Elysium: Book Six of The Liminality

Chapter 55 - Spent

The Centurions are the first to feel the teeth of my spell. They had paused atop a small rise to form up their lines. Below them a detachment of friendly skirmishers cross one of the broad gulches that the killfire had created in the pitted plains. The Centurions' decision to occupy the high ground to gain a slight tactical advantage over their aggressors spells their doom.

The churning knot of my giant-sized will passes over the heads of my allies and plows into the ranks of Centurions, vaporizing all who come into contact with it. In its wake, nothing remains of the center of their defense. Only two widely separated remnants on the flanks are left for the friendly fighters to engage.

Next to feel my spell's wrath are the Argents arrayed around the Maker's summoning platform. Its force has broadened after striking the Centurions as it now carves a wider swath through the terrain.

Rigel Bonn has his palms raised high, trying frantically to put a mountain of cinders between himself and my mana. He succeeds in raising the land between us, but my spell pierces the heaped cinders like a skewer through jelly.

I had fully expected the Maker to be able to block my spell, that this was to be the first jab of an extended battle full of feints and parries before either of us achieved a knockout. This is Rigel Bonn, after all, a true Maker and member of the Illumined elite. I'm just a kid from Florida.

My mana plows through the ridges and through the gap I watch my projectile obliterate his platform. The Maker and his protectors have been turned into dust and smoke.

My spell doesn't stop there. It continues to grow, momentum unabated, plowing through the plains beyond, carving a broad trench across the burned-over landscape as far as my eyes can follow. I would not be shocked to find it circle the realm and become a force as permanent as the tides of earth. This was a good one!

Turns out I'm lucky one that shot was all it took to take down the Maker, because I am spent. My will depleted, I slump into the cinders, buried to my chest. Any gratification I feel from my success is fleeting. I clench my eyes and wallow in depths of my pain. The sharp cinders dig into and aggravate my wounds. I am in utter agony and helpless to relieve it. In this realm, pain can usually be willed away to some extent, but killfire burns you right down to your soul.

If a doctor asked me to rate the intensity of my pain on a scale of one to ten I would have to give this one a fifteen. It's as if the killfire had never been extinguished. I keep hoping that it ebbs just a little bit to become more bearable or I'll get used to it or go unconscious or die or anything but it just keeps on coming.

I throw back my head and moan and I can't even recognize my own voice. My massive size has distorted it.

I open my eyes now and then to see fighters swarming past me by land and sky as the last fragmented formations of Centurions and Argents retreat. They fight to the death, these Illumineds, if death is what you call what happens to them. Who knows what occurs to vetted souls whose vessels are slaughtered by the unvetted?

I can't take any pleasure in their rout, and it's not just the pain stopping me. The Maker might be gone, the killfire extinguished, but Root has been ruined. What is left to fight for?

The smoke clouds thin to reveal the ark now high in the sky, catching the last rays of a fading sun, gleaming like a backlit Florida supercell. It's still rising. It's probably safe now for them to return to the hollow, but why would they? They should be returning to repair their damage and pick up more passengers. Apparently, whoever's driving that thing doesn't believe that more would be merrier because it just keeps on rising.

The cinders on my face turn my tears into mud. The pain still shows no signs of relenting. If I die in this hole, still in possession of this massive body, I wonder what happens to my Shade? Would it be just as large as my current body? If I freed it from my corpse would I then wander the ravaged landscape as a giant beast of shadow?