Death Blade - Part five

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.