strength to wave away the seal, destroying it with a bit of her blood.
When we stumbled outside, we were greeted by an entire dragonkin army, fronted by Cresis and Cresis Junior. Garlin was there as well, doing his best to hide his concern for his younger sister. The three Giltscale members were shocked by our sudden appearance, and we were quickly rushed to the privacy of a nearby tent. Inside, we found Charlix.
“Annie, Gilly!” The revealer rushed over and grabbed the two in a tight hug. “We were so worried about you!”
We relayed what we knew of the Bitch’s objectives right away, and Charlix immediately scryed to Babylon, sending new orders to the search teams. She also called in a group of specialists to try and stabilize the remains of the Library.
It took us a few hours to convey our tale and the events that had unfolded. Krencha spoke often, and I found she had no need to embellish our story. After the fact, it seemed like an insane nightmare, but we had somehow made our way through.
Annowan subtly reached out and gave me and placed her hand on my shoulder when I was faltering through a later part of the story. I smiled and found the strength to finish.
Garlin and Junior occasionally peeked in, checking to see if Gilly was alright. The revealer kept shooing them out since she was preoccupied with our report.
Finally, exhausted, filthy, and at our wits ends, we were escorted back to the Giltscale estate. Charlix had co-opted one of the wings for her stay, turning it into a mini headquarters. She quickly cleared one of the larger rooms and had mattresses and portable bathtubs brought in.
I barely remembered washing up, let alone dragging all the mattresses together. I crashed into the middle of the bed, then felt Gilly, Thalie, and Krencha snuggle up next to me. I was just falling asleep when I felt Annowan curl up beside me while Daggerdare laid down nearby.
Surrounded by those I loved, I slept peacefully, in dark dreams.
Our departure from Dragon Port was fairly calm.
The city was on lockdown as imperial troops, augmented by the private security forces employed by the ruling council scoured the area for any remaining kinless holdouts.
While we had been in the Library, the assassins had struck not only against the ruling council, killing several key leaders, but they had attacked imperial facilities as well. Junior had been busy most of the time, defending his family’s assets, while Garlin did what he could to manage the chaos.
Smoke hung heavy over the city as we packed to leave, but Gilly assured me that business would resume as soon as the blood was mopped off the street.
“Dragon Port isn’t the kind of place to let a little bit of treason and murder get in the way of business,” she said.
Raids had been launched, but the kinless had avoided the dragnet, seemingly fleeing the city once it was clear the Bitch’s plan had failed. I doubted that would be the last we saw of them.
The streets were clear when we left the Giltscale estate. Cresis Junior and Garlin were coming along to see us off. Cresis Senior was absent. Garlin provided a note from him that stated he was busy overseeing the safety of the city and couldn’t be bothered to say goodbye. Gilly wrote a message back telling him to go fuck himself.
“I promise I’ll give it to him,” Garlin said with a sly smile.
Hugging my arm, we had ridden through the city together, my dragonkin wife content with the new family she had built for herself.
“I’m sorry things didn’t work out as expected,” Cresis Junior offered, as we arrived at the teleportation tower. He sighed, “Hell, I think I’m sorry for a lot of things.”
Gilly stopped to consider him for a moment, then patted him on the arm. “Tell you what. When you get a chance, why don’t you come and visit us in Babylon, maybe when this whole end of the world mess is settled?” She glanced at a morose Garlin, “You too, Peanut.”
The larger dragonkin smiled, “I think I’d like that.”
“Just be sure to call me Gilly,” she warned him, “otherwise, I’m throwing you into the volcano.”
“So much valuable information, and priceless relics, destroyed,” the smaller man moped again, his tail drooping.
Charlix’s teams were working on anchoring the Library, but news of its destruction had apparently sent Garlin into a fatalistic funk. Currently, only imperial forces were allowed in the building, but I knew he was angling to get his teams in, to see if anything of value could be salvaged.
Gilly looked at her brother critically, “Is that all you can think about?”
He shrugged, “Gilly, all of us found a way to cope with being a part of this family, or in your case to escape it. This is my way, okay?”
She considered him for a moment, then nodded. “Fair enough. But don’t let this get you too down.” She gazed out at the city, “Things are changing, and quickly, not just here, but all across Amalgam. There’s plenty of opportunities for someone to strike out on their own and build their own lives, find their own meaning.”
He gazed at her, “You think so?”
She elbowed him, knocking him into Cresis Junior. “Hey, I think the two of you would make a great team if you decided to set out on your own. The family’s strongest and smartest sons, working together, without dad being an overbearing dick.”
Unexpectedly, it was Annowan who spoke up next. “I know what it’s like to live in the shadow of greatness. “ She reached out and put her hand on my shoulder. “But I’m starting to learn what it means to also let that go, and to find your own path in life.”
The two brothers were quiet as we climbed onto the teleportation pad, but before we left they promised to think about what we’d said, and that they’d keep in touch with their younger sister. Smiling, Gilly waved goodbye before the magic whisked us home.
“Are you sure this is going to work?” I asked Lilith.
She stood at the edge of the imperial gardens, a wild grin on her face. “Trust me, this will be fine.”
Next to me, Daggerdare stood stock still, her entire body tense. A group of elvish elders was behind her, and I could tell they were as anxious as she was.
We had returned to Babylon only the day prior, and Daggerdare and I were still a bit on edge after everything that had occurred.
The Imperial Gardens were only a shattered fragment of a lost world, a bit of botanical beauty cast away into the void with the destruction of its original reality and the formation of Amalgam. Lilith had somehow found them and anchored them to Infernal Bloom Palace.
As such, their edges were little more than rugged cliffs of stone, where the flowered terraces ended and the endless evening sky stretched out over a broad and bottomless horizon.
