the call
CHAPTER IV.A
The door looks so small.
And for something intended, presumably, to contain the god of all gods - or at the very least provide some degree of separation between Caido and the rest of them - it seems laughably fragile.
There is no pomp leading up to the moment; no fanfare of trumpets, no war drums. No one even speaks. There's just the hush of the rain in the dark and a hand reaching out - Ronin's hand, for no reason other than his is the first there (no, really, it was rolled for at random) - and the door swings open...
Now, for Ronin, it's all light and warmth. Sunshine kisses his cheeks and the sky opens into endless blue. His arms feel heavy, too, so heavy, and when he looks down he finds no weapons, no bindings; merely the bundled and sleeping form of his daughter. His first daughter, just as she was the day he saw her last. Aoife.
His lips part as if to call out - in shock or surprise, or to Remi perhaps, but he's worried he might wake her; worried the moment might shatter. Turning to seek out the Lullaby, Ronin finds... nothing in sight. Nothing at all. The sun bleaches everything white, the door has disappeared; even the shadows are gone.
Well, gone is the wrong word. Just because he cannot see them, it doesn't mean they aren't there. And beneath his feet, trapped in an ink black world that can glimpse heaven but never touch it, Remi pounds against the walls of his prison. He screams for Ronin, but no sound leaves his lips. He reaches for them both, but they only seem farther away each time.
Perhaps it is better this way, he thinks, nevertheless pressing against the unseen and intangible wall keeping him from the light. This is who I am, after all.
And yet he can't help himself, bloodying his hands for a whisper of that warmth and love, over and over and over and over...
Maeve is home.
Torchline is as it always was; hels call through the air and waves crash against the shores beyond the Court of the Stars. Her family and friends are all around. Everything is as it should be... so why does she feel so alone? Harper is here, Edmund, Jude, - no one she can imagine is missing, no one at all.
But they always seem to look through her, smiling at the space over her shoulder, never addressing her directly; not even when she calls their names. This isn't for lack of trying of course, and her hoarse voice echoes and bounces off the walls, trying fruitlessly to reach those she loves. But Maeve is a ghost in her own life, doomed to haunt it forever.
Speaking of ghosts, there are too many here for Delphia to handle. She cannot orient herself and, unlike the Nightshade, Mort's daughter would give anything to be lost in this crowd, to shut out the voices that clamour for her aid and attention. But there's no stopping it; spirits press in on all sides, their cries bouncing around her skull, and she swears she can feel their ethereal fingers trying to peel beneath her eyelids and under her fingernails.
Please, if you would wait but a moment-- She tries, but it's no use. Like a drowning man pulling his saviour under in his panic, the ghosts are relentless, and Delphia is lost to their despair.
Far to the north of Torchline, through the realm of spirits and back out again, there's blood on the ice at Halo. No, not just on the ice - there's blood everywhere. Caked in the mortar of the Citadel buildings, rusting on the snowy ground, freezing into crimson stalactites as it drips from the rooftops. And it's all over you too, Deimos. Frosted into your dark hair and wetting your sleeves, there's no washing yourself clean from this one.
There are no bodies visible, but perhaps they are just hidden under the snow. Did you kill them, Deimos? With your bare hands? Death at the front door. No, that isn't you any more, is it?
But they are still dead; maybe they died because you weren't there. So this is still your fault, right? This is all your fault, Warden.
Across the Tundra, there's only one corpse to be seen. Well, two, technically, but Noah isn't dead yet. The man beneath the ice certainly is, though; and they could be brothers, for the resemblance between them. But it's not Ezekiel - it's Noah's father who lays here, still and lifeless, too brave, too stupid - too cold. And gods, it really is cold. The temperature seems to plummet with every breath, and each beat of his heart comes slower and slower...
Only...
Only...
It isn't cold enough.
Noah is forged from ice and snow; he has braved this Tundra almost as often as he has slept in his own bed. And it isn't cold enough - there's no numbness to the tips of his fingers, his breath doesn't quite burn as it should when he inhales. And the world around him, too, feels distant; the wind moans across the ice fields, but there's no sting to it, and the stars aren't shining as brightly.
This isn't right.
"This isn't right." Noah opens his eyes - really opens them this time, his hoarse voice barely audible, but it's enough to shatter the illusion.
He stands in the eye of Caido's hurricane. The door - still plain, still innocuous, lays open at his feet, the Court of the Fallen visible within. All around, existence itself plays and dances in a kaleidoscope of lifetimes, a patchwork of All Things that threatens madness in its beauty. But something is wrong.
Within this gorgeous, churning typhoon, an infestation blackens the carefully crafted harmony. Veins of flickering ebony pulse and stretch through Caido's work, through Caido themself, plunging deep into the ground where Noah stands... and spreading back up and through his feet to take root directly inside him.
Inside them all. He can see them, his companions standing sentinel around the doorway with him. All of them are motionless, their heads bowed, inky spiderwebs injecting poison into their minds. But it can't end like this - it can't.
Where there is darkness, there is always light. Where there is Mort, there is Vi.
And Noah stands for Vi today.
His eyes ablaze, a bright dome erupts from around the Sentinel, charging through his allies and withering the infection that holds them. They stir, eyes opening, and the terrain rocks around the group, like the world itself just got vertigo.
When it rights itself, above them, Caido stares down. They have eyes like the first taste of morning coffee.
Vast as a desert shore with wings the colour of a thunderclap, when they speak, it sounds like sunrise.
Help.
And it's visible, the source of the corruption, the darkness pouring out into creation. Embedded in Caido's chest, a nest of metalwork, circuitry and static decays them from the inside out; once the Core lay trapped at the peak of the Spire, but now it sits here, growing like a cancer in the god of gods.
Ripe for the taking, one might say.
Caido's assistance comes by way of doing nothing at all. Moving as a group this time, one would not be blamed for thinking there is some telepathy between the warriors that goes beyond the Attuned; perfectly in sync, shields and supernovas, earth and wind and fire all rise to protect against tendrils of blighted circuits that come to lash out at them.
Within the maelstrom of clashing powers, it is not wings that carry the figure up and towards the Core... but tentacles, lashing and grabbing and heaving onto anything available.
He knows he's strong enough to do this. He knows it. (So do the dice apparently, because they volunteered him). He knows, too, what happened to the last person who touched something like this, but someone has to make a sacrifice here, and he's already given a couple of fingers for this war. What's a little more, to end this? And so he reaches out--
And plunges his hand into the chest of a deity, tearing the infection from the very source.
The pain in his right arm is absolute. The world goes white.
And then very, very dark.
