Amor Vincit Omnia
(Love Conquers All)
Part One: Sun and Shadow
"I'd give my life; not for honor, but for you."
- Norihiko Hibino
"Snake-eater"
(vocals by Cynthia Harrell)
Chapter Eleven: The Dead King's Crown
"Of course I forgive you," Saiya said, softening at the look of repentance Baal wore. In return, smiled at her – not his usual cocky smirk or bloodthirsty grin but a shy tender look that melted her heart a little.
"Good," he said.
Kormac had stepped away and turned his back, respectfully giving them a chance to talk in privacy. Now he returned, his stoic face betraying nothing of his thoughts.
"Are we ready to proceed now?" he asked gruffly.
"Yes," replied Saiya, embarrassed that their personal conversation had become a public spectacle.
The Templar led them down the now-accessible staircase. In a grand chamber at the bottom, a tall, lean man leaned against a podium with his arms crossed, a leaf-bladed spear propped at his side. He was quite handsome, though his brown hair was graying at the temples and the years had carved faint lines from his aquiline nose to the corners of his long, thin-lipped mouth. He had obviously anticipated their arrival.
"Welcome, Brother Kormac," he said. "Have you come to your senses?"
"Me come to my senses?" growled Kormac. "Look at yourself, Jondar. Open your shirt and look at the mark branded on your skin. Do you remember what it is? It's the mark of the Templars, Brother, and your true calling. It is not I who has lost his senses. It is you."
Jondar's face became markedly less attractive as it distorted into an ugly sneer. He spat on the ground.
"That's what I think of the Templars, Kormac. They sent us down here to die, without even a warning about what we were going up against. My Lady Maghda offers wealth ... power ... immortality. She was willing to forgive me for my sins and embrace me as her child. Behold the gift she has given me!"
He wrenched off his steel breastplate and tore open the cotton shirt that lay beneath. Kormac gasped, a sharp indrawn breath as if in pain. There was a cross-shaped piece of skin missing from Jondar's muscular chest, the strips precisely cut and torn away, the flesh beneath raw and seeping blood. But worst of all was the hole in his left breast, where his heart should have been. In its place was a pulsating black orb, anchored there by tendrils of darkness hooked into his body.
"Gott im Himmel!" hissed Kormac, reverting in a moment of utmost horror to his native tongue. "Jondar, mein Bruder, was haben sie mit dir gemacht?"
The orb began to glow green. Baal grabbed Saiya by the back of the neck with one hand and Kormac's shoulder with the other, and dragged them both to the ground a split second before projectiles erupted out of Jondar's chest in all directions, leaving trails of green smoke behind them.
"Watch out, those are poisonous!" Baal warned, springing to his feet. "Don't let them hit you."
Kormac leapt towards his former friend and pinioned him against the wall. "Quickly!" he cried. "Shoot the black heart – it is the source of the curse!"
Baal aimed his crossbow, but Jondar twisted away before he could fire. The man's face was nearly unrecognizable now: his pupils shrunk and his irises turned crimson, spittle and froth dripping from his open mouth. He shrieked a wordless oath and unleashed the globules of poison again. One of them missed Kormac's face by inches, and another landed right in front of Saiya's nose. She inhaled a harsh, acrid odor and coughed.
Kormac tackled Jondar again, this time grabbing him around the waist and slamming him into the stone floor. He sat astride the other man, using his superior weight to trap him in place. Baal was ready this time. Standing right above the fallen Templar, he put a stream of bolts into the hole in his chest. Great gouts of a dark fluid that was not blood spurted up, and drained out the man's back to form a steadily growing pool.
Jondar screamed and thrashed madly around, but he was not trying to free himself. When Kormac stopped holding him down he just lay there, limbs in spasm. More of the evil liquid leaked from the sides of his mouth.
"Listen!" Saiya said. "I think he's trying to speak."
They all bent closer. Words were barely distinguishable among the sounds of anguish. "Brother … I beg … end it. End … it."
Kormac did not seem to have understood. "What … what is he saying …"
"He wants you to kill him," Saiya whispered, "so he won't suffer anymore."
"No!" Kormac cried. "I cannot do that!"
Jondar's hand flashed up and latched onto the Templar's shoulder, fingertips digging cruelly in. Baal made a sudden movement as if to pull him back, but Kormac shook his head. He gripped Jondar's hand in his own and leaned down so the two were nose to nose.
"Warten, Bruder," he said. "Ich werde dich retten."
"Nein!" shrieked Jondar. And then, more quietly, "There is … no hope. End it, Brother, and … kill that witch. Avenge me. Please!" The last word was a cry so piteous that it brought tears to Saiya's eyes. Kormac gulped hard.
"Bring me his spear," he said.
"You can use this," Baal offered, holding out his favorite crossbow handle first.
Kormac shook his head. "No. I will send his soul to Heaven with no other weapon but his own. It is the best way to give him honor."
Wordlessly Saiya picked up the leaf-bladed spear from where it had fallen and handed it to the Templar. He took it, held the blade to his comrade's throat, and murmured, "Ich werde dich im Himmel wieder sehen, Jondar."
With one quick move, he slashed the razor-sharp edge across the bare skin. The light faded from Jondar's eyes and his head lolled to one side, the wound in his neck grotesquely agape. Kormac covered his eyes with his blood-splattered hands, his broad shoulders shaking as he wept in silence. Baal closed the dead man's eyes and rearranged his head in a more dignified position.
"We cannot linger here long," he said.
"I know," Kormac replied thickly, but he made no move to rise.
"What happened here was no fault of yours," Saiya said, thinking that he was burdened by guilt. "You did well by your friend, and his spirit will rest easy knowing that his death will be avenged."
Kormac shook his head. "Jondar's body … I cannot just leave it here for the demons to feed on, nor can I bring it with me."
"Well, that's easily solved," said Baal. "There's wood enough upstairs to build a funeral pyre, and I have a torch."
"Yes," said the Templar, with an unhappy sigh. "Yes, that will do."
The three of them set to work, and in no time at all a heap of kindling from broken furniture was piled on the ground beside Jondar's corpse. With Kormac grabbing the arms and Baal the feet, they lifted him up. The Hunter sprinkled some of his incendiary powder over the body, and set light to the dry wood. Fire roared to life, consuming Jondar's flesh in a blaze of hungry flame. Kormac muttered a brief prayer. Then, wiping the blood from the blade of Jondar's spear, he said, "Let us away, friends. We have a Skeleton King to slay!"
At the other side of the room, concealed behind a swiveling bookcase, was steep stair that twisted and turned as it worked its way deeper into the cathedral. They followed it for several minutes before emerging into a cramped, dark place far removed from the grandiose upper halls. This deep underground, there was a harsh chill to the air, and their footfalls stirred ancient dust that lay inches thick on the floor.
"How long do you think we've been down here?" Saiya asked Baal.
"Oh, hours, I'm sure," he answered.
"I wonder if Caesar and Ghor have woken up yet."
"Who cares?" he said dismissively.
"I do. I was looking forward to getting to know them better. Caesar is surprisingly nice, if you can over look his arrogance."
"I can't."
She poked him in the chest. "And that's probably why you've never had any friends before me. Oh!"
"What?" Baal demanded.
Kormac said, "Are you alright, little sister?"
"Ugh …" Saiya groaned. "I think I stepped on a rat. I hope it's not much further until we reach King Leoric's resting place. I'm exhausted."
"We can take another break, if you'd like," said Baal.
She shook her head, not wanting to hold up their progress. "That's okay, I can keep going for a bit longer."
The two men shrugged, and they walked on in silence. Kormac was absorbed in his own morose thoughts, and Saiya and Baal had begun to develop a cozy companionship where there was no need for words. They met with no enemies; in fact, there was nary a sign that any living thing had passed this way in centuries. Spider webs laced the jagged stone walls and filled the crooked doorways, but the spiders themselves were nothing more than dried-up corpses. They had all starved to death.
After a while, they found themselves once more on the lip of the hole that the falling star had created. The bottom, though still obscured in blue mist, seemed closer now. Looking up, they could see the roof of the church far above. Saiya estimated that they had descended several hundred feet, at least, since they entered the cathedral.
"Could we climb down the sides?" Kormac asked, speaking for the first time in over an hour. "There are handholds enough."
Baal put out a hand to touch the rock and drew it back before he had even made contact. "It burns," he said. "I don't think that's an option."
"Pity," said the Templar. "That means we'll have to take the long way around, through the Royal Crypts. I dread to imagine what demons will await us there."
"Bring them on," said Baal confidently. "Saiya and I can handle it."
Saiya smiled at him, warmed by his faith in her, and he grinned back.
The entrance to the crypts was guarded by two great statues of the olden kings, one on either side of the arched doorway. Bearded and stern, they glared down at the frail humans who dared to trespass in the domain of the dead.
Beyond the arch, the hallways were black as pitch, without even the light given off by the star's crater. The smell of rot was more pervasive: a sick odor that clung to the back of the throat when inhaled. The glow of Baal's torch showed open coffins and the white gleam of bones inside.
Walking slightly ahead of the others, Saiya tripped over some loose boards cluttering up the passage. There was a terrible cracking sound, and a large section of the masonry crumbled down almost on top of her. She jumped back, pressing up against the far wall, choking as clouds of dust filled her nose and mouth and stung her eyes. The torch was extinguished by a rush of air.
"Are you hurt, Saiya?" Baal asked, feeling for her in the darkness. His outstretched fingers made contact with her face, nearly jabbing her in the eye. She reached up to grab his hand and hung on to it.
"I'm fine," she said. "Kormac?"
"Still in one piece, Sister," the Templar replied from the blackness to her left. Moments later she felt his arm brush her shoulders. She took hold of him as well, so that they were all linked together.
"I guess the infrastructure isn't very stable down here," she remarked.
You can say that again," grumbled Baal. Saiya could hear him rustling around in his pockets, presumably for his flint and tinder.
"Did you two hear that?" Kormac asked suddenly.
"What?" said Saiya.
"A creaking sound. Off in that direction."
They all stood very still and listened. Saiya could hear nothing other than her own breathing, which seemed very loud in the tightly enclosed space.
"Baal," she said, "can you smell anything?"
"This whole place stinks of demons," he replied. "My nose is useless at the moment."
"There it is again," Kormac said. "It sounds like a rocking chair."
"Now I hear it," exclaimed Saiya. "Baal?"
"Just a minute," he said tersely. "I'm trying to make some light."
Sparks showered as he struck the flint and tinder sharply together. One of them caught in the burnt-out torch and a weak flame flared into being. Baal thrust it towards the source of the noise.
Skeletons. Dozens of them, perhaps more, crowding the narrow hall for as far as they could see. They had been roused from their shallow sleep by the racket, and now they were inching forward, dragging their weapons behind them.
"What do we do?" Saiya whispered. "There are too many of them!"
"What about your magic bell, Sister?" asked Kormac. "That would clear them out."
"More likely, it would just bring this whole place down on top of us," she said.
"Quick, through here!" Baal cried, tugging her over the rubble to the hole that had been created when the wall collapsed. They clambered up and dropped down on the other side, on a long balcony overlooking a fall of uncertain height into a pit of shadow that the feeble light of the torch could not pierce.
"There has to be a way out of here," Baal said, looking wildly around. Already the skeleton army was already beginning to cluster around the hole in the corridor above. A particularly intrepid one pushed itself through headfirst and fell down, snapping its skull off from its neck on impact. The remains floundered helplessly, waving its arms and legs while the jaws on the detached skull chattered angrily.
"Let's search the walls," Saiya suggested. "There may be a hidden passage."
Baal stuck the torch in a central bracket on the balcony railing. By its light they could just barely see the entirety of the area they were trapped in. They split up, each taking one wall, searching hurriedly along its surface while the skeletons slithered one by one through the hole. There was a growing pile of them on the floor now, and they served to cushion the fall for the next ones, so that more and more of them were arriving intact. Kormac, who had already exhausted the options for his wall, quickly put an end to them with powerful cuts and thrusts of the leaf-bladed spear.
In the end, when they were on the verge of despair, it was the Templar who discovered their way of escape. In avoiding a blow from a skeleton's mace, he stepped onto a pressure plate on the floor. A section of stone from the wall, so cleverly hidden that it was invisible to the naked eye, slid downwards with a scraping sound. The adventurers rushed through it into the cramped corridor beyond, Baal stopping only to retrieve his torch. Luckily, a second plate beyond the door raised it up again, trapping the skeletons on the other side.
The hallway ended at a massive door. It took all three of them pushing on one side to force it open wide enough to slip through. On the other side, a bridge spanned the terrible gulf, leading to a wide chamber illuminated by ghostly mage lights. Against the far wall was an ornate throne of gold and red velvet padding, upon which sat the bones of a great man, armored in the splendor of a king.
"Leoric," Baal said. "We have found him at last: his frail physical body and not the immortal demon that commands his dread armies. By reuniting him with his crown we shall bind the both together, and they may be destroyed once and for all."
As they crossed the bridge, shadowy ethereal forms rose up out of the stone in front of them – six in all. They did not acknowledge the presence of living intruders in the sanctum of the dead, or even seem to be aware of them. Five of the specters had the sixth surrounded, and they were speaking to him with hollow voices, like the return of an echo.
"King Leoric, by your sins you have lost your right to rule over this land. We, who were once your most loyal knights, have come to take it from you."
"Keep your distance from him!" commanded the tallest of the spirits. "This burden is mine to bear."
The other four stepped away and sheathed their drawn weapons.
"Lachdanan," said the soul form of the king. "You have been like a son to me, and I have loved you like a son. Do not now turn your back. With you by my side, I can reign over the entire world."
Lachdanan drew in a shuddering breath and said, "May death bring you peace from your madness, my beloved lord and liege."
Rushing forward, he plunged his sword into the breast of the monarch's spirit. Leoric cried out in pain and fell to his knees.
"Traitor!" he howled. "Even in death my people will obey their king! But you, Lachdanan, you I consign to hell for your treachery. There shall be no redemption for you!"
The spectral scene faded, leaving the room empty, save for the imposing skeleton on the throne.
"Lachdanan," Saiya mused. "I recognize that name. He was the knight from Deckard's tale, the one who put an end to Leoric's cruelty even though he loved his king more than any other. Was that what we saw, just now?"
"I believe so," Baal said.
"But how? That was many years ago. Surely their spirits haven't been down here all that time, reenacting the moment when Leoric died."
"I think that was just a memory of the moment," Baal said, "preserved because of the tremendous power of emotion that took place. It was not real, we could have done nothing to stop it, but it reflected something that was real, if that makes any sense."
"It does," Saiya said. She couldn't help but wonder if anything she had done in her life would have left such an imprint. It occurred to her then that she had never felt such an emotion, not on par with that of Lachdanan, who had been forced to murder a man who he had loved more than life. For a brief moment her imagination put her in Lachdanan's place, only rather that Leoric it was Baal under that armor, screaming a curse at her as she pierced his heart with a blade. Could she have done it, she wondered, could she have struck that fatal blow? It was too painful to contemplate.
"Well, here we are," said Kormac. "I assume you have some plan, then?"
"Of course!" answered Baal. Opening his rucksack, he pulled out an oddly-shaped bundle wrapped in white cloth and bound with a silver chain. He unwrapped it to reveal Leoric's crown. Kormac, who had been leaning forward with curiosity, recoiled.
"That is an artifact of powerful evil!" he exclaimed. "How in Heaven did you get your hands on it?"
Baal and Saiya exchanged a glance of wry remembrance. The Hunter said, "It wasn't easy."
"It was entombed in the northern catacombs," Saiya elaborated. "Baal and I went up there a few days ago in search of it." She chose not to mention that they were not the ones who had found it, still feeling vaguely guilty over the way their agreement with Caesar and Ghor had been broken. As if she could have stopped Baal once he'd made up his mind! She almost laughed aloud.
"And now," said Baal, "to return the crown to its rightful owner." With slow but purposeful steps he crossed the room, Saiya and Kormac flanking him with their weapons drawn. This close, the dead king's gaping eye sockets seemed to stare right through them. The thin strands of a short white beard clung to his fleshless cheeks and jaw.
"Are you ready?" Baal asked, looking around at his companions. They nodded in unison.
"All right, then. Here goes..."
Baal reached up and set the crown on Leoric's bald skull with a gentle clink. The response was instantaneous. A dark energy gathered around the throne, and blue flame that gave off no light or heat danced around the skeleton's head. Baal leaped back.
Then, with a rattle of long-unused bones, the Black King stood. His height in life must have been extraordinary; in death he seemed even taller. He lifted a great mace that rested on the arm of his throne and slung it over one shoulder. The end of it was a spiked star of metal twice the size of Saiya's head. As he stepped down from his resting place, the floor shook.
The skeletal jaws cracked open, and a voice emerged: dry as the desert it was, and deep. It cracked and buckled under the strain of speaking. It sounded like rust and gravel and breaking ice.
"What fool," it said, "dares to bring the warmth of life into my tomb?"
"Shade of Leoric, the once-great king!" Baal roared. "We have come to put an end to your evil for all time!"
The head snapped towards him. The Skeleton King laughed, a loathsome sound. "You may try!" he said, and flew at them.
Baal jumped back just in time to avoid the mace as it crashed down, smashing into the stones where his feet had been moments ago. He sent a stream of bolts into Leoric's chest, but they might have been stinging flies for all the harm they did. His bones were not so easily broken as those of his minions.
Kormac attacked from behind, jamming his spear tip into the joint of the king's shoulder. Leoric roared and swung his mace around. The head of it caught the Templar high in the chest and knocked him flat. He lay a moment, gasping for breath and clutching at the bleeding wound. Leoric turned to him and raised his weapon for a killing blow.
"No!" Saiya screamed. She jumped in a high kick and her foot struck the haft of the mace, changing the direction of the arc just enough that it missed Kormac. Leoric's knee was extended out; she used it as a platform to jump again, striking the side of his head with her shin. The demon wobbled, dazed for a moment, and Saiya dropped back to earth, raining blows on his hip and ribcage with her brass knuckles while Baal continued to fire at the head from the other side. She could see chips of bone flying from the contact points and for a moment she thought that victory was in sight.
Then Baal ran out of arrows and paused to reload, and in the slight lull Leoric recovered himself. His free hand faster shot out than Saiya could dodge. He lifted her by the throat, hurling her as if she was a doll made of straw and rags. She slammed into a railing at the edge of the throne room, and her momentum carried her over it, right into the chasm below.
A shout rang in her ears: "Saiya!" It was Baal's voice. In a last desperate attempt, she grabbed for the wall as she was falling and somehow managed to catch hold of a little edge of stone. She clung there by the fingertips of one hand, her brass knuckles digging painfully into her palm and her side on fire where it had struck the railing.
"Saiya!" Baal yelled again. He sounded frantic. "Saiya, answer me!"
"I'm here," she croaked, but her voice barely reached her own ears. Valiantly, she made a second attempt. "Here! Baal, I'm here!"
"Can you get up?"
"No!"
A curse. "Hang on, I'm coming! Kormac, keep him away from us!"
Saiya's fingers slipped a little bit. She scrabbled at the wall, trying to push herself back up with her toes. She could hear running feet above and looked up to see Baal leaning perilously out over the edge.
"Hang on!" he called. "I have to put in the other bolt."
He knelt down, removing the piercing arrows from his crossbow and searching around for the sticky one with the rope attached. It was much heavier than the others, and took a few seconds to properly load. Right as he was finished, Kormac's voice split the air: "Baal, watch out!"
At the edge of the abyss, the skeleton king had appeared. Baal tucked into a roll from kneeling and managed to escape certain death, but he was unable to drop the lifeline to Saiya with Leoric attacking him. He dodged two more strikes, shouting, "Damn you, Kormac, you were supposed to keep him occupied!"
"I'm sorry!" bellowed the Templar. "He has warping magic, what could I do? And then he summoned up some of his skeletons ... I'm trying to hold them back!"
"Baal, I'm slipping!" Saiya shrieked. She jammed her fingernails into a minute crack in the stone, biting her lip against the pain. She could not hold on for much longer.
"Oh fuck! Saiya, don't let go! Kormac, I don't care about the other skeletons, I need you here now!"
But Saiya's strength had finally failed. Two of her nails were torn out of their beds as she plunged downwards with a scream of terror.
And halted in midair, swinging gently back and forth, held securely in place by a sticky net suspended by a rope attached to the crossbow in Baal's hand. Ordinarily, she would have been horrified at the knowledge that she was covered in the web of a spider – especially a large, demonic spider – but for the moment all that she could think was: saved, saved, saved!
But it was not over yet. Baal had acted as he had to, to prevent her from falling to her death, but he was far from safe himself, for now he had the burden of her weight to support while still trying to avoid being dismembered by the great mace. He managed to sidestep once, but the effort of holding Saiya up was too much, and his reaction was slow. The next attack would surely hit him dead on, and that would be the end of him.
Saiya could not let that happen. Tugging lightly on the rope to get his attention, she yelled, "Baal, just drop me! You can't do it!"
He hopped awkwardly sideways again, and the spikes on the end of the mace tore furrows in the cloth of his sleeve. "Are you mad?" he spat.
"You promised me!" she wailed up at him. "You promised that you wouldn't try to save my life if it would cost you your own!"
"Sorry." Just the one word, and yet it meant so much.
The mace was coming down again, and this time he would not be able to avoid it. Saiya closed her eyes. She could not bear to see it. If only she had not been so weak!
With a roar of fury, Kormac leaped in between Baal and the Skeleton King. He took the brunt of the blow with the haft of his spear and there was a splintering sound, but the wood, reinforced with holy silver, held together. Kormac retreated, but the demon was focused on him now and followed after, leaving Baal free to pull Saiya up out of the pit.
As soon as he could, he reached down and slipped his arm under her own and around her back, lifting her carefully up. He held onto her for a minute, steadying her while she stood on shaky legs.
"Are you all right?" he asked.
"I think so."
"Good. Let's finish this."
"But nothing seems to touch him," Saiya argued. "What are we supposed to do?"
Baal gave her a significant look, and she knew then what his meaning was. "Two in one day? I'm not sure I have the capability."
He gripped her shoulders hard and bent his head to stare into her eyes. "I believe in you," he said.
Saiya nodded grimly. Settling automatically into her calm of mind, she strode out into the open. Kormac had fallen to his knees from a particularly brutal blow. It was now or never.
"Leoric!" she yelled. He swiveled around to look at her.
"You threw me down into the gulf, but you didn't kill me! You can't kill me, Skeleton King, because I am a holy warrior and you are nothing more than old bones held together by hatred."
The blue fire in his eyes burned more brightly at her words, and he started towards her.
"Let go of your hatred, Leoric!" Saiya screamed. "Let it go and sleep as you should have years ago! Be at peace!"
He was almost upon her. She reached for the bell.
It didn't come.
Mouth suddenly dry, Saiya lost control of her meditation. Baal was shouting at her from across the room, she could see his mouth moving, but no sound came from his lips. In fact, she could hear nothing: not the thunder of the Skeleton King's boots on the floor, nor the cries of her companions, nor even the sound of her own breath. The world was wrapped in silence.
Saiya sank to her knees. "Oh father," she whispered. "Help me!"
And then she felt it – warm hands on her cheeks, the head monk's breath in her ear.
"Sleep, my child, you are safe now."
Clang, CLANG, CLANG tolled the bell, the waves of sound rolling outwards, overlapping like ripples in a still lake. They washed over Leoric and shattered him apart, bones flying through the air. His mace fell from his hand and lodged point first in the stone. The blue fire engulfed his skull and crown, and within seconds it had melted into a twisted lump of gold and bone.
The demon was dead.
And Saiya lay stretched out on her back, unmoving.
A/N: For those of you who are interested, a translation of Kormac's words, in order:
"God in Heaven! Jondar, my Brother, what have they done to you?"
"Wait, brother. I will save you."
"I will meet you again in Heaven, Jondar."
Tons of thanks to the amazing Leena for her invaluable assistance!
Now fully edited and updated to include new content! If you spot any typos, please inform me so that I can fix them! :)