a weapon to free us?+
+I do,+ he sent, and just as he did the greater daemon charged. +I have you.+
The greater daemon was a blur of shimmering light. Its lesser kin followed with a howl.
And I understood what Ahriman wanted me to do.
I wish I could have said that I hesitated. If I had paused perhaps we really would have ended there, torn to shreds in a well of screaming souls on the edge of the Eye. I did not pause. I did what Ahriman wanted me to do. Just as he knew I would.
I reached into the segmented compartments of my mind, and threw doors of all the cells of memory open. Tens of thousands of fragmented daemon names poured into my consciousness. Ciphers snapped through my thoughts. Syllables rang together, became words and phrases, became black presences digging into the flesh of reality. The first name came to my mouth and I spoke it.
The charging daemons and the whirl of combat stuttered. Yellow and black smoke poured from my mouth. Sounds echoed and veils of rust peeled from the root and deck. A ball of blistering fat formed in the air, and grew and grew and grew, slower than spreading rot, faster than a gust of wind. The Maggot Lord, exalted servant of the Father of Decay, split reality and swelled into a full being. I had bound it in the temple of a dead oracle and never thought that I would ever want to bring it into being again. A foolish thought, even for me. I felt it pull against the bindings of the summoning. They held, but I did not give it the chance to try again.
+Destroy them,+ I willed.
The Maggot Lord exploded forwards, rotting muscle splitting its skin. The bull-headed daemon shrieked with rage and pivoted to meet it. Claws buried themselves in rolling blubber. Dead flies and pus gushed out. The Maggot Lord laughed, and its arms gripped the bull-headed daemon and embraced it. I saw its mouth open, splintered roots of black teeth on a cave of tumours. Its laugh boomed again, just before it bit down on the bull-headed daemon’s skull.
The next name was already free of my lips and a haze in the air.
Chel’thek, The Dragon of the Hundredth Gate, uncoiled from a whirl of fire, mouths spitting chains of lightning. Claws split its flanks, and wobbling spheres of arms and legs popped from the wounds. Daemons slid through the walls and floors as they surged to meet the Maggot Lord and the Dragon. Colours flashed between shades; distance and nearness collapsed then snapped back. The song of the daemons was now a discordant cacophony.
I had fallen to my knees, my unwounded hand gripping my staff, as name after name came up from within me.
Daemons of brass and anger, of hunger and mindless despair, came to my call and spilled out through the ship and void. On and on they came, the store of mortal lifetimes of collecting, binding and bargaining. I could not stop it even if I had wanted to, and in truth, I did not want to. My eyes blurred with acid tears, and my tongue had blistered, but I did not care. A wild joy had taken me. Some carry beautifully crafted swords all their lives, and never realise, until they are daubed in blood, that the pleasure comes not from owning a sword, no matter how perfect, but from letting it cut.
The daemons poured out with the words and I heard the clash as two immortal armies met, and I was glad.
In the void around the Sycorax, beasts of metal and glowing flesh ripped at things that ran through the vacuum on back-slung legs. On the gun decks and passages the slave crew and serfs fled for safety. Winged figures clad in brass and smoke flew beside huge rotting flies. Swarms of clawed figures crawled over rolling shapes of jellied puss and tentacles. Sheets of spell light and rainbow fire painted the vacuum.
On and on I spoke the names, my sight boiling away and my throat tearing with each new syllable until I was aware of nothing, but the sounds running from me like blood. I was dying, my life charring at the edges but I did not care.
I do not know how long I spoke, or
+I do,+ he sent, and just as he did the greater daemon charged. +I have you.+
The greater daemon was a blur of shimmering light. Its lesser kin followed with a howl.
And I understood what Ahriman wanted me to do.
I wish I could have said that I hesitated. If I had paused perhaps we really would have ended there, torn to shreds in a well of screaming souls on the edge of the Eye. I did not pause. I did what Ahriman wanted me to do. Just as he knew I would.
I reached into the segmented compartments of my mind, and threw doors of all the cells of memory open. Tens of thousands of fragmented daemon names poured into my consciousness. Ciphers snapped through my thoughts. Syllables rang together, became words and phrases, became black presences digging into the flesh of reality. The first name came to my mouth and I spoke it.
The charging daemons and the whirl of combat stuttered. Yellow and black smoke poured from my mouth. Sounds echoed and veils of rust peeled from the root and deck. A ball of blistering fat formed in the air, and grew and grew and grew, slower than spreading rot, faster than a gust of wind. The Maggot Lord, exalted servant of the Father of Decay, split reality and swelled into a full being. I had bound it in the temple of a dead oracle and never thought that I would ever want to bring it into being again. A foolish thought, even for me. I felt it pull against the bindings of the summoning. They held, but I did not give it the chance to try again.
+Destroy them,+ I willed.
The Maggot Lord exploded forwards, rotting muscle splitting its skin. The bull-headed daemon shrieked with rage and pivoted to meet it. Claws buried themselves in rolling blubber. Dead flies and pus gushed out. The Maggot Lord laughed, and its arms gripped the bull-headed daemon and embraced it. I saw its mouth open, splintered roots of black teeth on a cave of tumours. Its laugh boomed again, just before it bit down on the bull-headed daemon’s skull.
The next name was already free of my lips and a haze in the air.
Chel’thek, The Dragon of the Hundredth Gate, uncoiled from a whirl of fire, mouths spitting chains of lightning. Claws split its flanks, and wobbling spheres of arms and legs popped from the wounds. Daemons slid through the walls and floors as they surged to meet the Maggot Lord and the Dragon. Colours flashed between shades; distance and nearness collapsed then snapped back. The song of the daemons was now a discordant cacophony.
I had fallen to my knees, my unwounded hand gripping my staff, as name after name came up from within me.
Daemons of brass and anger, of hunger and mindless despair, came to my call and spilled out through the ship and void. On and on they came, the store of mortal lifetimes of collecting, binding and bargaining. I could not stop it even if I had wanted to, and in truth, I did not want to. My eyes blurred with acid tears, and my tongue had blistered, but I did not care. A wild joy had taken me. Some carry beautifully crafted swords all their lives, and never realise, until they are daubed in blood, that the pleasure comes not from owning a sword, no matter how perfect, but from letting it cut.
The daemons poured out with the words and I heard the clash as two immortal armies met, and I was glad.
In the void around the Sycorax, beasts of metal and glowing flesh ripped at things that ran through the vacuum on back-slung legs. On the gun decks and passages the slave crew and serfs fled for safety. Winged figures clad in brass and smoke flew beside huge rotting flies. Swarms of clawed figures crawled over rolling shapes of jellied puss and tentacles. Sheets of spell light and rainbow fire painted the vacuum.
On and on I spoke the names, my sight boiling away and my throat tearing with each new syllable until I was aware of nothing, but the sounds running from me like blood. I was dying, my life charring at the edges but I did not care.
I do not know how long I spoke, or
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