Death Blade

Section Three

III. Section 3. The High Lord And The High Council.

I. Commander Casian:
There was a horrific aura of menace and evil about the man. Larian and Casian raised their weapons, Linwe looked on in horror, her own gun forgotten.

He turned smartly on his heels like a military drill instructor to face them and leapt from the pile of hellish relics with the smooth grace of a predatory cat. His polished black boots made no sound as he landed a scant metre from Casian. For a man so old he was agile to say the least. Casian had half expected his bones to creak like badly oiled machinery as he moved. 

He was quite short, his face was sallow and heavily lined, loose fitting skin the colour of curdled milk. Resting in his skull like sockets a pair of huge eyes that glowed blood red and seemed to burn with cadaverous tongues of hungering flame.
His beard was sharp and pointed, and his hair nearly touched the floor. Were it not for his eyes he seemed entirely constructed from malevolent black and ancient white. A historical photo blemished with two smears of lived hate.

“Bicarno” snarled Casian though his teeth, pronouncing it like an ancient incantation of diabolical evil. The very name invoked seeds of hatred and memories of betrayal to grow. Knives of ice plunged into Casians brain. They had met in person only once, yet all through Casians life the man in black had been there. A fleeting glimpse at the corner of his eye, a mocking whisper in his ear, the swish of a rustling cape in an empty room. His silhouette had become as familiar to Casian as his own shadow.

“I thought you died. I should have known that hell would not accept the likes of you.” Casian spat

Bicarno chuckled cynically. “Indeed, you should have known Casian, did your weakling apostate council not tell you anything? I can assure you they know.” His voice was as slimy as raw meat. “Then again, we are not so different, the council and I. We have both danced the same worn track to damnation, made the same surreptitious pact with the one eyed god. We have both absolved ourselves from the endless machinations of destiny, cavorting in our newfound knowledge that we have risen far above the human cattle. Confident, that when the end comes and all reality spirals into sweet madness and death, we will have new lives, at the right hand of our lord.”       

“You are delusioned, the only worn track the council have trodden is the path to salvation, the only pact they have made is to be eternally bound to humanity.” To this, he just chuckled more. He was insane, the years and betrayals had warped his mind. But what was that he had said of a one eyed god? An icy hand reached up and grabbed Casians stomach, dragging it into the stinking sullen marsh that is fear.

The one eyed god – could that possibly have anything to do with those animated corpses who had gouged out one of their eyes? An act of fealty? – Those corpses, they screamed praise to Orageos, which was the voice in his dreams – and didn’t that awful face in his visions only have a single staring bloodstained eye? It was all one and the same. Or perhaps he was just going mad.

His stomach hit the bottom of the swamp with a reverberating thump, then the hand reached up again and quashed his heart.       

“You will find I have become more powerful than you could ever imagine Casian. Treachery has its rewards, just as loyalty does” he said waggling a skeletal finger like a chiding mother. His gaze swept away from Casian. “Why look at that, is that Larian? You have grown since the last time I saw you boy. No doubt you remember me?”  Then Larian spoke, his voice smouldering with unsurpassable hate

“You delusioned bastard” he snarled, “What made you turn? What was the point in it all? Why did they all have to die?” his voice almost started to quiver. To his surprise, Bicarno started laughing, a moronic cackle that chilled Casian to the bone.

“You don’t forget a thing do you? Yes, I was on Hiran; I was the one who persuaded the Iratui to sacrifice their own lives in order to destroy your world. You’ll see why soon enough my boy, I’m sure the reason will delight you.” He drawled

“Perhaps I will see, perhaps I wont, it makes no difference.” He jerked up a pistol and pointed it sharply at Bicarnos gaunt skull, lacking all of his usual grace and finesse.

“What's this? You want to kill me?” he grinned, showing his perfect teeth. “Go ahead, shoot me. Its just another dead man, what do you care?”

“Shut up!” Larian roared.

“Larian, put down the gun” Casian commanded, he hardly knew why, the man deserved nothing less than death.

“Disobeying orders Sir, this man will die now at my hand.” Casian tried to take a step forward to calm his maddened friend but found himself staring down the barrel of another pistol. “Don’t move captain, I stand ready for a full reprimand, hell, a court marshal, after this man is dead.” His voice quivered just the slightest bit, the way a candle will flicker in breeze so slight you can hardly feel it on your skin. 

“You’ll not hesitate to murder me, just as you didn’t hesitate to murder your own best friend.”

“Don’t you say another word.” Larian growled, his voice contorted with rage. “You’re going straight to hell, for all the lost souls on Hiran.” Bicarno threw back his head and laughed chillingly. He was still laughing as Larian pulled the trigger and blew his face into a roaring cloud of plasma. The headless corpse fell to the floor twitching and writhing in its last death throes, splattering blood in its squirming, staining the bleached skulls on the floor red. Larian walked up to the corpse, keeping his gun trained on Casian, opened his helmet and spat on the body.

Before Casian could take another breath the carcass was jerked back up into the air by some invisible force; its arms and legs hanging limp like a rag doll. Larian leapt back in surprise, but it was a clumsy movement; he nearly lost his balance. The body spasmed and twitched violently, expanding vastly and become bloated and rotten, billowing robes solidified and became a rusted suit of spiked black armour. The stump of his neck ruptured, a head began to form from a lump of pulsating flesh, as if it was being moulded from bloodstained putty by a creature who has only ever seen a human being as a putrid carcass through warped and faceted glass. A rotted, eye-less and pus covered face began to emerge, contorted and twisted, shards of bone sticking from rotting flesh. It was abhorrent to look upon and seemed to mock human form. The body burst into dark and malevolent flame that seemed to devour heat rather than radiate it and stole the air from their lungs.

A horrible stench filled the room, the stench of brimstone, smoke and rotten flesh.
Linwe gave a little shriek, but Casian didn’t hear. He was on the verge of passing out, only staying on this side of consciousness through exerting extreme power of will. The voices screamed so loud in his head that they devoured all thoughts, all else became irrelevant, his ears rang and he thought he was becoming deaf. He couldn’t pick out individual words; it was an insane orchestra of whispered fears and shouted blasphemies. Besides, he didn’t need to hear, for he knew what they spoke of: Destiny, death and the greater of the twins, the one-eyed god; Orageos.
Then High lord Bicarnos corpse settled back down to earth, reanimated in some abhorrent unlife, the same grin on his face he had worn as he died.

II. Sniper Larian:
Larian, at first, didn’t see Bicarno rising, he was lost in the traumatic memories that went with the dead man.


Davan knelt, weeping over the body of Elaine, a coldness like he had never known numbing his mind and body, the aftershocks from the initial shattering shock and grief of her death. He didn’t see the man in a black cloak rise from the ground behind him like the lazy smoke of a funeral pyre.

“She is dead now Davan. Dead, dead, dead, dead, dead.” A voice said slimily. Davan leapt up and around with a roar of rage, swinging up the weapon of the fallen Iratui, firing ten shots without thinking, blinded by rage and loss. But the shots were only ten dry, thirsty clicks; the gun was empty.
The man carried on speaking as if nothing had happened, his eyes that burned like hellfire, locked onto Davans with contempt. He stood, rooted to the spot, unable to move.

“You couldn’t protect her. Couldn’t save her life. You failed. There is no more you can do. Or is there? Her spirit, even know is on its final journey, to the Tumas, where it will be leached of personality, memories and loves and absolved into the relentless tide of souls. In a few days nothing will remain of the woman you loved. But what little time there is is a golden window of opportunity.”

“What the hell are you on about?” Davan stammered through shivering lips.

“You can bring her back!”   

“Don’t mock me!” screamed Davan, launching himself at the man. But the robed figure merely lifted his hand, and the strength evaporated from Davans muscles. He fell to his knees at the mans booted feet and slammed his fist against the ground in despair. “Nothing can bring her back.” He sobbed.

“Death is not the end, boy. I can make her live again. You just have to come with me.”

“How?” choked Davan, suddenly desperate. 

“Take my hand and you will see…” he said, his pallid hand snaking out like some eyeless withered creature that has never seen the light of day or felt the warmth of the sun. Davan was reaching out to grab it, when Casian burst in through the door.

“Davan!” He roared “Take no heed of the words of this foul deceiver! All he can offer you is death, hatred and betrayal.” Davan ignored him. Who cared what the old warrior said? He had one more chance to redeem himself.

“Listen to me Davan! Trust me, not this traitor, he was the one who led the Iratui here!”

“Don’t listen to the old man” hissed the cloaked figure, his last shot at salvation. “He is jealous, he has never loved someone…” Davans fingertips were a centimetre away from the mans; he could feel a queer voltage arcing through the air. But before their fingers could touch a harsh tearing gunshot smacked into his eardrums. The mans extended hand exploded into sizzling blood and hissing plasma. He screamed and disappeared.

Davan bellowed in agony and flung a punch at Casian, who with lightning fast reactions flung out an arm and caught the punch almost before Davan knew what he had done.

“Death comes for all. You can’t escape it. No one can. If the reaper has someone marked, you can not save them, no matter how hard you try. There is nothing more you could have done.”

Davan drew back his fist in revulsion. “I’m sorry” he choked “Its so hard, I’ve lost so much, so many friends.”

“I know. But there is nothing more you can do for them now than to avenge their deaths with blood and fire. Come. Let us kill the last of those scum together, let us be brothers in the tragedies and horrors of war.” He gently clasped Davans shoulder and passed him down the smoking pistol.


That was when their great friendship; brotherhood started. It was also when Davan swore to kill the man that had betrayed his world.

And now he had. With that very same pistol. And for a very short time, he was at peace. But that period of bliss ended as the abomination rose again in its abhorrent new form.

Larian flicked his pistols up and fired seven shots, they screamed through Bicarnos massive iron clad chest like he was nothing more than black hearted fog and blasted massive chunks from the wall of skulls behind him. 

Bicarno hissed like a rising snake and Larian caught a glimpse of his black slab of tongue.

“You are nothing Larian. Do not tire me with your antics.” His voice plunged Larians beating heart into a bucket of liquid helium. He made a lazy gesture, as if swatting an insect.

A rushing roar like the scream of a tsunami lashed at Larians ears and a swarm of ice clad claws grasped his arms, twisting them back with such irresistible force that Larian heard the gristle in his shoulder tearing and felt his bones creak. He snarled in pain wracked rage as the pistols dropped from his convulsing fingers.

“You are nothing.” He repeated with a mocking chuckle that was bleeding insanity.
The invisible talons of white fire pushed down on him, he snarled and tried to fight back, his muscles shuddering at the strain. It was as futile as trying to move a planet with his bare hands. His legs buckled beneath him and he tumbled forwards, his armoured face smashing through the roof of a mouldy skull. He pulled his head up, it now being the only part of his body that he could move, and watched the events unfold.

Casian lay contorting and writhing spasmodically on the floor, spine bent almost double, his flailing arms and legs crushed the skulls that made the floor to gritty powder the colour of ancient parchment. He was undergoing some sort of fit. Had that accursed abomination brought it on to him? A glimmer of worry trickled into Larians mind. What if the storms raging in his commander’s brain left permanent marks? What if they killed him outright? Larian renewed his struggle with his unseeable daemons trying to shout, trying to scream, anything that might snap Casian out of it, but they stubbornly held his mouth shut with fingers of clammy, rotting flesh.

Bicarno stood near four metres high in front of Larian, he could not twist his head high enough to look at his malformed, shattered lump of a head. His armour seethed with runes and jagged shapes that pained Larians eyes like bright sun. There were faces shifting in it too. Horrified, screaming, contorted faces. Shifting in and out of vision as they hollered to anyone who was listening the agony that they languished in over the centuries.

The skulls that Bicarnos massive feet rested upon were blackened and cracked like charcoal. How did they support his weight? 

It hurt Larians head to look at him for more than a few seconds. It was like someone was driving a chisel up his nose and into his brain.

How long would he stand there? What was he waiting for? He looked as though he would stand placid and patient until Larians bones had long faded to dust.

Larians mind became occupied with other things. Where was Linwe? She wasn’t in his field of vision. Was she injured? Had Bicarno done something to her too?

“What's that Larian? You want to see her?” chuckled Bicarno. “Let me show you. Let me enter your mind.”

Larian tried to scream as a pair of black icicles shot from Bicarnos pus encrusted, wickedly barbed gauntlets and impaled his eyes. They melted inside him and their poison saturated his flesh.


…Linwe coughed and a few drops of dark blood splashed onto her face, starkly contrasting her pallid features…
…Larian felt the moment of her passing; her face relaxed, her body went limp and a sigh of air escaped from her torn lungs…
He saw himself clutching her body, blood seeping through his fingers.


“What's happening to me!” he screamed, the cold hands finally releasing their grip on his mouth, instead covering his eyes so there was nothing but dark.

A rotting flayed face screamed at him, shards of teeth like crumbling tombstones carpeted with black moss. It spat a lump of congealing blood into his eyes and Larian was blind to all but the rippling redness. He gagged and tried to shake it from his face but it was no longer on him, it was all around him, he was drowning in the blood, it had engulfed his whole body. He kicked his legs and powered his arms but it was like swimming through treacle. A circle of white cut itself open in the distance, leaching sanity into the carnage, the rays of blinding light flickered and wobbled slightly as they filtered through the sea of death. Larian kicked harder, he had to reach it, he didn’t know why, he just had to, it was an unfightable urge. Just before his fingers brushed the closest streams of light the whole vision dissipated in a sigh of frustration.

Bicarno laughed filthy deranged laughter as Larian panted and gasped in horror and confusion. “All will become clear soon enough my boy.”

Larian glanced over to where Casian kneeled, violently shaking his black clad head to clear the filthy thoughts that must have been filling it, smashing it into the wreck of shattered skulls and slivers of bone surrounding him. “Come now Casian, do you really want to put up with this for the rest of your life? In time you will go mad within yourself. Is that what you want?” Bicarno spat. “I have a preposition to make. The damned one wants you Casian. He needs you. He calls to you, his lost child. I can take you to him. Bow down to him and allow your destiny to come full circle.” Casian stirred from his convulsions and rocked back on to his knees, his breath wheezing like shrapnel.

“By the sacred power of my undying soul I swear you shall not take me.” Casian gasped         

Bicarno snorted indignantly. “Sacred? You think your soul is sacred? What makes you think it is even your possession?”Casian heaved himself to his feet, giddy and unstable as a toddler.

“You will have to kill me before you present me to that craven nightmare.” He growled, voice like churning gravel, heaving his sword from its sheath.

At that moment Larian saw once more that bloodstained golden halo that hung above Casians head all those years ago on Hiran. Back then he had dismissed it as a trick of the light, caused by the dying rays of the last sunset Hiran had ever witnessed. But there was no sun in here, only a dull glow that emanated from far above. He blinked and the ring of fire disappeared.

“Look at you tremble Casian. See how weak my Lord can make you.”

“Wipe that smirk from your scorched lips scum. I do not fear you.” Casian spat a stream of blood and uneasily raised the blade to a fighting stance. Larian felt uncomfortable as he watched the blood that Casian had spat devoured by the skull clad ground, it lapped it up like smooth cream from the cats bowl.

“Oh, but you fear him don’t you. You tremble in your boots whenever his name is mentioned. The mighty Casian, Lord of the god warriors, afraid?”

Larian renewed his struggles. He had to break these bonds. He had to get up, help Casian destroy the twisted and flayed monster that stood before them. Surely in this weakened state he could not do it alone?

As Casian took a few more weak steps towards Bicarno, the monster whispered a string of words that struck Larians ears like an acid bath. His rotting arm plated in chunks of rust eaten block iron shot out. A sharp nosed worm splattered with black blood gnawed its way from the tip of his middle finger and dropped twirling to the ground, tying itself in knots. Casians feet jerked from the ground and he was hauled into the air, legs kicking as if he were on the end of the hangman’s noose. He clawed at his neck and the invisible hands that were throttling him.

“Come now Casian. My master becomes impatient.” Bicarno beckoned with a twisted and gnarled finger. Larian could hear the arthritic joints pop and crack like burning wood. Casian was hauled towards Bicarno like a reeled in fish, his agonised face level with Bicarnos stubby gash of a mouth, black teeth jutting from it like an alligators grin.

Larian saw Casians eyes turn up in hope and desperation as a whirlpool of light swirled into being behind Bicarno, who cocked his grotesque slab of a head in curiosity, folds of fat rippling.

“Enough!” bellowed Plior in a voice that rang in Larians ears like beaten brass as he stepped from the rift.

Bicarno spun around in what seemed like guilty terror, a child caught pulling the wings from flies by its mother. “A fallen Oratheon!” he spat a lump of bloodied phlegm.

“Aye, come to cut the festering head from your misshapen shoulders betrayer of worlds.” Said Plior in the tone of a reprimanding schoolmaster. As he spoke a hefty looking sword that shone with sapphire blue brilliance leapt from his wrist like an uncoiling spring. Bicarno recoiled from it like a wild beast from flame.

“We shall see spawn of Oratheos, we shall see.” Said Bicarno, regaining his composure. With a casual gesture he flung Casian across the room, crashing him into the wall with such force that it unlodged a downpour of skulls from the wall that smashed like pottery.

A scythe materialised in Bicarnos hands, brutally corroded, dripping blood and unnameable fluids. Screaming faces swam in the black hulk, drowning in the evil that emanated from it.

Bicarno flung himself forwards with a growl, the scythe howling as it cleaved the air. Plior blocked the wild swing with a calm flick of his blade.     

Casian snarled and struggled, his body thrashing back and forth like a frenzied shark caught on a fishing line and drawn high into the sky, dripping with blood and brine, but he seemed bound face down on the floor by invisible chains. His arms were twisted behind his back and his legs were tied so strongly together that they seemed to have become one single limb. He spat and cursed Bicarnos name, then lay still. Twisting his neck around he tried to watch the battle between the two opposing forces going on behind his shoulders.

Bicarno let forth a blistering hail of brutal blows with his scythe, Plior blocked each one with the air of a man casually swatting insects from the air. He lunged, catching Bicarno off his guard, who tried to correct his mistake, but not fast enough to stop the blade slicing a deep gash across his face. He snarled like a wounded dog as black blood and festering puss leaked from the wound then swung a blow at Pliors neck, who just managed to duck under the screaming steel.

Plior jabbed sharply and his blade took three fingers from Bicarnos left hand. They writhed and convulsed on the floor like smoking lizard tails.

With a flourish Plior leapt into the air above Bicarnos head and swung a downwards blow that glanced off Bicarnos hasty block and hacked a slice of flesh and corroded armour from Bicarnos tensed right arm as neat as a butchers cut. Bicarno howled in rage as a gout of boiling black blood burst from the wound.

“Give it up Bicarno.” Said Plior, hanging in the air and refusing to obey gravity’s nagging voice. “Your pestilent shell can take little more punishment.”

“And what if I should kill you?” Bicarno rumbled “Do you know what happens when a fallen Oratheon dies? I do.” He chuckled and wheezed “But I shall not tell you. It would ruin the surprise.”

Bicarno leapt into the air to fight Plior at his own level, burning fat dripped from his cracked feet like liquid fire.

It seemed that Plior had the upper hand. His elegance and prowess with the sword was, quite simply, a joy to watch. It reminded Larian of the mating dance of some exotic bird that’s name he had long since forgotten. It was if the blade was a part of him, a glistening extension to his arm. The blade never stood still, it twisted, spun and danced through the air as it blocked everything that Bicarno could throw, every now and then it would leap like the tongue of a chameleon through a chink opened in Bicarnos defences, carving more flesh from his charcoaled bones.

He was as fresh as he had been when the fight started, yet Bicarno seemed to be tiring, his attacks became less frequent and less enthusiastic by the second. Plior was draining him of his strength at an alarming rate, and the skulls were thick with Bicarnos bubbling, oily blood.

“Do you really think you can match me? I fought and killed with this blade fifteen billion years before your birth, fake Orageon.” Plior taunted   

Plior made as if to swipe at his opponents legs, but at the instant Bicarno lowered his block to parry it, he changed his mind and thrust the blade with savage gusto into Bicarnos bloated belly. Foul gasses rumbled out of the wound along with several corpse flies and a tide of rancid ichor.

Larians heart leapt. Was that the end? Had Plior proved victorious?
Bicarno coughed and spluttered black globules of congealed blood. Then the edges of his spasming lips turned up in a pained smile.

“I do not die as easily as that.” He choked. His right hand shot out and with a convulsive jerk like a crocodile in a death roll, Bicarno snapped Pliors wrist. His sword clattered to the floor. “An eye for an eye Plior. An eye for an eye.” he chuckled hoarsely and spat another globule of jellied blood as he swung the scythe up and into Pliors stomach.

Plior fell from the air like a pheasant riddled with birdshot, screaming in agony. Where the blade had entered was already a festering putrefied wound and nightmarish infection spread far too fast around his body. Wherever it touched, his skin, even armour became a charred black and writhed as though a thousand maggots were feasting below.

Larian had never witnessed something as horrible or pathetic. He could not stand to watch something so brilliant and pure reduced to this mewling mess.
Plior turned his agonised head and his eyes locked on Larians. Their brilliance was dulling like fresh cut sodium. Echoes of Larians old life opened up in him once more, but faintly, as if on the other side of a thick wall. There was more accompanying it, a faint and joyous song in the distance, and a faint and quavering voice.

Don’t stay for me human. Get up, run. Your bonds are cut. The door is open. Live out your true destiny, stay and your fate will continue to be perverted beyond recognition. My God is calling for me now... Run, run whilst you still have the chance…

Larian moved his arm and flexed his fingers. Plior had spoken true. Larian turned his head, and yes, there was a great brass door open the tiniest bit… if he ran he might make it… Linwe was still just by the door, he could grab her and run, they would escape this nightmare. But what of Casian? He could not leave him with this fiend, he would not leave him to die alone. There was no way he could get to Casian and carry him off without alerting Bicarno. But what was there to do? Surely they were all doomed anyway, would it not be better that he and Linwe survived? Casian would want it that way. He could almost hear him now, hear what he’d say… he would tell him to go.

Linwe shrieked and the sound cut through Larians paralysis like a plasma scythe through a tuft of corn.

Trying to remain as silent and discreet as possible he snaked out his arm and his fingers brushed against the smooth grip of his pistol. If he moved too fast or suddenly, Bicarno might catch him out of the corner of his eye.

There was nothing else to do. He could not turn his back on his commander and run like a coward. If the shot didn’t kill Bicarno perhaps the distraction would prove enough to break the mental chains that held Casian down. Bicarno would kill him, he was sure. But it would be a fitting and valiant end. Casian and Linwe might escape, and that made his sacrifice worthy. He would live on in the remembrance hall on Earth as a hero amongst countless others. Yes. And maybe a golden elysium was waiting for him, his lost ones waiting with outstretched arms… 

He stretched his fingers another frantic centimetre as Bicarno took slow echoing
steps towards Pliors contorting, whimpering body, each a toll on the bell of doom and death, revelling in the tension and horror his drama was creating. 

The footsteps stopped. Bicarno chuckled, “So dies Plior the fallen, spawn of Oratheos” he raised his scythe for the killing blow.

Larian brought his pistol up in a smooth and graceful arc and sighted a shot at the side of Bicarnos insane and depraved head. His finger tightened on the trigger.

But then, in a blast of impossibly bright and incandescent golden light, more powerful than the most gigantic supernova, a figure appeared, in blazing magnificence above Plior. A choir of sweet heavenly voices began to ride the air; it was more beautiful than anything Larian had heard in his life. It rung with a clear note that seemed the exact resonance of his heart. His eyes stung with tears from its blissful transcendence.

The charnel house disappeared and they were standing in a gigantic rolling plain, more fabulous than anything ever witnessed by mortal man. The perfect blades of grass were of emerald, the sky sapphire. There was no sun, but only a few metres away was a gigantic wondrous palace, made from a crystalline material that flamed with radiance more than all the stars in the universe placed together. There was a wonderful aroma in the air, it was sweeter than any synthetic taste and more heady than the most powerful drug, his heart swelled until he thought it might burst, he felt at peace with his existence for the first time in twenty three years. The singing was louder than ever. 

He was starting to think he had died and this was heaven, but even that label did not do its beauty justice.

He was overcome by a deep curiosity and tried to get a good look at the palace, but then, in a puff of dissipating wonder this fantastic vision disintegrated and they were back in the dome of skulls. He sobbed as he was returned once more to his petty, gritty, bloodstained life. The pain came back, but seemed magnified by an inconceivable longing to return to that place.

Then he saw the figure above Plior. He was bathed in golden flame, but from the core of this incandescent sun, there was something even brighter. It made Plior, the golden flames, even his blissful vision seem dull by comparison, just as the blazing sun washes the light of a low charge torch into oblivion, despite how bright and powerful it seemed in the darkness before sunrise.   

It was a godly being, cloaked in hazy magnificence. All he could see was a blurred silhouette, but that was enough to bring him to his knees.

Pliors face lit up with hope and adoration, he reached out with a weak hand and tried to touch the being, but he didn’t have the strength and slumped down.
Then Larian saw the abomination that was Bicarno, he was screaming in a pure animalistic cry of terror and agony, his flesh was sizzling, he covered the pits of his non-existent eyes.

“Lord Orageos!” he cried in agony “It is Oratheos! Oratheos has come! Protect me!” he shrieked. Out of the walls a huge black, pestilent hand materialised, pus dripped from it scorching holes in the ground. It reached down, grabbed the whimpering creature and disappeared, taking Bicarno with it.

The glorious being swept down with liquid grace, took up Plior in his arms and disappeared in a burst of magnificence. Leaving Larian, awe-struck and confused, wondering if it had all been one wonderful and terrible dream.       
       
III. Commander Casian:
A ferocious agonised roaring like the rushing of the wind filled the still air and a scream that pierced Casians hearts like a sword and rent reality like the claws of a Krion drake tearing through wet paper. A bright red light seared through his visor and his shut eyelids leaving him blind for a few seconds. Then, just before the end, an unbearable heat penetrated even his thick armour making him sweat. Finally in his mind he heard a mocking whisper of doubt

“Casian, do you know whom you really are? Do you even know what you are? I thought not! Did your weakling council not even tell you that?”

The voice finally faded away. And then it happened, with a wash of dawning horror; a figure appeared in front of Casian.

It was a tall, imposing being, draped in robes of terrifying black eternity. Its presence sucked the life from the air and the moisture from Casians throat like a parching desert sun. He gasped. The figure spoke in a twisted, croaking malady of a voice.

“Come, brother, our father is waiting. The destiny he wrote for us must be fulfilled.” It stretched out his hand to Casian, urging him to compel. “Who are you to think you can ignore the one eyed gods calling?” it mocked.

Casian began to feel a strange sense of displacement and the world dissolved around him, then he was rushing, speeding towards a red light in the distance. It grew until it became what he most feared. And there it was, the face from his nightmares, Orageos.

"Now, you are mine!"

It called as it reached out a blackened hand towards him.

“No!” screamed Casian and he struggled to break the bonds that held him in this
hell. Heinous laughter rippled through the darkness, and the hand was closer.

"There is no escape Casian. It is time for your destiny to be fulfilled!"

The hand was just centimetres away; Casian could feel a rancid heat emanating from it. Just as he thought all hope was lost, the blazing figure from the charnel house appeared in a flash of blinding light.

“Touch him not, damned one, he is not for you!” it bellowed in a magnificent voice of pure transcendent beauty and archaic glory. The abomination snarled, reaching its hand out to smother Casian in its folds of darkness.

But before it could touch him, he felt bliss and warmth grasp him in welcoming hands and was dragged far away from the abomination at an incredible speed, the world began to condense back around him in welcoming drips and pools of reality.
He was back, face down on the floor of polished skulls, but only for a brief instant of relief before he slipped away again, but this time into a much more natural and forgiving unconsciousness.       

IV. Linwe:
They were back on the ship now; Casian himself gave the order for the planet to be destroyed. Linwe watched out of the Transparisteel porthole on the ship, watched as the huge gun brought itself to bear on Morthiot, watched as the planet was obliterated in a heartbeat, becoming a raging plasma inferno, brighter than the systems sun. The same had happened to her world, to prevent any surviving blade dragons or their spores from starting a colony. She didn’t care, there hadn't been anything left there once the research station was overrun. 

She did not feel any sadness either at watching this planet die, there was nothing there but hate, corruption and horrific memories. None more so than what had been Bicarno.

Bicarno… even thinking of him made Linwe shudder, what was it he had said to her? Something about her being a key, the way for reality to split. He had also said that she would not do it alone… and had then looked ominously at Larian, showing that what ever he had meant, his and her fates were inexorably related. In his eyes at least. Then the horrible visions had started. There was shouting, screaming, dying all around her, shrieking abominations and howling men.


She looked down at the neat, fist sized hole that had passed through her armoured chest as if it were as insubstantial as air.

She gasped as unimaginable agony struck her like a blazing meteor. Hot blood filled her mouth, bitter and metallic. She fell to her knees, gasping for breath that wouldn’t come. The pain that radiated from the singed, cauterised lips of the wound in acidic pulses sending spasms of fire through her whole body was beyond belief.   

It was only then that she realised she was dying; yet she had no time to contemplate the matter as she hit the floor so hard that it sent a splash of blinding colour over her horrified eyes.


What were those visions? Where they strangely conscious nightmares? An illusion? Or a ghostly echo of the future? She didn’t know which.

The whole thing had been convincingly surreal, yet oddly real, frighteningly so.
She thought of Larian and realised, with a start, that he was also in the room, only a few metres away, standing, spectre like, faceless as usual, his arms crossed. She had not seen him come in.

“You saw it too?” he said and for once, there was a trace of life in his voice, she was sure that had she been able to see his face, his eyes would have twinkled… he had slate grey eyes… but how did she know that? More of the vision came back to her, it was Larian above her, that much she knew, but this time, she could see his face, etched with grief like carved stone, his eyes blurred by tears, but she could still make out his features, pale and hard. He looked very gaunt, but still attractive, his chin was covered with sharp bristles, several small scars trickled down one side of his face. His eyes were colder than death and locked intensely onto hers.

“Saw what?”

“The palace, the palace of blazing diamond.”

“I… did not see it.”

“How can that be? I saw you there as well as myself and Casian.” Whispered Larian, sounding almost fearful.

“I did not see anything, we were still all in that dome of skulls” she shuddered at the memory, but that was all it was now, a memory.

She felt she should tell him of the dire vision she had witnessed, but decided against it.

“I dug this out from the archive.”

“What?”

He ignored her and almost ran over to the computer terminal in the corner of the room, Linwe shuffled along behind him.

Computers always reminded Linwe of some single celled life form like an amoeba, or some sort of bacterium. The outer layer was seamless, but slightly elastic, a disc could be pushed through, a microscopic creature absorbing food through its cell membrane. Inside the terminal was superconducting liquid helium; a highly viscostic cytoplasm, supporting a quantum entanglement field and a veritable zoo of microscopic and incomprehensible nanomachines, suspended dreamily like mitochondria.

Larian slipped the disc in through outer layer of the terminal and it pulsed green in acknowledgement, almost instantaneously a holographic screen burst into electronic life in the air in front of them. On the screen was a face, but it was no living human, it was a digital representation of the semi-sentient being that resided in the endless, flickering, unpredictable net of quantum entanglement, designed to be more relateable to its flesh-clad users.

It spoke to them in a burbling, distinctly inhuman voice, asking whether they wished to hear an audio streaming of the inserted data. Larian agreed.

This is what it told them:   


Here follows an account of the first of the ancient texts, on creation. Translated by the acclaimed historian Jossep (currently serving in the blessed ranks of the Taui-Kun, (may they be praised) codename unknown)

The Creation

In the beginning there was The One and The One was alone in the darkness and the nothingness. No one knows how he came to be and no one ever will. But he did not wish to be alone, so he was not, from the substance of his own soul he crafted two beings, Oratheos and his twin Orageos, they shared almost as much power as the one, and they rejoiced to be together.

And then The One God decided that it was time for reality to begin, and so it did. The One God drew his hands in a deep majestic sweep through the nothingness, and where his hands passed, from the nothingness came matter, and the matter clutched for each other and became rock; the foundations of the world he was crafting. The One God polished this rock until it was smooth, but still he was not satisfied, for the rock was bare and hard. So with the saliva from his tongue he wet the rock, and from this sprouted a soft carpet of grass, but The One God still was not pleased, for there was no way to see what he had made, and show it to his two children. So The One God covered the whole of his creation with his hands, and when he took them away there was a globe of blazing sapphire, what would be the sky. But he was saddened when he saw the grass, because it was wilted and brown. The One God wept, and his tears became the lakes and the oceans. He breathed life into the sad vegetation, and at once it sprung up, vibrant and beautiful, the colour of sparkling emerald. The One God was pleased indeed. The One God showed his two children, and they were fascinated by it, so they rejoiced once more and gave praise to The One God.

The One God said that they should build themselves a home in this wonderful land he had created, and so they did. They fashioned a gigantic palatial complex from blazing diamond and pure white marble; every block infused with the simple joy all three felt.

At the centre they crafted three wonderful golden thrones.
Once it was finished, the three decided that they should each make other beings in their images to share this world with. The One God created his race first of all; they were called the Mythanile (The First Ones), tall and elegant, powerful of mind and spirit and beautiful beyond comprehension. Oratheos and Orageos both followed suit, creating races that were like themselves, curios, loving and inquisitive, and while possessed of great strength, physical and not, neither could match the Mythanile.

(Unfortunately a large amount of the scrolls have been lost forever to the relentlessness of time, due to this a great portion on creation has been lost, and where the texts begin once more they are riddled with missing words and phrases.)

……was this act that became too much for Orageos to bear, and it was he who committed the first evil.

(A large amount of text is missing here, we can only guess at what enraged Orageos so, and what his terrible act could have been.)

……and then, finally Orageos showed his true self, and took on a new form. His body became rotted and putrid; great maggots writhed throughout his body and pus oozed through punctures in his rotten flesh. He had only a single huge dark staring eye, the other was merely an empty socket and all who looked into it suffered a pitiful and terrible death.

His entire pestilent body was engulfed in dark black flame. He wrought himself a great suit of black armour, in his hands he held a huge scythe as tall as three men that was entirely crafted of the same black metal of his armour. It was half eaten by rust and its sleek form was broken and punctured in many places, from these wounds gushed many terrible poisons and toxins. The scythe and his hands constantly dripped blood. All who looked upon him saw the true horror and bitter futility of all life, losing the will to live, or flung deep into madness. Where ever he would walk the vegetation would wither and die.

And in his madness all the Orageons were drawn with him, each becoming just as depraved and repulsive. They were well equipped for the war Orageos had strived for for so long, with all manner of hideous weapons, the first tools of their kind. Tools specifically designed to hurt, maim and kill. 

And sitting on his golden throne, the lord of Tulandier, master of the universe, wept.

(Text ends here)


“Image files attached, do you wish to view?”

They agreed and then beamed directly into Linwes brain, was an ancient effigy. It showed three beings, two were pristine, but the third was defaced, it was impossible to make out more than a pair of incredibly graceful legs that were painted white in a way that made them seem to glow from within with a holy light.
The two clear pictures were only too familiar.

One showed a figure in golden armour, holding a blazing blue sword, a golden halo around its head. The second was a dark malevolent form, its twisted features bathed in black abhorrence, holding a dripping a scythe. Beneath each was a label: Oratheon and Orageon, respectively. The marred ones label was slightly smudged, but it was easy to tell what it said; Mythanile.   

Now it was all beginning to make sense, in a twisted sort of way. But these where nothing more than ancient legends, comforting fairytales conceived by an ancient race that was afraid to be alone in the universe, unwilling to embrace the timeless oblivion of death. They had no place in the real world…

But how can you ever tell what is real and what is not? When you are entombed in a dream, you never have any knowledge that your reality is a fantasy unwittingly crafted by a sleeping being. You never know that your entire life has been contained within the space of a single night, inside the twisting synapses and flashing neurones of another creatures brain. You don’t know that when that creature wakes up, it will be as if you never existed, you will just become another vague irrelevant memory, inside an eternal anal of existences that have been created and destroyed in so short a space of time.

How can you tell that you are not in a dream at this very moment? Perhaps none of this is real, what if we are all a dream? But what happens when you wake up? Your entire gritty, painful life will have been for nothing; all the times you loved, cried and smiled will disappear in an instant, or will quickly leak out of conscious thought.

The bitter futility of it all will never appeal to the dreamer.

So, Linwe thought, perhaps none of this is real, perhaps this is an illusion that has been conjured up by my dying brain as I lie in a spreading puddle of my own blood back at the research station, how can I ever know that it is not? And if that is the case, I might die any minute and this will all cease to exist. Perhaps even her life at the research station had been dreamt?

She looked at Larian; he, at least seemed real, in fact, she knew he was real, even if nothing else was. 

The ship turned, leaving a dispersing cloud of gas that had once been a planet behind.

She felt a pang of regret that when they reached their destination, Earth, that she would be left behind and expected to start a new life there. Larian, Casian and the rest of them would, to her, cease to exist as if she had dreamed them. She supposed there would be nothing more she could wish to dream up. She would never hear of them again, apart perhaps from distant tales of glory and heroics. She had no place among heroes.

Then time froze as the ship sped off to Earth.
V.  Commander Casian:
Casian strode down the two-mile long, elaborate corridor heading to the chamber of the high council. What had Bicarno meant? Who was he really?

The entire corridor was fashioned of polished gold encrusted with exotic symbols and powerful visions of mans superiority amongst the other children of the galaxy. It showed history that had long since been lost, and elaborated more than anything else on the ascension of the first high council. It was lit by balls of smokeless flame that hovered overhead.

Over the heavily scented air Casian could smell the faint, musty and heavily disguised whiff of age, this corridor had stood a silent testament to the councils power for sixty six thousand years.

The sheer amount of the precious metal was overwhelming and slightly disorientating, wherever you looked, the maddening glint of gold, stretching far off into the distance that was obscured by a cloud of incense. 

Arrayed down the corridor were the eerie council guard, faceless and swinging incense burners as gently as a soft breeze, the scented smoke rising to the ceiling ten metres above, where it hung in a ghostly cloud. Casian knew not to underestimate the council guard, whilst they appeared unarmed, they could crush a mans skull with nothing but the power of their minds. They wore single piece robes that covered their entire bodies, including their heads, like burial shrouds, and nothing else other than a simple gold band around each of their necks and a plain sheet of the same metal over where their faces should have been. They let Casian past without question, any lesser mortal would have been stopped long before they entered these hallowed chambers.

Finally, at the end of the long journey was a gigantic double door fashioned, predictably enough, from gold. It was engraved with images of the first council, Casian wondered if they could ever dreamt of what their simple, noble establishment would one day become.         

He swung the huge doors open with ease, a task that would usually have required at least four men, and stepped in. Casian had visited the council many times, but it was always disconcerting to walk in and see the one hundred men and women wired into and hanging limp from the huge diamond wall, like so many flies stuck to a particularly large and shiny sheet of fly paper. Looking through the clear wall you could see the energy vortex lapping against the reinforced walls of its prison, a sea of soaring plasma, constantly suckling the helpless creatures crucified on the walls with pure energy, an exhausted mother feeding her ravenous baby.

They were completely naked, only their faces were covered with sheets of gold. Casian could see beneath this shining façade to their dreamy relaxed expressions that washed over their wide-eyed, lolling faces, reminiscent of someone who has been smoking Shio-Sharni marsh weed for a little too long.

To his discomfort he noticed how as usual they were all in a state of high arousal, withered penises and wrinkled nipples erect and quivering.

He was not disgusted by their shrivelled, pathetic bodies however, the buzzing wires and pulsing tubes pinching out pale strained flesh pockmarked with needle scars, pumping all number of unnameable fluids around their spread eagled corpses. He had learned to live with it long ago. After all, they were the guiding light of all mankind.

"Mission was a success.

Welcome."

Said one hundred, sweet echoing voices directly into his mind. They twitched slightly and Casian was reminded of the horrors he had seen deep in the caverns of Morthiot.

“Indeed it is good to be back, my lords and ladies” he replied giving a curt bow.

"You have a question."

They asserted.

“Yes Lords and Ladies.”

"Bicarno was a traitor.

His words mean nothing."

They seemed keen to get that point across. It was strange, how Casian almost felt he could detect a trace of fear in their collective voice.

“But I have to know Lords and Ladies, who am I really?”

"Theodus of Earth.

Codenamed Casian."

They said dully.

“Really?” snapped Casian.

"Would we lie?"

Casian decided that was an excellent question. He knew things about the council, things that reeked to the high heavens. He had experienced first hand how they were more than capable of manipulating ‘the truth’ for their own goals. 

"Two weeks off duty.

Go to Domeerus.

We have problems there."

Casians heart sank. He had heard that dull uncommittal phrase before. ‘We have problems there’ was how they chose to describe what happened on Morthiot. He knew what he would find there, nothing but blood, madness and death.

“That is terrible news lords and ladies, Domeerus is one of our main arms suppliers. So why should I remain here for a fortnight when there is such danger to be eliminated?”

"Linwe."

“What of her?”

"Initiate her."

“What? Why? She has no wish to be among us!” protested Casian, shocked at the sudden, frivolous nature of their request.

"We have seen it."

“I trust your judgement, lords and ladies, she may be initiated, but why should we forestall military aid to Domeerus? Why risk millions of lives for a single initiation?”

"Without her there can be no victory.

We have seen it."

Casian was sure there was a trace of anger and madness beneath that silky exterior.

“I hardly…” he began, but the council interjected pleasantly. 

"You have your orders.

Be gone."

“I will lords and ladies, I will” snarled Casian backing out of the room.

VI. Linwe:
Linwe stood silently as if in prayer at a place of worship, gasping at her surroundings, humbled completely by her new abode.

It was about fifteen by twenty metres, the walls were sleek, elegantly curved and glowed with a heavenly light. A central column of glass containing flickering red plasma like an insect trapped in a jam jar provided a centrepiece, in one corner her plush, spongy gel bed, in another an amoebic computer system.  A small closed off area contained a toilet and a relaximersion tank, another contained a virtua-sense entertainment cubicle. Several varieties of exotic, lightly perfumed and brightly blooming alien plants sprouted from several spots on the walls, tumbling down almost to the floor.     

When she first arrived there was a psychically transmitted message for her from the illustrious High council. It was pretty basic and sounded a little insincere saying they deeply grieved for the destruction of her world, the death of her friends and family, and of course, the loss of her post as one of the gifted few at the forefront of human genetic research. They offered this new home in the bosom of mankind in compensation, as well as full Earthling Noble citizenship and access to all the facilities the planet had to offer.

She had heard a lot of the so-called ‘Earthling Nobles’. They were divided into two main categories:

Centuries old men and women with huge stores of accumulated wealth, usually ex-planetary governors or retired managers of galaxial corporations.

The second group were the pure-bred psychics. Bred like cattle to be superior to the common man, every one gifted from birth with extra-sensory perception, telekinesis and many other astonishing, godly powers. If these gifts did not become apparent within a few days of birth, they were slaughtered like vermin to prevent impurities creeping into their hallowed ranks.

There was a third, minority group of which Linwe was now a part; ordinary mortals whom the council felt deserved the advantages of nobility, through courageous acts or extraordinary loss.       

Rather strangely at the end of her welcome message was a footnote; It suggested that if she wished to continue her service to humanity, she should join the hallowed ranks of the Taui-kun.

That was not right, she was not cut out to be a warrior, she had no place among heroes. Or did she? Perhaps… as Larian was one… piped up a sneaky voice in her head, she forced that annoying little voice to shut up, there was nothing there, she didn’t need him…

Quite suddenly, she began to wobble, her knees buckled and she collapsed onto the smooth transparent gel of the bed. She began to shake and shudder uncontrollably. Then she started to cry in great heaving, wracking sobs. Tears streamed down her face in a tidal wave of grief. Everyone she had ever known was dead. She would never see their faces again, never hear their kindly voices. She was the only person to survive, so there was no one for her. She was so alone and in this strange new place expected to start afresh and sweep her previous life under the rug of subconsciousness. She could not recall any fond and happy memories of those she had lost, only images of their screaming bloody deaths.

She tried to calm herself down, she took deep breaths and wiped the tears from her eyes. A lump of shattered glass remained in her throat that she could not dislodge   

“Linwe” she jumped and turned around to see Casians gigantic form towering behind her.

“What to you want” she stammered. “And how did you get in here?”

“Come with me Linwe, I need to show you something” he smiled “And in answer to your question, as commander of the Angels of death, I can call upon any human citizen I wish, at anytime.” he said, walking out the door, gesturing for her to follow.

She wiped her eyes and followed him out the door and into the cylindrical corridor. It was elegant and simple, made of a smooth material that was surgically white. It glowed softly, providing the corridors lighting. A seemingly endless array of doors stood at regular intervals, seamless, marked only by their identiscanners and a golden room number. It was very different to what she had known on 526… there she had slept in what, compared to here, was a cell on the infamous hellhole of prisoner colony 24. She had shared her room with two other women, Janet and… and…? She had forgotten. The crushing pain of it flooded into her chest cavity like molten lead. Both women long dead now, their bleeding corpses vaporised. She was the only person in the universe that knew they had ever existed… and she had forgotten one of their names…

Now they were out of the endless corridor, out into another made entirely of transparisteel. She gasped, even though she had seen it before, it was still the most fantastic view in existence:

They were suspended some fifty kilometres into the atmosphere of Earth; all around them floated an ethereal cloud of gigantic, city-sized crystal bubbles that blazed in the midday sun. They were linked by a spiderweb of shining diamond, glistening strands of angelic hair; one of which they were in now. It was surreal, stretching on past the horizon, with no visible means holding them in their courtship with the clouds.

She felt as though she was within a glass of sparkling champagne, but every flash of stardust was an entire community of about ten million people, thriving cities bobbing up and down in the gentle current of the high atmosphere.

Far below them was mother Earth in all her organic lustre and beauty; undespoiled by mankind for over ten millennia. Bright, vivid colours smothered the ground, in crazy artistic streaks and splashes of vibrancy: carpets of red roses, purple violets, pink foxgloves, yellow buttercups and many other colours she couldn’t put a flower to. And above all, lush, loamy green grass.

But there was no time to linger. They had to move on, so Linwe tore her eyes from the magnificent sights around her and followed Casian through the passage until they went inside another bubble.

They stood in front of a huge ornately decorated doorway. Above it, in shimmering writing, were written the words:

‘Honour the Taui-kun, salvation of humanity.
Praise the Taui-kun, protectors of purity.
Glorify the Taui-Kun, righteous warriors.
Revere the Taui-kun, for they give their sacred lives for our pitiful existences.’

Casian led her through the door into a wall of warm, fragrant, incense thick air. And for the first time in her life, she saw the true glory and splendour of the Taui-Kun.
It was the most gigantic room Linwe had seen in her life, it would easily have encompassed the entire research station she had once lived, worked and almost died at twice over. It was entirely constructed of beautiful white marble that seemed to hold blazing white flame, laced with a lattice of sapphire veins. The ceiling far above was held aloft by gleaming pillars, which had been crafted into hundreds of life size Taui-Kun, separated by bands gold that blazed as if touched by the mid day sun.

Everywhere she looked Taui-kun were emblazoned: Shrines to long dead war heroes, the images of their faces rapt with the ecstatic agony of martyrdom.
Statues of helmet-less soldiers crafted from a material that looked like diamond frosted to an opaque milky white stood in powerful, awe inspiring poses, holding the tools of their trade high, blazing haloes forged from sheets of polished gold around their heads.

Full colour holographic dioramas of lionised Taui-Kun fighting back all manner of monsters and aliens set into the walls. Frozen frames that chronicled the lives, and deaths of the God-warriors, rendered so lifelike that it seemed at any moment the suspended jewels of blood, sweat and drool would drop, or that a mortally wounded fiend would shriek in its dying agonies.

In one scene a Taui-kun lay defeated atop a mound of slaughtered foe, his spirit bursting free of the flesh and into the waiting arms of a transcendent host of angels that soared from the heavens to bear him away, looks of unquestioning adoration and mortal sorrow on their faces. Linwe thought she could almost hear the faint susurration of the wind through the delicate feathers of their graceful wings.
In the end, that was the inevitable doom of every Taui-kun, to die on some far-flung world, his life-blood seeping into alien soil, his last breaths of extraterrestrial air.

Would he then ascend with the songs of angels in his ears?

She stopped dead. In front of her stood a blazing statue of Casian himself. He stood in a long stance, one massive foot planted triumphantly on a mound of cackling skulls. In his right hand he held his flaming sword pointed towards the heavens at forty-five degrees, his other hand holding a pistol just grasped from the holster. A dense look of unrestrained power and manly courage was pasted onto his face as he stared down the elegant line of his sword. His mouth silently sounded a victorious battle cry.     

She began to think of Casians history as a warrior and all the horrors he had lived through, all the dark entities he had fought back; keeping humanity alive.

“It is a great likeness, do you not think Linwe?” said Casian, Linwe was surprised by the painful acidity of the words. She looked up in fear and inquisitivity and saw the bitter agony in his eyes. Those eyes that had witnessed so much death and pain, weakened and hurt by this magnificent statue of their bearer. She watched in fascination as a tear began to form at the edge of his left eye. He blinked as if to rid his sight of a shard of grit, and it was gone.

Linwe read the embossed golden letters at the base of the statue:

Lord Casian at the purge of Dalmos five
In the year 66559
Praise him.
Praise all the Taui-kun for their courage.

Those words stirred a faint memory of her last moments at the research station:


“I am Commander Casian of the Angels Of Death” He replied curtly as he had hundreds of times before.

“ Casian… the hero of the Dalmos five crusade?”

“If you call bloody murder heroic.” He said resentfully


She had heard the very same bitterness in his voice then.

“What so troubles you about Dalmos five?” she asked. Casian looked down in barely hidden shock; perhaps he had never realised how easy he was to read, how much his emotions showed through the chinks in the curtain he wove around himself.

“I think Linwe, that that is a tale for another time.” There was no mistaking the harsh finality in his voice. He turned away from her. “Come, this is not what I wished to show you.”

Linwe followed obediently as he strode off.   

What must have been thousands of people were scattered around the room, some were the people of Earth, but most were men and women on a gigantic galaxy spanning pilgrimage, all come to worship the Taui-Kun. Every time they passed near one they opened their mouths in awe and fell to their knees quivering, crying

“Lord Casian! We honour you!” and Casian, having regained his composure, acknowledged each of them with a gracious smile, a nod of his head and replying:

“Then I shall protect you human!” and as they walked on by, Linwe could hear them sobbing excitedly, murmuring prayers, even kissing the ground where Casian had walked.

“Why do they do that?” Linwe said, puzzled.

“Because to them Linwe; we are gods.” Casian said solemnly.       
Priests walked among the pilgrims in their immaculate robes, chanting in religious ecstasy and swinging incense burners in wild arcs.   

She felt as though she was invisible, or perhaps more of an annoyance, she noted anger on the faces of those that did notice her. It was as if she should not be allowed so near Casian without offering him praise, or that they were far more worthy of the immortals company. 

The room seemed to stretch on forever and all along there were more and more adoring subjects, each of them viewed Casian with the same reverence, and Linwe with the same detest. She supposed she understood why they must feel that way.

They had each been raised from birth to praise the Taui-kun, to look up and to revere them as the gods they were. And then, perhaps the first time they had seen one of these great bastions of immortal glory, there is a nameless woman with him, standing side by side as if she were his equal.

As they neared another huge door in a corner of the room, one more thing caught her eye. Staring down at them from the wall, emblazoned in glory was a ferocious looking woman with fiery red hair, a pale complexion and sharp green eyes, in the colours of the Angels of Death.

“Who is that?” she asked

“That is Rowenian. She was Legion commander before me. She died in the purging of Dalmos five. She promoted me to my current status as she lay on her death bed.”

“Are there many women Taui-kun?” Casian didn’t answer. He was staring up at the statue of Rowenian in such a pained and reverential way that Linwe did not dare disturb him.

Was that it? Was this why Casian felt so much regret about the Dalmos 5 crusade? Because his old commander had died there? Or was it more than that?

Had he loved her?

Linwe would never know the answers to any of those questions. The only person who knew what had really happened on Dalmos five was Casian, and he would sooner take his own life than recount that old tale.

After a while Casian saluted the statue and turned from it, sighed and muttered two sorrowful words

“Fifty years…” then lead Linwe towards another door. Linwe tried to catch a glimpse of his face to see if his eyes were damp again, but she could not do it without angling her head too obviously. She suddenly felt wretched for trying to pry, what right had she to know? She thought as the knife of guilt twisted slowly in her belly.

Words were inscribed above this door, similar in tone to the last one:

They died for you. Honour them and pay back a small part of the debt you owe.

They walked in. This room was different from the last. She gasped in horror; stretching off farther than the eye could see were thousands of neatly ranked Taui-kun statues, silent sentinels to the unforgiving world around them. Each had their helmet off and wore a solemn expression, dignified, and yet anguished. Ethereal, yet so horribly mortal. Beneath each was a plaque: Linwe read the closest to her:

His most gloried Sergeant Calidius.
Fell fighting the Klaimen hoard,
In the year 54689.
May he go to his paradise,
And in his new-found eminence watch over us.
Praise him.
Praise all the Taui-kun for their sacrifice.

“This Linwe, is where we lay those that fell to rest. This is only the fist level of thirty six.”

“Thirty six levels, all like this?” she whispered “Why have you brought me here?” she said in a small, frightened voice.

“Linwe… the high council, they say you are…” he paused, considering “Important. They have seen you in their dreaming surveillance of the twisted paths of the future. They have seen you as a Taui-kun warrior. They have seen you doing great things, they bid me initiate you to our cause.”

“What?” Linwe trembled, this wasn’t right, it couldn’t be! She wasn’t a warrior; she could never to such great and noble things. Yet the council, they saw all… what was she to do?

“They told me that you must be initiated before we set off to our next mission, on Domeerus. Above all, it is still down to you. I brought you here so you could see us as we are, mortal beings, charged with so much. I brought you here so you could make your decision, knowing it could be the last you ever make.”

“I don’t understand! Why me?” but deep down inside, she already knew. It was the same reason project Genesis had saved her from the dragon, the reason she was the only survivor… she knew she was special, but how?

“I hate to press you Linwe, but your decision must be made now, every second we linger, innocent lives are lost.” He seemed almost to be pleading.

The world seemed to slow for her, every second was an eternity, everything became clear. She had a chance to become a goddess, a legend, an immortal within the minds of the citizens of the galaxy. All the same, it was all but inevitable that she would end up here again, dead in the marble ground, her statue stood above her, watching the world fly by. A simple plaque, proclaiming her name and deathbed, the only key to her lost identity.

But then, are we all not destined to obscurity? Why not make something of her life? Why not save innocent men and women? Why not fight for what she believed in?
But what did she believe in? In the end, was that her choice?

Rowen… that was her name! That was the name of her second roommate on 526. So her existence had not yet been totally lost. But Linwe still had a place in this great dream that we live in… 

Then, finally, without really knowing quite why, feeling as if the whole civilised galaxy was watching her every move with baited breath, she spoke those fatal words. “I accept”

VII. Commander Casian
“Malian, this is Casian, report to my quarters.”

“Yes sir” came the reply, almost instantaneously.

Casian sat down and sighed. What had happened on Morthiot? It was already feeling like a lost and confused memory. He massaged his temple with his hands. What role had Plior played in it all? Why had he sent the three of them alone against an enemy they could not possibly hope to defeat and only stepped in at the last second? It did not seem right, surely there was some higher purpose to his actions? But what?

Perhaps he had shared this information to the other members of the squad, when he had taken them aside and whispered to them in that voice that was a hairs breadth from silence. Malian. What was it Malian had said about Pliors words? That it was about the future, Casians future? He needed to know.

The door whispered open, and Malian marched in

“You requested to see me, sir.”

“Tell me friend, for I must know.” Said Casian softly. “What do you remember from the caves, what did Plior tell you?”

Malian looked up at Casian in a puzzled sort of way.

“What do you mean?” he said curiously. “There was no one alive in the caves. When we saw that they were all dead we turned back, and that was the end of it.”

“Are you sure?” said Casian, terror creeping into his heart. Just how much of this was real? How could he tell anymore what was the nightmare and what was not?

“Aye sir. The caves were empty.” Casian sat silently for a long while, staring at the smooth white floor, trying to grasp in his mind, memories, thoughts, anything to try and prove to himself that he was not going mad. But the harder he looked, the more seemed to seep away through his grasping fingers, wisps of fine sand tickling his skin.

“Its alright Malian, you can go.” He murmured, only just realising that his companion still sat dutifully in front of him.

As the man began to get up and walk away, Casian began to wonder, what if it was Malians memory that was in question? What if he had heard something that someone did not want him to hear? Casian remembered the slightly fearful tone of the High council when they denounced Bicarnos words, and that haughtily assuring question ‘would we lie?’

But what if they had got someone else to do it for them?   
 
VIII. Darkness:
Bicarno tumbled through endless blackness, screaming in unprecedented agony.

His eyes sizzled in their sockets, bubbling like molten plastic, his skin fried and scorched and his long white hair became ash. He writhed and contorted from the pain, twisting and whirling through licking flames of torture that crowned him with an unholy corona of torment.

“Orageos! Please! Relent!” he rasped past flame-cracked lips and a tongue of charcoal. “Release your good servant!”

You failed me!

bellowed a voice that sent transfixing jolts of pain down Bicarnos spine.

You had your chance to take him, but you forsook your duties in an ignorant, selfish act of utter vanity!

roared Orageos in a voice that reverberated in Bicarnos boiling guts.

“Please, master, you saw, you see all, it was Oratheos and one of his spawn, it was only in my devotion to you that I fought him.” He whined.

It is because of your incompetence that I remain here now! Do not mask it in false robes! Besides, there will be plenty of other opportunities in good time. Until then you shall remain here, with me. And learn the true meaning of damnation!

He bellowed with echoing laughter, Bicarno whined as the pain transcended to an even greater level.

IX.  Lady Linwe:
We can see you. We can see your mind.
You are special. You have a purpose. We can see you. We know what you are for.
You are going to die. Your death will be the gateway to new times. You will set us free.

Linwe coughed and a green bubble rose lazily in front of her nose. Gagging suddenly, she tried to scream, liquid frothing in her lungs. She was drowning; this was death, a few panicked moments before oblivion.

She kicked and thrashed her legs and felt wires and tubes wriggling in her flesh like feasting snakes.

Just like a few more dazed bubbles, blurred memories floated to her mind. The rising water, the excitement. The ritual chanting.

She remembered where she was, what was happening. She relaxed. She could feel air flooding through her lungs now; the liquid was supplying her with breath.

As she began to calm down, she realised how different everything was, the light… there was so much light… it was all so bright and vibrant. It was as if she had lived in a dim and shadowy cellar all her life, and one day had stumbled up the staircase, into a world of blazing crystal and pearly white sands, the sky a galaxy of exploding stars. 

She found it odd that her vision wasn’t blurred, even though she was submerged. There seemed to be an unrestrained sense of energy and life running through her veins and the muscles that covered every square centimetre of her body

She could see a hazy figure approaching through the green, then her vision seemed to contort, it focused in on him, for it was a man approaching her and the green faded away, her eyes were compensating for it. She recognised him. He was a short old man with cropped blonde-grey hair, dressed in overly extravagant robes that looked far too long for him. He had taken her to her initiation last week.

Her initiation… she had never felt so afraid, the penetrating voices of the high council had striped her down for inspection, judging her very soul. She remembered feeling as if she were naked in a courtroom. They had deemed her worthy, almost instantaneously, then asked her a few simple questions about her allegiance. She had not even entered their chamber. And that, was that. She had become Lady
Linwe, a Taui-kun of the Angels Of Death legion. It was surreal, though it had felt an eternity, she later found she had only been under inspection for less than five minutes. It had been so simple…

And now, here she was, a new woman, a goddess amongst mankind. Next came the training ordeals. She was not looking forward to that. She had heard of men driven nearly to their deaths in these.

Her eyes widened in horror as new images began to superimpose themselves over the man, a faint image of his skeletal structure grinned into being, columns of aged, arthritic bone accompanied by his exhausted internals, still twitching and pumping laboriously after what must have been at least five hundred years. She could read his temperature, and it was lower than it should have been.

Even in the liquid filled cubicle she could smell his age, the faint cologne he was wearing that smelt like withered lavenders, masking the slight hint of perspiration beneath. She could taste the air as if it were wine, although the liquid she was in masked it thickly with its harsh antiseptic, metallic taste.

She could hear his heart beat, slow and faint, followed by the rush of blood around his body. Each step he took was a gunshot, she could sense the smooth fabric he wore, to her ears it scratched and rubbed against his skin, rustling constantly in an insect like drone.

Nothing about him was hidden from her.

She could even see faint images through the walls of the chamber, there were many other cubicles like her own, none of them occupied. She shut her eyes, feeling slightly dizzy, the term ‘sensory overload’ seemed to rebound hatefully around the inside of her head. When she opened them, she found that she could easily fade some of the unwanted images down so they left only a faint residue, it was as easy and natural as blinking, though there was nothing to be done about her almost supernatural taste and hearing abilities.   

The liquid began to flood out and the walls came down with them. The old man stood a few metres away, funny; he seemed so much smaller now… she must be nearly double his height!

Then, it was done; she stood on new, powerful legs, rippling with barely restrained power. She was impressed and a little relieved to see that she had not put on nearly so much muscle weight as male Taui-kun, and that what she had gained hardly affected her figure at all. She had a feeling that she would have looked faintly ridiculous if she had biceps the size of a mans skull… In fact, she thought, looking down at her bared breasts, far from having lost her femininity in this induction to a largely male theatre, it almost seemed as if she had gained some… 

She was completely naked, though this seemed to have little or no effect upon the little old man, it seemed that his eye for the opposite sex had long since faded somewhere along the many centuries of his life.   

“Lady Linwe, your first task…” he paused lengthily and stood placidly, waiting.

“I accept it with my heart and soul” she blurted, that wasn’t a good start, for a moment she had totally forgotten the ancient etiquette that went with the rituals.

“Your first task is to activate your Mòróplex.”

“How am I to do that?”

“Concentrate, look deep into your subconscious mind.” She tried her hardest, but didn’t seem to be achieving much. She took a few deep breaths, calmed her nerves and waited for her next instructions.

What he told her to do next seemed strange, almost incomprehensible to her confused mind, but she tried anyway.

Seconds later, to her shock, joy and surprise, she felt a strange squirming, squirting sensation deep in her chest and then thick, oily Mòrón leaked out of her pores, which with her new eyes, she could see individually in incredible detail.

She was quickly coated in a clinging film of the stuff, gleaming, new and fresh. It felt odd at first, but she was already getting used to it.

“Excellent! Now test your joints.”

She did, she flexed her fingers and tried her arms and legs. Everything was perfect and atomic with energy.

“Very good, now follow me to the training hall.”

She could not wait; she practically bounded after him, eager to start using her new body, coated in its cloak of seething Mòrón. This was her rebirth, her second life started now.

X. Bio-Tech Warrior 138/AKY2K/556:
For a moment there was nothing but whirling colours and dancing starlight and then the warrior reappeared on the surface of Karill. The rust red dusty ground, the writhing seas of blood, the geysers, the lava flows, the dirty sulphurous yellow clouds dashing across the heavens, forked lighting crackling between them. And past the clouds, pitch black, a few stars gleaming out through the chaos. It was home. A flash of light, a thunderclap and a ferocious storm whipped up in a matter of seconds. It was raining blood, turning the dusty ground into a thick red paste.

Servos whirred and gears ground and then in the harsh voice of Its verbal synthesiser, It spoke

“Father Karill, show me the way!”

A bolt of lightning sizzled through the air and hit in the middle of a large lake, vaporising it, sending dust into the air into a seething storm of rusty fury. A tunnel was now evident where the lake had been. It stepped in and on instinct started plodding towards Its masters as the lake closed over behind It, a film of blood covering the entrance to the passageway.

It strode oblivious through the great caverns, ignoring the massed throngs of Karilion warriors, as they fought amongst themselves, baying for blood. Their gnarled foetal faces contorted with rage, thirst and pleasure. Their multiple, bladed appendages slashed, strangled and crushed in their constant lustful dance with death.

Today they fought amongst themselves because their food supply had been exhausted; their latest hunting raid had come back as shattered remnants, crushed by Taui-kun warriors. The bodies of their previous victims hung from the ceiling by their ankles, nothing but pale withered husks devoid of any of the precious life giving liquid.

But Father Karills veins had to be filled; it mattered not from whom the blood flowed.
And so the channels that lead to the chamber of the masters, the heart of Karil, gushed still with red richness. And for that the Karilions were glad.
It followed one of these conduits, before long It was there. The heart of the universe, the seat of Karils bloodstained empire. The chamber of the Masters. This was to where the blood flowed, to feed them and honour their ravenous patron god. It congregated to a massive writhing lake, hundreds of metres across, over which a slight skin of congealed gore had formed.

And seated above it, suspended somehow in mid air: were those that It answered to.     

There were four of them. They looked as all Karilions, but there was something more about them, something divine. Each looked almost like a human foetus, but with dark red flesh and a crest of horns around their proportionately large faces. Iron taloned fingers and toes and a mouthful of razor fangs glinted menacingly. Bladed and suckered tentacles sprouted like insane fungal growth from their abdomens.

They were around two metres large, but nearly twice their size, seated in the middle of them was the master of the masters; The current living incarnation of The bloodstained god. As he served his time as dreaded warlord of the Karilion people, his body would become bloated and he would continue to grow in size until Karil became tired of his current host, then he would devolve into what Karil had been born: the blood and tears of warring gods. 

Karil spoke to him.

“How went your expedition Bio-Tech Warrior 138/AKY2K/556? Do you bring blood?” the master spoke eagerly with a voice like the sound of metal scraping upon rock.

“Yes, I bring blood for Father Karil and information as you wished.”

“Give up your gift then.” He urged. It stepped forwards and a hole tore itself open in the region of Its stomach, then the blood of his fallen enemies sprayed out into the pool below the masters. The hole resealed itself. The masters hissed in pleasure, It hissed with them.

“Now, tell us this information that you bring.”

“They have returned, the children of The One.”

“So it is true, this is most useful” the warrior felt a swoon of pleasure, his master was pleased!

“That is not all master” he said, eager to please him more.

“I saw the human they call Casian.” If Its simple emotional circuits could have felt surprise, they would have done, for the masters started laughing, the high pitched cackling echoing around the cavern. As it was, he was only programmed with three distinct emotions; blood thirst, hate and dark indulgence.

“Casian…” said the master mulling over the word, he started muttering to himself “… he is still ignorant of what he is…but if it awakens in him…” he spoke clearly again. “Bio-Tech Warrior 138/AKY2K/556 this is your new assignment. Kill Casian.”