The Creators Ch. 18

Diamond groaned as she painfully pushed herself up from the bottom of the hole. She was lying in a puddle. Water leaked in from all around the crater's sides, filling the hollow where her feet were.

"An aquifer," she mused and grinned up at me. "Thanks, Brandon."

The crater exploded like a geyser. I flipped backward, turned into an ant, then scuttled away just as Diamond burst from the hole. Jets of water shot from her profile like tentacles, snaking outward in all directions, moving rapidly through the melee of orcs and shifters. A hydraulic appendage blasted through the underbelly of an Ionan dragon, turning the water crimson as it exited her back. Dozens more were cut down in a second, and my subconscious erupted with their shrieks. I transformed into a raging king rhino, my font armored with foot-thick bone, and I charged the Water Dancer.

Her aqueous limbs evaporated, and she focused every ounce of energy on me. The water disintegrated my shield by the inch, but I reinforced it interminably, packing on the bone to take the punishment, adding muscle and tendons to my flank to keep moving against the onslaught. Pain lanced through my skull, blood sprayed and misted my back and shoulders, but I pressed on through the torrent, accelerating, driving, kicking up the sand behind me until I disappeared in a cloud of atomized crimson and dust. The water hit me square in the brow, eating through my calcified armor, gaining inches on the tissue I added until I could feel its pressure against my eyes, pressing inward, eating through me like acid, moving deeper and deeper until I finally made contact.

Diamond blasted backward, thudded against the sand, and ricocheted like a skipped rock across the dunes before rolling to her back. I rushed after her, and smashed into her again, sending her sailing over a dune. The battlefield disappeared behind me as I crested the dune, and the Breytans soaring above it all made no attempt to aid the Water Dancer; their corrupted souls seemed much more intent upon proving their might against their Ionan and Ofanian counterparts. I guessed Diamond wasn't too popular with them. I rushed down the gradient of sand, barely keeping my balance in my charge.

Diamond staggered to her feet, shot her arms out to her sides, and I slammed into her protective sphere of water. My jaw shattered and my sternum cracked, but I healed myself before I was incapacitated, took the form of a goliath, and slammed my great hairy fist into the Water Dancer's shield. Her sphere pounded into the sand, creating a bowl beneath her feet. My hand exploded with pain, the bones turning to dust, the tendons turning to ribbons, but I regrew it a millisecond later, and delivered another crushing hammer-fist to Diamond's shell. A shockwave of fluid circumnavigated the sphere as my hand ruptured, and though the agony was acute, her desperation was beginning to show. Blow after blow I delt to her, and every strike softened her posture, causing her knees to collapse inward, her shoulders to bow, her raised hands to waiver. Not much time now. She screamed her objections, she tried to reason with me, she even verged on begging me, but I just kept pounding, driving her deeper into the earth, thinning her watery protection until I could feel it bending beneath my broken fist.

"Stop!" Diamond screamed.

I smashed my knuckles against her shield and felt the stifling air within before my bones burst.

"STOP!"

I reared back and laid my entire forearm across her sphere. My ulna and radius fractured, my arm went limp, but Diamond's protection shattered. She let out a scream, and collapsed on the ground, holding up her hands as my arm reformed, and I cocked back for the final strike.

"I can save Angela!" she screamed.

My fist paused.

"I can take it back!" Diamond gasped, her chest heaving.

"Bullshit!"

She coughed up a little blood. "Go find Tera; I did it to her! If you kill me, Angela will never come back to you!"

I snatched an orc from the ground, broke his body with a clench of my fist, and dropped him next to Diamond. "Prove it!"

Diamond rolled feebly to her side and kissed the dying beast. Blackness flowed from their coalesced mouths, and the orc's eyes lightened. A dangerous hope surged into me. My murderous rage turned to frantic desperation in an instant, and I healed the orc and hauled Diamond up in my fist.

"Where is Tera?!" I bellowed into her face, blowing her hair back. "Where is your mother?!"

"They're together!" Diamond croaked. "Just a few miles east!"

"You're coming with me!" I growled and began marching to the east, my footfalls shaking the earth. Diamond didn't have the strength to fight me. She went limp in my hand, her eyes rolled into her head, and her sclera turned from black to green.

WILLOWBUD

Astrid's fist pounded within the shell of stone I'd trapped her in. I walked past her and stared through the iron door. The eclipsed astral sun bathed the jungle in perpetual twilight, illuminating the canopy in vibrant colors that shimmered with dew. Beneath the canopy, the jungle darkened until it was black just below the treetops, concealing everything in shadow. I reached out to the door and clasped the handle. Though my physical arm went limp against my side, my astral handheld the metal lever. The hinges creaked as I shut the door. The last sliver of the jungle showed through the narrowing gap, then disappeared when the latch clicked.

The door didn't shut. There was a hand in the way. A black hand. I blinked. Through the sliver between the door and the frame, a familiar white eye wreathed in onyx stared at me. I tried to scream, but I could not. My feet froze in place, and it was only by gravity's will that I stumbled backward. The door creaked open, and she stood in the threshold, her black body patterned with Lucilla's markings, her eyes aglow with power.

Willowbud, Corruption said in her smooth, drawling voice. Astrid's pounding ceased immediately.

"You!" I hissed back. Astrid screamed from her shell and began striking the obsidian with her blade, each blow more desperate than the last. They were like the distant chimes of bells.

"You were real," I whispered.

Corruption cocked her head in momentary confusion, then laughed girlishly. She sounded just like Diamond. Of course I'm real, but I suppose it would seem like a dream to a mind as broken as yours.

"You were the one who broke it."

She shook her head. The body carries the mind, and the mind carries the soul; as you just saw with your unfortunate friend. I suppose in that sense, it was me who destroyed you, but the architect of that destruction—the self-proclaimed architect herself—is something else now. Actually, she's nothing. She's just... empty. What I am trying to say, is that you have no reason to fear me. We can talk woman-to-woman.

"Bullshit!" I transformed back into my normal body, and I faced the thing before me with my own eyes. "Do you see me?" I snarled, though my wrath was marred by the tremor in my voice. "I don't belong to you anymore! I never will AGAIN!" I pointed a trembling finger at her mouth, her lips scarred like they'd been splashed with acid. "I see what I did to you! You should fear me!"

Her smile faded. Fear and power, power and fear; that's all you mortals care about. Fine then. If we cannot talk woman-to-woman, then we shall talk god-to-god.

Astrid's sword struck the stones one more time, then went silent. The clang dissipated as the desert wind whistled through the crater, and the pale sun beat against my shoulders.

"Julia doesn't wear Diamond's mark," I whispered. "She wears yours."

She nodded.

My lips quivered horribly, but I managed to utter, "what are you?!"

Julia calls me an angel. I suppose you can call me that. In a sense, all I am trying to do is bring heaven to earth. Corruption opened her hands in a supplicating gesture. Please listen to what I have to say.

"No. I won't hear another lie from you."

Corruption's lips twitched irritably, but she retained her posture. Do not be stubborn, Willowbud. Do you really think I would do all that I am doing to promote suffering? I want to end suffering. I want to make it so that the banal agonies of life are just the growing pains for the maturing mind and soul. She gestured into my plane; her hand becoming translucent as it passed through the door. Every terror you feel, every horror you know, all of it will be washed away with the endless tides of time. You will come to realize that these things that once broke you, will brush off your shoulders like dust. She collected the ashy remnants of Gloria's astral body in her hand and held them out before me. This will never happen again if you just listen to me. Sit down, please. Let me explain everything. Let me...

Corruption trailed off. She frowned, then glanced down at herself. Her black hair curtained her features with the inclination of her head, and I saw that it was lightening gradually. It became greyer, thinner, and wispy until I could see clear to her scalp. She looked up at me, and I was presented with the gaunt hollowed face of an old woman. Her toothless mouth trembled, her bloodshot black eyes bulged, the patterns on her flesh began to dim. She reached between the plane with an arthritic hand, clasped the door, and slammed it shut.

JULIA

My vision was fading. I saw Tera sitting across from me on the bed, watching me like a ravenous wolf waiting for a wounded beast to die. Then my vision blurred, and her profile would mesh into a kaleidoscopic mosaic of tan flesh, black hair, and violet eyes. Then everything went dark. My heart pounded slowly. Ba-dum, ba-dum... ba...dum... ba... My eyes opened in a flash, my heart shot into my throat, and I saw Tera in crystal clarity, still watching me from across the bed. Was she closer now than she was before? I made a weak threatening gesture to her, but she didn't even notice. She just stared at me and waited. My vision blurred. The images swam before me, becoming watercolors that swirled without shape. Everything darkened. My heart slowed. Ba-dum, ba-dum, ba... dum, ba... I opened my eyes. My vision was still blurred. I couldn't make out the profile of the thing in front of me, but it was closer than before. There was something shiny in its hand. Something sharp. My vision went dark again.

Lucilla. She was standing atop a mountain, her body wrapped in white furs. The cold air whispered through her platinum hair, caressing her pristine face, tickling her stoic lips. Why wasn't she smiling? I'm here, Lucilla, it's me! She closed her eyes, and a tear ran down her perfect cheek, arcing the cold-blushed surface, dripping from her regal jaw. She opened her eyes. They were black.

I opened my eyes. Tera was just a foot away from me. Her expression was as blank as Lucilla's. She sat in front of me, and waited, waited, waited.

"Water," I croaked.

Tera didn't respond. I wondered if I'd said it at all. What did I say again? Where was I?

"Water," I croaked again. Good Mother, my throat was dry. I just needed some water. Just a small glass and everything would be fine.

Tera just stared at me.

"Where's Diamond?" I asked.

Nothing.

"Get Lucilla," I whispered.

Tera just kept on staring. She was only a few inches away now. The blade in her hand was poised at her side, waiting for me to close my eyes one more time. I wouldn't. I didn't need to. The world was growing darker with them open.

JUSTINA

The Breytans buzzed overhead like hornets, swarming to the Ionans and Ofanians who dared grow large enough to stick out on the battlefield. After suffering so greatly at their black katanas, the shapeshifters had adopted the subterranean guises of sandworms and trapdoor spiders, burrowing beneath the sand, tunneling far from their point of submersion, then erupting suddenly to inflict mass casualties. We killed orcs at a staggering rate, hundreds falling each second, but there were always more, and the flighted warriors of Ofan and Iona dared not take the battle to the skies to face the real threat. We had sent scores of messengers to find Willowbud, and all of them were cut down. We'd attempted to tunnel our way to her, but she was not where she was supposed to be. She wouldn't answer our telepathic screams, neither would Gloria or Astrid, and the fact that we didn't know where Julia was made their silence even more terrifying.

I clicked my pincers as I scuddled beneath the sands in the form of a giant centipede. Six of my middle legs were dedicated to holding Arya against my armored underbelly, who clung to me in the shape of a seven-legged cave spider. Bianca and Nona took the lead, also in the shapes of centipedes, their many spiny legs clicking through the hollow. I could see nothing with my eyes, but my antennae were more than satisfactory to navigate. I wished I had more time to explore this new dimension of sensory pathfinding, but alas, I was in the middle of a desperate battle for the fate of the world.

Do you have her scent yet? I asked Nona.

No.

Willowbud? Arya asked weakly. Astrid? Gloria? Angela, where are you?

Nothing.

Bianca stopped before me and elevated her carapace head. She twitched it ever so slightly, her antennae moving left to right. I have the Bound One, she determined. It is faint, but it is there. We are going in the right direction.

Nona continued through the tunnels until we came upon a large hollow. The rocks rose above us in a cathedralic shape, then ended in a ceiling of sand. She scurried up the wall, and we followed after, taking positions on all sides of the ceiling. Keeping herself in her insect form, Nona, grew a human arm from her back, grabbed the katana, and prodded the ceiling with the blade. Sand cascaded down from it in slow trickles, then began to pour. Soon, great volumes of it were gushing, and a thin light showed through it. Then a dozen orcs went screaming through the hole, their bodies smashing against the stonework and disappearing into the infinite black. Nona coiled her body and launched herself through the hole. We followed after.

An orc screamed when I emerged at his feet. I clicked my mandibles once, and his legs were cut cleanly off. Before he could strike me with his black sword, I acidified him with a spray of my venom, and he disintegrated, screeching as he clutched his face. Arya leaped from my underbelly, cut an orc in half with her massive mandibles, then transformed into a three-legged rhino, and charged through the ranks, flattening dozens. Nona was a great serpent, and clutching the katana in her tail, she whipped viciously in wide arcs, cleaving through bodies like butter, black blood fountaining from their gashes like ink.

Bianca snatched a crude black sword from the ground, transformed into her normal self, and began hacking away at those around her. Heads rolled like dice, necks wobbled and gushed, and bodies dropped beneath her feet as she moved deeper into the fray. I quickly adopted the body of a snapping turtle and chomped into the charging meat before me. My beak cut through flesh and bone with ease, leaving grotesque vacancies in the bodies I harmed, the shape of my mouth clearly seen through torsos and legs. My comrades moved around me, whirling through the circle of surrounding orcs, widening our radius of bodies until shadows crossed the sky. Before the Breytans could descend, we transformed back into our centipedal bodies and scuttled back into the hole.

The twenty frustrated Breytans landed just at the rim and glared into the darkness we huddled in.

"Come out, cowards!" one of them growled.

"Come down here, Kiyo," Bianca sneered back, her human head grinning from her horrifying body.

"Cockroaches hide in holes!"

"And feast upon the corpses buried therein," Nona chimed in. "Come join your brethren."

Kiyo turned to the Breytan beside her. "Someone find Sister Julia so that she can exterminate this infestation!"

"The Good Sister is in conference with God. She gave us explicit orders not to disturb her."

Kiyo clearly wanted to say something, but she held her tongue. "Where is the Water Dancer?" she said at length. "You can drown a pest as easily as you can burn it."

"I'm not taking orders from that whore anymore!" one of the Breytans objected. "I never swore oaths to her! Let Aiko suck her cock; I only follow the will of the true god!"

There was a murmur of agreement from the other Breytans.

Kiyo scowled into the darkness and fidgeted with her sword. "Fine then," she spat into the hole, "there are other worms than these. Let's go hunt."

The Breytans launched into the sky and flew westward. A minute later, we heard the telepathic death-cries of four Ionans who weren't so quick as us.

Nona worked her jaw fiercely and looked to Bianca. We must take the fight to the skies. Have our warriors scavenge as many of those obsidian blades as we can find.

Bianca grew a human arm from her carapace and tested the crude weapon in her hand. This thing is not even a blade; it's a sharp piece of rock. You might be a master swordswoman, but that katana you wield is a foreign weapon. We would be massacred.

Nona's jaw tensed even more somehow. We need to find the Earth Former. Give me two-hundred Ionans with swords to match those Breytans, and we'll have the skies by nightfall.

That's not the battle we're fighting, Nona, I said. The Breytans don't matter.

They do now, Brandon's voice cut-in. Nona, Bianca; I've captured Diamond. She can suck Corruption out of people. I'm taking her to Julia, and I'm ending this now! Keep the Breytans off my back!

WHAT?! I exclaimed. Brandon, don't be a fucking idiot! Kill her now!

Willowbud's not answering me, and I can't take Julia on my own, bound or not! Her daughter is the only leverage I have!!

Fuck leverage! Kill her now, and let's find Willowbud and get the fuck out of here! You can't save Julia!

I'M TRYING TO SAVE MY SISTER!

Brandon... I trailed off, ...maybe... maybe we should...

Justina, your mom is with Julia. She's uncorrupted. If we killed Diamond, we're never getting her back. This is our one shot. Can you give me an hour?

I didn't answer for a long time. Yes, we can do that, Brandon.

Someone find Angela. The rest of you... now's the time. Brandon's connection went silent after that.

I looked at Nona, then Bianca. Bianca, you take Arya and what's left of the Ofanians. Find Angela.

I'm not—

That's an order, High Guard.

Bianca glared at me, then collected Arya, and scuttled off into the tunnels.

Nona gave me a questioning look. And where are you going?

To save my mother.

DIAMOND

"God dang you!" I hissed, wrestling with Xaya. The damnable woman was actually tickling me. She prodded my side, stroked the bottom of my foot, dug her finger into my armpit, and her sadistic smile grew wider with my every jolt and nonconsenting giggle. I managed to wiggle myself free for a blessed moment and crawl toward the iron box, but she hopped on my back, straddled me about the hips, and began mercilessly poking me beneath the ribs.

"I swear to whatever god is up there," I panted as I wiggled under her benign torture, "when I get my brain back, I am going to kick your reptilian butt back into the dinosaur age!"

Xaya, of course, didn't understand a word I said and was only encouraged by my outrage to intensify the abuse. I endured it for horrible minutes until my gate creaked open, and my attention shot to the woman who was in the threshold. She was barely a woman at all. Her breasts sagged to her hips, her back was bowed in near perpendicularity, and her flesh hung from her like a sack. There was no hair on her head, and her blackened eyes sagged with sallow bags. The patterns on her black flesh were so dim that I could barely see them at all. I forgot my torment for a moment and just gawked at her. She was screaming something from the entrance. I couldn't discern the words, but I could hear their tone. It was a ghastly sound, something borne from a throat that had been cracked with age. When she remembered that I could not understand her, she thrust her arthritic finger at the box in my center, her arm shaking with the effort. Then she collapsed through the entrance.