A/N: We're back! I hope all of you enjoy this new chapter as much as the rest! In this chapter, we'll be getting some of the answers on Malthael and Harry and some new questions to boot! ;)
Disclaimer: The typewriter is mine, my bowl of soup too. But this I don't own, so please don't sue.
Chapter Six...The Voice That Calls Me Back
'I heard a sound and did not know what it was. I sought wisdom in the Chalice but there was none. The sound called to me and I knew them...Human souls. But where? I sought them out. The darkness of the Void summoned and within its curtained embrace I found my purpose. I found him.'- Malthael, The Paths of Wisdom
'My Master has begun his work on the stone. Nothing you do matters now, Nephalem, and I will be rewarded above all Angels when I bring the Master of my Master back to him at last!'
So much for Urzael's ambition. He was now nothing but a charred mass on the uppermost floor of the Tower of Korelan, a wooden room no better than an attic. It was sad really. So much potential and such unwavering loyalty to my beloved reduced to...this. So much burned armor. It reminded me of the stories Malthael had once told me about the Battlefields of Eternity. Lined and littered with the bodies of Angel and Demon alike, the dead just left where the fell to be made an example of by the unholy Demons. Strung up on poles like some sort of gruesome banner to destruction. This was what the war Malthael waged was doing. It was making mass graves where homes and love should have been. Where people once existed and where Angels had once believed in him. He had once been the shining example of what even the other Archangels strove to be. No longer...
A howling wind cut suddenly through the room, a shadow overtaking what little light seeped in from the fires outside. There was a cool presence building, almost a flavor on my tongue or a rising in my blood. It was a darkness as cool and familiar to me as magic itself.
Malthael...and yet not.
It felt like my love, but somehow hollow. A shadow of the Angel himself. When the shadows lifted just enough for us to see passed them, my instincts proved to be right on the mark.
Standing over in the center of the room, transparent as a ghost, was Malthael himself. Or at least a projection of my beloved stood there. He looked different than he had last I saw him. His wings carried a more skeletal appearance than they once had. His presence was darker. I'm not sure he noticed me at first, hidden as I was behind Lorath and Suna's gargantuan, for it was the witchdoctor that he addressed first.
"Nephalem..." His voice came out more like gravel being grated down to a powder, his loathing for the woman clear in every syllable. "I will bring an end to conflict. In death, there is peace."
With him, I'd had peace. Once. If I had any say in the matter, we would again. Even if I had to drag the stubborn Angel back to Pandemonium and bloody well lock him there.
I felt an anger stir within me that hadn't been there before. Anger at Malthael for doing this, for ruining the happiness that we'd had. Hadn't we been happy together? And now he'd gone and ruined himself and the whole world with him! The anger didn't stop the overwhelming need to see him though, to let him know that I was alright. To know why.
Stepping out from behind the summoned creature, my breath caught in my throat at the sight of him. That ever-present longing within me that felt so like heartbreak burst with renewed life in my chest.
"Malthael." The whisper was barely louder than the wind around us or the sound of the flames outside but it was enough to send his attention jerking in my direction.
'Harry. Harry. Beloved. Master.' The murmurs that echoed down our connection punctuated every staccato beat of my heart.
"Harry...You are here."
I nodded and felt the sting of tears pushing through the anger. What could I do to stop all of this? How could I bring him to his senses? Could I? What if, after everything that I did, it made not the slightest bit of difference? What if Malthael killed everyone...?
"I am. And here I will stay. Malthael...What have you done? You must stop all of this! All of those people you've killed-!"
"Demons. I killed demons, just as I always have." He hissed dismissively, waving a gauntleted hand as if he might throw off my words in a physical sense.
"Humans! Have you forgotten about me?! I'm human too!" By now, crystalline drops were spilling from my eyes freely, the helplessness and the grief clouding my entire world. I hated them for a moment for obscuring what might be last time I saw my love. No. I would fix this. I had to.
He made a grating choking sound that I recognized after a moment's time and I felt myself flush with anger. He was laughing!
"You ceased to be human many many years ago, my dear Master."
"It doesn't matter!" I came forward, close enough to him to touch. It was my Angel himself who reached out first. My breath sucked inward and held fast, awaiting desperately the cherished brush of his fingers on my cheek.
It never came. His fingers slid straight through me without so much as a resistance. He was only a shadow here, after all, a projection. He could no more touch my skin than a dream could. Malthael sighed, the only thing showing how the realization must have affected him too.
This...was wrong.
I was never meant to be parted from him. We were meant to be at one another's side always! This separation was unnatural.
His grief renewed my own tears and Malthael shook his head above me lightly.
"Grieve not, my Master. My servants will bring you back to me soon. Then we will never be parted again, I vow it."
I could only give him a sobbing shake of my head.
"I cannot stand by you in this, Malthael. This is wrong! Can't you see how this is hurting me...? I can't bear to be parted from you but you've given me no choice. I love you, Malthael, but you've gone to a place that I cannot follow. Please...Please come home to me. Abandon this fruitless mission and let's go home." My words came out between choking sobs and I didn't even have the strength of heart to try to begin to stem the flow.
Where was home now? Pandemonium? The High Heavens? No. In truth, home was wherever Malthael was. Wherever we could be together, love each other, in peace. Home was standing in front of me and yet so far away...
"I must cleanse this creation, Harry, and when it is cleansed, I will make a new home for us. I will make this plane safe for you and for my brethren. No more Angels will die because of demon scum. I will not lose you to them. My servants will retrieve you and I will destroy every man, woman and child who holds the taint of Inarius's mistake." The Angel's countenance, previously softened and somehow gentler when speaking with his master, straightened and the hand that hand been outstretched curled into a clawed fist.
He looked up at Suna, his form already beginning to fade from view. The hatred for her poured off of him in nigh on palpable waves.
"I will be seeing you soon, Malthael." She spat, her declaration a sworn vow.
With that, he disappeared at last from sight.
I closed my eyes and tried desperately to pull myself together. How? How could I summon myself back into some cohesive patchwork when my world was shattering around me in a million tiny fragments? How could I not despair when I had just declared myself a traitor to my beloved? To everything I had ever loved or held dear?
But that wasn't true either, was it?
I valued humanity. I held freedom and love, courage and honor dear. I had fought back in my home realm to rid the world of an evil tyrant because living in peace was important enough to die for. No more children should have to be made orphans. No more parents should have to bury their babies.
And Malthael hadn't treated me like a traitor, even though I felt like one. He had treated me simply as if we held a difference of opinion. As if we were talking about whether some particular food was good or not. Sure, it had obviously pained him to be parted from me but he had not seemed angry. Perhaps he knew, no matter how this turned out, that we would always have one another.
Or he just didn't see me as a threat.
It was impossible to say if it was either one or some bizarre mix of the two that made sense only in the Death Angel's mind. After all, stealing the soulstone seemed to only make some sort of sense to Malthael himself. What would he wanted something so corrupted for if he didn't have some wicked plan for it? He wasn't evil and he didn't have the feel of someone tainted by malevolence. My skin crawled at the thought of my lover touching that vile thing, the image of it emblazoned onto the inside of my mind.
I must have made some stricken sound for the soft touch of a hand on my shoulder roused me from my thoughts. At some point, my body had slid independently of my will to my knees. When had that happened? Suna and Lorath stood at my sides, their eyes full of sympathy for my pain. My cheeks felt damp still from the tears that had soaked the skin of my face and I'm sure my eyes were probably red-rimmed and puffy. Doubtless, I looked a mess. One of the witchdoctor's hounds nudged me with a whine.
"I am sorry for your loss, Harry. The strength of your pain echoes even through the Undying Lands."
There was no hiding it. There didn't seem to be any way I would ever be whole again. She received a nod of thanks. It seemed to be enough for her and I was glad. I didn't know what to say in this moment, what words would even be suitable for such a time as this. Lorath clapped me companionably on my back and then gave me a hand up to stand.
We made our way back to the survivor's enclave with not another word spoken amongst us all.
