Chapter 2

The Blue Knight

1

Chapter 2

“The Battle that Began the War” Maryll, 48th of Duvhynn, Age of the Winds 11,667

A pale white glow appeared in the darkness, backlighting five figures in green robes. Hoods raised, they turned a narrow corner of a twisting crack in the basaltic rock, each with a black rat perched on its shoulder. Preceded by a rat the size of a small dog, the sixth gripped a glowing quarterstaff of burgundy wood as high as the low ceiling allowed. Six human children, in tunics and sandals, trailed behind, followed by six adults in brown robes, cowls up. The latter stepped tentatively, repetitive glances at close walls and looming ceiling, more concerned than the children’s. “This place stinks.” “Where are we going?” “Are we nearly there?” “I don’t like the dark.” “I’m scared.” “I'm not. “I want a rat too.” “I want to go home.” “Quiet,” said the man with the light, spinning around; sharp olive face pinched as he glared at the children, ignoring the adult voices. “Do you want to see what dwells below Arcanica’s sewers? You won’t like it.” Their fear brought a gleam to his hazel eyes. He smiled.

Michael S. Fricker

2

“Don’t worry. You are Father’s chosen. I won’t let anything happen.” During the last three months, he had bought them from the city market: two boys and a girl of five, two boys of six, and a girl of seven. Eight was the human Age of Agency, when the gods declared them morally responsible. “Why are we here, Brother Therus?” said the eldest, a Kaldarian like him, but with the cold strength of the north in her bright blue eyes. The other children bunched behind her. “I’m taking you to Father, Mina. Father’s kingdom is so wonderful that the way to it must be kept hidden or everyone would want to come, and there is just not enough room.” “Are you one of his children?” His smile warmed. “Yes, I am. I was freed and brought here.” He gestured to the two men and three women waiting ahead. “So were they. We are all Father’s children.” “What about them?” Mina gestured with her thumb at the three men and three women waiting behind the children. He shook his head and sighed. “No. They only wish to be his children. For them it is too late. They must wait until the Afterlife. Now hush. We mustn’t keep Father waiting.” As always, Father identified the appointed time of meeting a few hours beforehand, keeping his children, and most privileged followers, on their toes. Having it on the magically powerful Night of Shadows was a typical subversion of the peak time for grey magic, sacred to Isis. Mina looked uncertain but hopeful, following with the younger children on her heels when he turned and resumed walking.

The Blue Knight

3

Quietly, the party made their way down the twisting tunnel past narrower branches and an intersecting circular tunnel ten feet in diameter. The air grew humid and malodourous as the tunnel levelled out, widening to five feet. Mosses, moulds, fungi, fetid pools, and slimes of many colours, covered the black, pock-marked floor. Huge cockroaches, beetles, and larva crawled through it all, bloated flies spinning through the air in clouds. The group stopped. In the lead, Sister Lucia gripped her silver medallion while producing a series of precise motions, gestures, and sounds that triggered and projected her prepared spell weave. “Keep close.” The others obeyed as she strode forward. Flies and rats scattered before them, filling the darkness with angry squeaks and buzzing that drew more of their kind until the passage ahead was filled by a black cloud hovering above a sea of bodies, remaining five feet away. The tunnel widened to more than ten feet, the white noise of falling water echoing from the darkness. Sulphur, methane, urine, feces, and decay assaulted every breath, making the youngest boy retch. “Breath through your mouth,” said Brother Therus. To him it was better than expensive perfume, representing safety and open expression of his faith, of himself. Only Father’s children, vermin, and germs were welcome. But, the Undercity connected to the Underworld, allowing things to enter that might survive the ward. The tunnel opened into a chamber with walls stretching out of sight, the light barely reaching the ceiling. A five-foot wide stream came out of the dark on their right, running a couple of inches deep among the

Michael S. Fricker

4

floor growth to plunge over the edge of a crevasse on their left. Ten feet wide, the crevasse split a wall of fitted stones just ahead. Sister Lucia followed the stream toward its source. The tumble of water grew louder as they approached a gateway big enough for a wagon, framed by two fifteen-foot high stone towers. A Sumerian ziggurat lurked on the other side, buried by Arcanica’s volcanoes, Romulus and Remus. A set of broad steps climbed up the side. Sewage ran down. Brother Therus took the lead, ascending the stairs sixty feet to the top. There stood half of a thirty-foot circle of grey menhirs ten feet high, five feet wide, two and a half feet thick, with similar-sized lintels, all engraved with arcane sigils and eldritch patterns. A five-foot square obelisk rose from the circle’s centre, also covered with magical inscriptions, pyramidal top touching the ceiling thirty feet overhead. The far half of the circle was indicated by two menhirs sticking out of the cavern wall on either side of a sheet of sewage pouring from a crack in the ceiling. A stone altar stood in front of the obelisk, the radiant sun of Ra on the front magically reshaped. Father of Sin, Pazuzu’s tall, muscular anthropoid form appeared in relief with rubies representing glowing, compound eyes under a noble brow. Large, pointed ears flanked a leering, handsome face topped by a crest of dark feathers. Four feathered wings spread from his back and his legs ended in taloned avian feet. Naked, his malformed, diseased, rotting genitals hung low. Brother Therus hardened in anticipation of the ritual orgy that would be tonight’s climax. But first, there were the children. “Come, Mina. Gather the others by me.” Sister Lucia stood midpoint of an arc with the other four priests, facing the altar; the six worshippers of privilege forming a row behind.

The Blue Knight

5

Brother Therus formed a line of five children before the priests and pulled Mina to stand before the altar at his side. He beamed at her. “Here’s what will happen. I will open a gateway to Father’s kingdom. He will send a spirit to share your body so that and you can lead the others through the portal. You will live with Father, learning magic until ready to return to this world as a priest, like me.” The faces of the children lit with excitement, except Mina. She kept her cool gaze locked with his. “What are Father and his kingdom like?” “Wondrous, terrifying, and amazing.” The awe in his voice was genuine. “Unlike anyone or anything you can imagine.” Seeing scepticism battling hope on her face, he patted her shoulders. “Don’t worry. You will be able to see Father’s kingdom. No one will make you go if you don’t wish to. No one will harm you. You have been chosen to become Father’s children. You are free.” She wasn’t experienced enough to sense lies woven among truths. She would learn better, if she survived. Kneeling before the altar with his head at the feet of his god, Therus intoned, “My body and spirit are yours, Blessed Father.” Standing, he raised the glowing staff above his head, gripped near the ends, and began a dissonant chant in Dark Speech, created by Cthulhu for his daemons. The harsh, vile language was common tongue of the Dark North and the Underworld. Another priest joined each time the chant repeated. Drawing a golden medallion, engraved with the sacred fly and skull, from beneath his robes with his left hand, he drew six gems from a pouch on his belt with his right.

Michael S. Fricker

6

He closed his fist around the gems as the chant began its next repetition, opening at its end to release a flash of light, leaving an empty palm. With the last repetition, he performed intricate movements and gestures with body, arms, hands, and fingers. A ninth-circle spell, only an archmaster could successfully and safely weave the required qi. The chant ended. Stagnant air rose blew toward the obelisk from all directions. Five feet up, the obelisk warped, twisted, and then ballooned into a ten-foot sphere. Red light filled it, flashed to orange, and on through violet before revealing a distorted, upside-down, cobblestone road meandering through blossoming groves. Just below a snowy peak, a marble palace stood above a sparkling turquoise sea, coloured pennants flying from its towers. Brother Therus turned and smiled at the stunned children. “Father’s kingdom awaits you.” He offered his hand to Mina. Slowly, gaze jumping between his and the sphere, she took it. He led the children around the altar to face the sphere. Letting go of her hand, he left Mina a couple of feet from its surface, and moved behind the other five. “The children await their guide,” he declared. Expectant gazes fixed on the sphere. Instead of a demon, a tanned human face appeared in the sphere, broad smile made clownish. Then it vanished and a tall, handsome man in a knee-length loincloth stepped from the sphere without disturbing surface or image. Priests and worshippers dropped to their knees, foreheads in sewage. The children copied their elders. “No, no, no.”

The Blue Knight

7

Pazuzu offered his right hand to Mina. “Only adults need bow.” The girl peeked up at the smiling man’s hand, large, strong, and steady. Reaching up, she allowed him to pull her to her feet. Then he offered his left hand to the youngest child. The blonde boy leapt to his feet and wrapped skinny arms around the god’s muscular leg. Pazuzu smiled and patted the boy’s head. He looked at the others. “Gather around.” The children clustered around him. He smelled heavily of flowers. “Stand, Grand Vicar.” Brother Therus rose, gaze downcast, sewage dripping from his nose. “Forgive me, Father, for the unacceptable reception. We did not expect Your glorious presence.” “You are forgiven, this time.” “Thank you, Father.” “We have come because the Champion of Order will be born this Night.” Therus peered up, grinning. “We are to adopt the Champion?” Pazuzu shook his head, dark eyes flashing red. “Normally that would be amusing, but there are larger concerns. An agent will neutralize him. Crude and uninteresting, but a favour of great promise.” Brother Therus nodded. “Yes, Father.” Speaking his name three times in succession could summon Pazuzu through the Demon Wall to perform a service for one in return. Each time he helped, the return favour pushed the person closer to the Abyss. Desperate paladins and mothers were his favourites. “Our agent requires a willing vessel.” “I am yours, Father,” all six priests shouted. Pazuzu beamed at Mina. “See how good children behave?”

Michael S. Fricker

8

Then he looked to Therus. “As Grand Vicar, you are due this honour.” Therus swelled. “Thank you, Father.” Pazuzu’s eyes flashed. “Do not disappoint.” Then, he turned the children to face the sphere. “Come, My children. Let’s go home.” They passed into the sphere without disturbance, appearing upside-down and reversed on the distorted road. The scene faded to black that drained from the sphere’s bottom, spreading in a pool that gathered and rose into an amorphous shade, eight feet in diameter. With no fixed form, demons in possession drew upon the fears of hosts and victims. There was no way to predict its abilities. Uttering a sound and winking to trigger an Inner Eye spell, Brother Therus smiled and spread his arms to expose his chest. The demon’s qi intensity made it at least class five of six. “I am your vessel.” The shade engulfed him, flowing down his throat until gone. Therus shuddered, then blinked and shook his head. Ecstasy lit his face, darkness flowing from pupils to blacken eyes. A long primal scream bent his head back, blanching his face, growing until his voice broke. His flesh bubbled, arms, legs, and torso stretching with loud cracks and snaps. Shoulders and back expanded, shredding clothing as his head sunk within, leaving only his silent, screaming face exposed in the centre of the chest, eyes compound. Each arm split into two, hands transforming into sharp beaks that snapped at the air. A red-brown carapace formed as avian talons destroyed boots and long, maggot-like heads exploded from shoulders, circular mouths drooling black venom between rows of needle teeth.

The Blue Knight

9

The fourteen-foot demon turned to face priests and worshippers. Initially overwhelmed by agony and alien thoughts, Therus began to understand and relate. Lust for pain and destruction mixed with the rush of power. <Who is our target?> He was unaware of mouthing the words. “Logosien Di Lzander, born this night to Argus and Tsinien.” The fluctuating tones came from his mouth. It didn’t know their location. <We must find them.> Ignoring priests and worshippers daring to rise to their feet, he reached below his chin for his divine symbol and then looked at the beak, his hand sticking out like a tongue, magic ring on the proper digit. Medallion in hand, he performed the required gestures and uttered predetermined sounds. His mind reached out, whispering the names of the Di Lzander family to hundreds of thousands of minds in the city and following related thoughts that surfaced in response. It took a few minutes to reveal people who knew the names. Their home was entered from an alley off the street serving as Watch District’s northern border. When he tried to pinpoint their location, he ran into a powerful barrier to remote viewing and telepathy. Not enough knowledge to Dimension Shift there, but he planted a psychic beacon that would lead him through Undercity and sewers. It was approaching the Witching Hour. The brat could be born at any time. He needed to go. “But,” demon and priest said from the same mouth, “not before a little fun.” He locked gazes with Lucia. Eyes popping wide, she clutched her head and fell to her knees catatonic. The demon and Therus laughed and closed the portal, the sphere shrinking to nothing.

Michael S. Fricker

10

Then, Therus dispelled Lucia’s protective field. Clouds of flies descended on the eleven humans, as a carpet of earwigs, rats, centipedes, beetles, and cockroaches, flowed over them, joined by their familiars. Three of the priests vanished, vermin falling to the floor. The muffled screams of the remaining eight mixed with laughing until the crawling shapes fell over. Amusement done, the two minds focused on the pull of their destination, following swift and silent. As they drew near, the demon forced the pathetic mortal into the smallest, darkest corner of his mind.

∞∞

The baby kicked, waking Tsinien. Gasping as her eyes opened, she caressed her swollen belly. She lifted her head to gaze past her husband, breathing quietly on their straw mattress. A wooden chair sat against the sloped wall of the attic room, Argus’s grey-blue Watch uniform draped over its back. His new lieutenant’s bars on the collar glinted in the pale white glow of street globes, spilling through a small circular window a few feet from the stairs to the kitchen. The hair on her arms and neck quivered. A floorboard creaked from the kitchen, the only exit, her aged mother sleeping on a crude mattress under the stairs. Something heavy stepped onto the stairs, chewing and crunching. Her almond-shaped, dark-brown eyes widened. She struggled to move or make sound as darkness billowed into the room filling it with cold. Heavy, wet breathing as something – things – approached. Her elbow dug into Argus’s side startling him awake as she sat up rigid.

The Blue Knight

11

“What the Hell?” he mumbled before being yanked from bed. His screams combined with heavy, wet growling, snarling, and cackling. Something warm splattered her face. “Argus!” His screams became a horrible gurgling ended by ripping and wet thuds from walls and floor. The black vapour dissipated and she screamed much louder. Transfixed, she watched in horror as the thing came toward her, a giant anthropoid cross between a cockroach and two maggots. The armoured body filled the half of the attic, arms spread, beaks snapping, dripping blood. Gore coated the maggot mouths. A deep, growl of a chuckle rose from its boney chest but she couldn’t look away from the segmented heads. Fortunately, its shadow muted the blood splattered everywhere and her gaze avoided the body parts. Behind it, a muffled voice shouted, “In Athena’s name, I banish you.” Maggot heads howled as golden light flowed over its back, wrapping it in tendrils. Struggling, it broke beams and boards, an elbow shattering the window. Becoming almost transparent, it flickered in and out of the physical universe for several movements, a human-sized shape hovering within. Then, absorbing the golden light, it returned to full opacity, whirled and exploded through window and wall. The baby doubled Tsinien, unlocking her muscles, allowing her to roll out of bed and stumbled to the stairs. Clutching her cramping stomach with one hand and the thin handrail with the other, she descended fast as she dared into the windowless kitchen. Turning left on the landing halfway down, she plunged into darkness. The cramp eased as she set foot on the kitchen floor. Her eyes filled with tears but she didn’t dare give in.

Michael S. Fricker

12

She took four careful steps. The fifth brought her bare foot down on a hand. Tsinien lost all reason, bolting across the room toward where the door should be. The table stabbed her with a corner. Pain flared in her left hip. Bouncing off the wall, she staggered a few steps. Her right foot slipped in warm wetness and she landed heavily on her back, flashes roaming her sight. An intense cramp made her cry out and struggle to get up, flailing about. Rolling onto her side, she climbed to her knees and crawled through the pain. Her head struck a hard surface and the flashes returned. She threw both of her hands against it, feeling up for knob and latch. Trembling fingers closed tight over both, turning and pulling. The door popped open, knocking her to the side, light pouring in. Tsinien scrambled into the alley, a dead end ten feet to her left containing the closed door of an apothecary. Light spilled down the alley from Sword Street to her right, bordering the Watch and Imperial Districts. The cramp relaxed. Tsinien got to her feet with the help of a wooden crate and ran toward the street.

∞∞ A cloud of debris bounced off the gleaming golden half-plate armour and radiant skin of the seven-foot tall, copper-haired anthropoid hovering outside. Bursting out of it, the demon took him across the sixty-foot wide cobblestone road in a ball of white, gold, and rust, before the angel jumped away from the biting, snapping fury.

The Blue Knight

13

Guardian Azrael of the Fourth Host of Heaven threw back his full-length feathered cloak, exposing Athena’s striking owl embossed in full colour across his chest. A bastardsword appeared in his hands, flawless blade inscribed with the holiest of Marduk’s fifty names. As the demon leapt to its feet, Azrael spoke with the full force of his faith, words comprehensible by any intelligent creature within earshot. “I summon Athena’s wrath upon you.” Gold energy limned the demon. Shell smoking, the demon leapt as Azrael spun, bastardsword striking its side, chitin splitting, knocking the creature to his right. Landing, it sprung at him, snapping beaks and mouths coming from seemingly every angle. Blade and armour stopped most, but one beak sliced down his left calf before he jumped back out of reach. He could feel the cold of dark qi in the wound, trying to get through the ward cast before approaching the house, until it dissipated like smoke. Dark qi poison was common in demons and the undead. The face in its chest smiled at him, drawing his gaze to black, compound eyes. A barrage of voices and bizarre images filled his head. Reeling, he yanked his gaze away before they took up residence. Taking advantage of his distraction, the demon dispelled the angel’s ward against dark qi. Then, it drove him backwards down the street. Behind the demon, eight Watchmen ran around the next intersection, seven in padded armour, with crossbows, nets, clubs, and broadswords. The eighth wore a grey cloak, hemmed with arcane sigils, gnarled quarterstaff in hand. They skidded to a halt, forming a line of kneeling crossbowmen ahead of the magician as he blew a signal horn, echoing down empty streets. Crossbows fired, five bolts bouncing off its back.

Michael S. Fricker

14

The magician followed with four yellow darts of qi that dissipated upon contact. Reeling under the demon’s onslaught, Azrael feared he was just as ineffective. Failure seemed inevitable. But, he would not, could not, let that happen. “The child must live,” Azrael shouted, pouring his strength into an overhand chop that sank between maggot heads almost to the face. The demon ran its body along the blade, smearing it with hissing, smoking tar-like qi. Beaks sliced his right thigh, right shoulder, left cheek, and left hip. Maggot heads bit through his armour, leaving circles in his chest. Venom burned cold in his veins as his body fought to resist, white qi mixing with black. Its beaks slashed and bit, twice striking flesh but not piercing, another striking his sword’s hilt less than an inch from his face. As Azrael sprang backwards into the air, white cloak flaring, a beak’s tip exposed the bone of his shin. Landing sixty feet down the street, he drew back his sword as the demon charged. Deflecting the blade with one arm, the demon’s other three beaks stabbed through his armour, one front, two back, as maggot maws struck at his face. Summoning golden divine energy around his blade, the angel smote the creature in the wound between heads, smashing it to its knees in a spray of black and smoke, cutting into the forehead of the face. The demon became a blur, Azrael struggling to block strike after strike, before its lower beaks sank between ribs and ripped. Qi billowed from his mouth like winter breath. The demon pulled a beak across his face, slicing his nose and opening a flap of cheek. He managed to dodge a slash at his throat and brought up his weapon just in time to stop the reverse slash.

The Blue Knight

15

He shot straight up, taking a slash across his left thigh in order to get sixty feet into the air. Focusing through the pain, he touched the emblazoned owl and uttered the trigger sounds for his most powerful necromantic spell, healing his most serious wounds, trusting to his Lucid healing rate to handle lesser ones. If he could keep clear a little longer, he could cleanse the dark qi poisoning his body. If only he could heal doubt. To prevent repeating Ragnarok’s cosmic destruction, the Final Existential War was to be waged by Champions representing each of the Council of Power’s five Factions. The Armageddon Accords allowed Factions an equal or lesser response to the direct actions of other Factions. Against this horror, Azrael felt the lesser response. If he failed, Armageddon would be lost. “Destroy the assassin,” Athena had commanded. “If you cannot, deliver mother and child to Xondra. Above all else, the child lives.” Flying here, he had memorized the route from Athena’s temple to Xondra’s to the Di Lzander home. He glanced toward the house as Tsinien, splattered with blood, emerged from the alley and stumbled through pain toward the soldiers, arms clutching her belly. About to leap, the demon noticed his gaze and turned. Spotting its victim, the maggots spat thin streams of dark qi that splattered against Tsinien’s back, sinking in and dropping her to her knees, spread-legged, head bowed, as her water burst. The demon charged, getting within five feet of its victim before the angel swooped in and lifted her into the sky, sword held beneath her, cloak beating like wings. The demon shot after them, rising over the heads of the Watchmen and above the light poles, sprouting four buzzing insect wings as it disappeared into the dark.

Michael S. Fricker

16

Azrael climbed above low houses and headed west toward the Temple District, on the other side of Racing River, flying as fast qi and cloak could carry him. Tsinien screamed. Black veins multiplied and spread, robbing her flesh of heat and colour, eyes swirling with darkness, body trying to force the baby out before the poison completed its work. If he slowed, he could purge the dark qi and return her vigour, but that would let the demon overtake them and wouldn’t stop her delivering. At full speed, he could get there in around eight minutes. A shape came out of the dark and pain erupted from his left shoulder along his spine, the demon plummeting past head-first, upper-right beak trailing white. Cold spread across his back. He didn’t know how it had caught them, but if it struck the woman, neither mother nor baby would survive. Buildings passed on either side, a few reaching six storeys, the river creeping closer. Across the wide, dark water, the domes and spires of Temple District rose behind the warehouses, taverns, and inns of West Bank District. This time, cackling preceded the pain as the demon tore through flesh from left hip to calf. Fighting through pain and cold, Azrael struggled to maintain full speed and stay on course. Their speed was roughly the same, so the demon had to be using dimensional shifting. Tucking Tsinien under his body, he swooped between the three and four-story buildings of East Bank, heading toward the river in a tight serpentine course through alleys and over warehouses. A roar came close behind so he executed a series of random, hopefully unexpected, turns through the taller buildings.

The Blue Knight

17

A glance told him that the creature had fallen behind, slightly. Tsinien screamed and convulsed in his powerful arms. He heard crackling too late to avoid a dark qi ray striking his right foot. His entire body shivered, grip on Tsinien slipping. Fighting the dark qi weakening his life force, Azrael clutched her to him, swerving around a peaked, four-storey building and over a three-storey warehouse near the river’s edge. Low barges dominated the line of boats tied along the riverside. Between tides, the river was placid. Constellations, auroras, and nebulae turned the surface into a sparkling ribbon of colour, washed out somewhat by the grey moon. Among the largest things in the sky, the Matron shone in the Hexagram, minutes from reaching the centre at midnight. Signalling the beginning of the Night of Shadows, the grey Face’s rise at sunset increased the power of grey magicians, peaking during the Witching Hour and decreasing to normal by sunrise. Had this been the Night of Darkness or Light, the battle would be over. Flying over boats and river, Azrael searched above and ahead for movement while Tsinien’s contractions got closer together. He glanced down in time to spot the demon hovering just above the water. A thin ray of dark qi crackled upward. Azrael rolled, taking the magical blast in the centre of his back and resisting its effect. Fire blossomed into a massive, yellow-red ball ahead. Unable to dodge, the angel curled around Tsinien and tumbled through its heart. Heat reddened the woman’s glistening face but the manoeuvre and his flame-warding ring saw them through unharmed.

Michael S. Fricker

18

Water streaked underneath, echoing with Tsinien’s screams. Azrael spotted the demon against the sky soon enough to avoid it with two quick rolls. Tsinien’s screams weakened, but not her contractions. The warehouses, taverns, and inns of West Bank rose before them, crowds and individuals in masks roaming the riverside, enjoying the Festival of Faces. A few pleasure craft paddled their way upstream from the harbour toward Reversing Falls, flowing over the ridge connecting the volcanoes separating Uptown and Downtown. The demon appeared ahead. He dove below. Agony flared as a beak tore into the base of his neck, narrowly missing his spine. The woman seemed ten times heavier. The horizon flipped and spun as his vision dimmed. He struggled to make it level right way up. The temple of Xondra beckoned, less than two hundred yards ahead. Bleary eyes almost missed the demon appear below. Holding her tight with one arm, he twisted, sword blocking the incoming beak from hitting her leg, a maggot biting a chunk from his left thigh. The yards crawled, each precious second making him weaker and bringing the baby’s birth nearer. Two hundred feet square, the four-storey stone temple was surrounded by a ten-foot high stone wall, a fifteen-foot tower at each corner and two flanking the bars of the front gates. A moat separated the outer wall from the main building, spanned by a wooden bridge leading to a set of large wooden doors with four barred windows above them. The peaked roof was covered by

The Blue Knight

19

ceramic shingles with upswept eaves in the style of the South-East Arm of Harkindia. As soon as he neared the deserted forty-foot wide street running north-south in front, Azrael dove toward the outer gates. Tsinien moaned a scream. Pain lanced through Azrael’s back, a silver cloud exploding from his mouth as the creature and he passed each other, demon rising, beak piercing his left lung. Azrael swung his legs down, leaning back as he descended, cloak flaring, Tsinien panting in his arms, landing hard enough that his trembling legs almost failed. On the towers, pairs of shocked guards in loose tunics and breeches recovered from the surprise of an angel and a demon descending from the sky and raised crossbows. Dropping to one shaking knee, Azrael laid the semi-conscious woman on the ground before the wrought iron gates. “Get her to the sanctuary.” His command came out as a gasp. Skin pale, black veins spreading, he rose and turned to face the landing demon, wobbling bastardsword gripped two-handed to the right side of his head. Martialling his remaining strength, he poured his faith into a challenge that echoed through the quiet. “The child will live.” Crossbows dangling on straps, the blue-clad guard on each gate tower rang a bell while grey-clad partners ran down rear steps to the gates. The demon charged. Azrael dropped his blade down and thrust forward, holy steel sliding through Therus’s open mouth, erupting out the demon’s back covered in dark qi that streamed away. The demon jumped back, hilt sticking out of its front.

Michael S. Fricker

20

Upper-right beak extending a hand, it reached down, grasped the sword and pulled it out. Hand blistering and charring, laughing in gurgles from its sliced mouth, it locked its compound gaze with Azrael’s and cut off his head. Bright white qi fountained from the angel’s neck, body standing while the head rolled up against the temple’s outer wall, then falling forward with a thud. Cracks appeared over both, leaking streams of glowing mist until gone. The gates open, grey-clad guards pulled the woman through by the shoulders. Four crossbow bolts, fired from corner towers, bounced of the demon’s chitinous armour. The demon tossed the holy weapon from its smoking hand. Pain was the creature’s existence, feeding a hunger to share it, but Pazuzu’s orders forced it to focus on its quest. It roared from three mouths. In yellow cloth belts, the two guards stopped ringing their bells and leapt down to join the pair at the gates, all four bearing an embroidered black dragon coiled around a white orchid on the back of their tunics. The demon spotted a figure in the windows above the main gates. An alarm gong sounded and the reinforced, wooden gates began to swing outward. The demon rushed the outer gates, one grey-clad guard closing them as the other passed the woman to the two in blue. A forearm led, beak crushing the neck of the young human man as the gates banged off the towers. It flung the body against the temple wall where it stuck for a moment before disappearing into the moat with a splash. The female half-elf in grey grasped her divine symbol, thrusting the silver medallion toward the creature.

The Blue Knight

21

“Taste the glory of Xondra, vermin of the Abyss,” she shouted. Golden energy burst from the symbol, surrounding her with a thirty-foot aura that scorched the demon’s chitin. The demon sneered and stared into her feline eyes, filling her skull with mad voices and images before a maggot bit off her head. Supporting Tsinien’s back and shoulders, a young Kaldarian man in blue disappeared between doors nearly shut. The demon roared and charged.

∞∞

“The child must live,” whispered a woman’s voice in Grand Vicar Nicodemos’s head, accompanied by the familiar warmth in the centre of his chest caused by an affirmative answer to prayer. In his smallclothes, the sixty-seven year-old Kaldarian grabbed his belt and component pouches from the table bedside his bed. Then, he unsheathed the most powerfully enchanted scimitar hanging on the wall of his sparsely-appointed bedroom. With his right hand, he grasped the golden medallion whose chain never left his thin, corded neck, voicing vibrations as he passed his blade before body and legs to summon an invisible force sheath of qi equivalent to full plate. Then he stepped into the hall. Monks and priests in smallclothes, archmasters and grandmasters, crossed the hall to rooms with access to the courtyard balconies. Grand Prelate Frieda appeared around the corner, platinum hair in a tight bun, green eyes in a plain, angular face taking in everything for unceasing calculations. A brown leather strip near the end of her black cloth belt

Michael S. Fricker

22

marked her as second of four degrees. Two red leather strips marked her as leader of all defenders of their faith. Nicodemos didn’t know what to think of his new counterpart. He had suspicions about the death of her predecessor, a rigid old twit that he didn’t miss, but this wasn’t the time. “Perfection demands that we save the child.” Frieda’s freckled brow twitched slightly, a hint of confusion, before she nodded and dashed out the nearby balcony door, on the third floor in the time it took him to reach the stairs.

∞∞ The demon hit the heavy doors, throwing them inward. Shoulders nearly touching walls, it charged down the fifty-foot tunnel after prey standing before doors swinging inward at the other end. All but the last few feet of floor opened into a spike-lined thirty-foot pit. Catching four beaks and two feet against the walls, the demon scuttled onward. Beyond closing gates, the two monks carried the woman across the courtyard at their best run. Then, reinforced doors clicked shut and the internal iron bar slid into place. Gathering its strength, the demon sprang.

∞∞ City bell towers sounded midnight, adding to the din of the gong. Monks and priests lined the four balcony levels forming the courtyard perimeter. Simultaneously yelling, “Demon,” two adept monks ran into the courtyard, carrying a pregnant woman. Vicars, bishops, and archbishops ran to the nearest stairs, descending from the third and fourth floors while monks flipped and swung their way to the ground.

The Blue Knight

23

Nicodemos and Frieda reached the balcony on the front of the sanctuary, joining the on-duty commander above the doors. The dwarf’s crystalline sapphire irises glittered in his slate face as they focused upon the gates across the courtyard. Four-foot eleven and nearly as wide, the faerie’s stoic expression had been carved by life in the Underworld. Frieda addressed him. “Vicar Fergoth, commence Defense Four.” The dwarf turned and raised his hand to his mouth. “D-Four,” he shouted, gravelly voice echoing. Nicodemos pounded the balcony’s wooden rail with his sword. “Save the child,” he yelled pointing the scimitar at the woman. Moving with practiced efficiency, monks formed two rows along the main path as far as the central fountain containing the serene statue of Xondra. Priests did likewise beyond, up to the steps of the sanctuary where bishops and archbishops formed a double row before the doors. The two monks were passing the fountain when the demon burst the inner gates off their hinges, running into a gauntlet of enchanted quarterstaffs and kukri assisted by qi-enhanced punches and kicks. Some knocked it to the side momentarily; a few pierced armour and fractured bone. Sweeping monks to the sides with its arms, the demon ran over those in its way, bones mending. Slowed, it threw its last dark ray at its target. Sensing danger, the man carrying her torso shielded Tsinien with his back. Black veins spread through pale skin, brown eyes clouding black as he fell to his knees, nearly dropping his moaning burden. A woman bishop leapt to replace the stricken monk.

Michael S. Fricker

24

The demon buzzed over the statue into golden auras shining almost forty feet into the air, divine energy searing armour and flesh. Three mouths screaming, the creature rose to sixty feet. As its prey moved through, it dove toward the open temple doors. Archbishops and bishops closed ranks to overlap auras into a small sun. Measuring the strength of the demon’s qi with an Inner Eye spell, Nicodemos realized it might survive. He couldn’t take the chance of it reaching the child, so he grasped his medallion and uttered the trigger sound for his most powerful spell. “Perfection, I sacrifice my most valuable possession to triple the power of the sanctuary’s ward.” He raised his scimitar skyward as the demon streaked through the radiance below, Frieda leaping onto its back. The sword vanished. Inside, a priest helped lay the woman on the floor while two more closed the doors. Slamming into the doors, the demon knocked the priests onto their backs. Stopping mid-air, Frieda stabbing her kukri into the wound between maggot heads, it touched down a few feet from where priests and monk were delivering Tsinien’s baby. All three heads roared. A blue nimbus surrounded the demon, armour bubbling, cracking, and burning, smoke rising all over. The baby’s head emerged. Frieda jumped off as brilliance engulfed the demon, brighter than daylight before fading into a black, smoking, crumbling husk. The female human priest between Tsinien’s legs held up the infant. The male monk cut the cord with a kukri.

The Blue Knight

25

The four priests tried to cleanse and heal the mother with spells, but dark qi and childbirth had pushed her body beyond its limits. The city bells and temple gong fell silent. The baby cried as his mother let go. A soft golden glow drew Frieda’s attention to the altar at the far end of the sanctuary. A tall, broad leonine anthropoid solidified behind the altar, golden fur shining. An ultramarine silk robe hemmed in arcane sigils covered its muscular body. Long, pointed ears rose before a gleaming mane. A platinum medallion, engraved with the shooting star of Ptah, hung on its chest. As it came around the end, its clawed feet hovered two feet off the floor. Across its upturned palms was a light-blue, transparent crystal sword with a sickle-like blade. The creature floated reverently toward the group, startling those busy with mother and child as it came to a stop, silver flame gaze fixed upon the crying infant. “Hush child.” The words rumbled and rolled from leonine jaws. “I bring your soul mate.” Grasping the crystal weapon just below its curved blade, the creature touched the pommel to the child’s forehead. The infant went silent, clear brown eyes fixing on the weapon and then its bearer. The boy smiled. “Behold, Logosien Di Lzander, Armageddon’s Champion of Order.” Its voice rolled along the stone walls. Returning the sword to its palms, it floated to Frieda. Her face was an emotionless mask. “I am Orycl, First Prophet of Ptah, third rakshiri.” It held the weapon towards her. “This is the Axiom of Order’s Champion. They will grow together in power and wisdom. Teach him the Path and the Way and, in his thirteenth year, set him upon the path for knighthood. He

Michael S. Fricker

26

must become strong enough to stand alone and wise enough not to.” Frieda stared at the creature for a few moments, calculating vulnerabilities and strengths, the possibility of its words being true, and what that meant for her, the faith, and the world. She stepped forward and slipped her hands under the weapon, between the rakshiri’s. “I accept, but I determine the methods and subjects of instruction.” She gazed unflinching into silver flame. “Of course,” Orycl said. <In conjunction with your priestly equal.> She nodded, accepted the weapon from the rakshiri, stepped back two steps, and then bowed at the waste. When she looked up, the rakshiri was gone. Cradling the sword, she considered the squirming infant. “What I have gotten into?” she muttered as Nicodemos arrived at her side. The Grand Vicar sighed at the sight of the healthy boy and then noticed the sword. “What do we have here?” She gave a hint of a grin and a small shrug. “Nothing much, we’ve just become parents of twins who hold the fate of the world in their hands.” Nicodemos blinked in momentary confusion, and then started issuing commands. “Seal the temple. I want every inch sanctified and warded against chaos and evil. Expand the dimensional barriers. Until further notice, no one enters or leaves without my permission. And,” he turned to include those gathered around corpse and baby, “not a word of what happened tonight. Consider the information sacred.” The priests in the doorway gave sharp nods, turned on their heels and closed the sanctuary doors.