Tenebroum

Chapter 214: Final Form

When Tenebroum next awoke from its fugue state, it was changed irrevocably. It had digested an endless amount of shadows, and it had woken up as darkness itself. Death was only a tiny part of it now, no bigger than the lingering influence of the dead river that flowed by its lair.

It had been a god for years. Then, after that, when it had reconstructed its lair to replace its phylactery, it had become something greater, but it was only now that it fulfilled the promise of that terrible potential that it had created. At this point, it might have more darkness than Siddrim had light when he yet lived, and Tenebroum was certain that a world without a true sun or a Lord of Light was entirely unprepared for the thing that it had become.

There was a time, shortly after its ascension to godhood, when it had chaffed at being contained by its phylactery when it had come to think of its entire lair as its body instead. Now, it felt the same way about its new lair and expanded phylactery. There simply was no longer enough space for it to stretch out; for the second time in its existence, it had entirely outgrown its shell.

That was understandable, though; there was an endless surge of darkness coming from below. Even the heads of almost a hundred mages laid out across miles of magical circuitry were stifling now that it surged with so much power. It had a literal cathedral to contain it now, and even that wasn't enough. Every corridor was alive with shadows and arcane energy, and it was only barely contained by it.

That night, when Tenebroum boiled out of the hole and above the blasted ruins of Blackwater, it was as an eruption of evil. It was a pyroclastic flow of darkness more than it was a fog or even a storm now. It was a violent force that caused the few remaining weeds that clung to life on that poisoned land to wilt as it spread across miles in the blink of an eye and began to search for its wayward henchmen.

The last time it had searched for them, it had been unable to locate a single one because it had been so weak and disconnected from its old magics. This time, though, it wasn't even difficult; it found them immediately, dotting the world in all directions. Far to the northeast were two of its three Dark Paragons, along with the Voice of Reason and her entourage. Where its third Dark Paragon had gone, it could not say. The other two were almost a thousand miles away, so if it was even further north, it was possible that it was out of his range, even while it crackled with this much power, but it would find out either way, soon.

It couldn’t find its Queen of Thrones either, and though the Dark God called to her, she did not respond. That was worrisome, but then, it could always build another, it decided. There was no way she’d broken free, and it was instantly clear to Tenebroum where the woods she’d tainted and devoured had stopped and more natural growth started. So, she was most likely gone, and if that was the case, it was because she’d been defeated, either by Niama, her children, or else Malkezeen. Either way, the darkness would soon have its vengeance.

Tenebroum paused in its search for its minions to seek out any trace of that animal. It wasn’t fear that drove it so much as wariness. It was fairly certain that the awful creature no longer had any claim on its soul, but just the same, it planned to blast it to ruin by surprise and from a distance to minimize any chance of another humiliating defeat.

As much as it would love to savor the moment of rending that thing’s soul to pieces, it would much rather dash it into oblivion with a work of magic in an instant to secure victory. That wouldn’t stop the forces of wrath, disease, and famine from coalescing as some new force and under some new name, of course, but when they did, Tenebroum would be ready, and it would devour them, one by one.

The little monster made it out of the depths; after all, it thought to itself as it decided how best to proceed.

Tenebroum was pleased that the monstrosity had not yet been dashed to pieces but would be more than happy to do so itself if it caught a single whiff of disloyalty. Its first impulse was to go straight there, but it refrained. It wanted to take its time with the fire godling. So, instead, the darkness surged north toward its closest minion, looking for its drake.

It was not a difficult hunt. Of all its creations, the Shadow Drake was the most attuned to darkness, which is what Tenebroum was now. Even more than death, it was connected to the domain of pure shadows that was hidden behind the thin veneer of creation. So, the thing’s mere existence drew Tenebroum like a lodestone.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

It was not surprised by what it found. The drake was in a cave overlooking the valley that its people had long ago claimed and conquered, which was the precise location it might have looked if it could not feel it.

What was only slightly more surprising was that Tenebroum felt no darkness from anywhere else in the rest of the valley. In most of the woodlands and mountain valleys it had passed over on the way here, it had found at least faded shades or the occasional goblin that bore its touch.

Even in the cracked plains to the north of its lair, which were entirely devoid of anything living larger than a rodent, still hosted a few enervated zombies. They were broken, pathetic creatures that sheltered from the thin sunlight in the abandoned farmhouses of the area, but they still existed. Here, though, its influence had been carefully pruned away. Not a single lizardman in the tribe bore the taint of its presence. Though the tribe as a whole still seemed to honor it, those members that embraced it had been cut methodically away, and it could see only one gardener.

“Even now, you chafe at your leach, hound?” Tenebroum asked the creature as the smallest tendril of its ethereal smog coalesced into something resembling a body. "You destroy my creations to preserve what no longer exists."

Tsson’vek’s first response was to growl low at the intruder. “I took care of my people,” It said at last in a voice meant more for roaring and screeching than the low whisper it spoke in. “I make no apology for that.”

“You have not been a part of these people for a long time,” Tenebroum said. “Your fate and theirs were separated the moment you moved against me.”

“And yet here we are,” Tsson’vek rumbled.

“Here we are,” the Dark God agreed, standing perfectly still even though it didn't really even have a body.

Tenebroum could see the muscles twitching deep within the beast. It knew exactly what it was planning, but then, it could also see what terrible shape it was in. The Shadow Drake had always been a fragile beast, and it had been a long time since it had seen a fleshcrafter to mend it. As a result, there were many rents and holes in both its wings and its underbelly from the many fights it had been in during the time it had been away.

Still, it didn’t need scales or even to move much for what it was planning. Tenebroum could have stopped it, of course, but it knew the attack would be meaningless, and it much preferred to damn its minions by their own actions.

Tsson’vek wasn’t privy to any of those thoughts, though. So when it opened its mouth to speak again, and instead exhaled a gout of corrosive shadows that completely filled the mouth of the cave. Against a mortal enemy, it would have been utterly fatal. Even a knight cowering behind his shield would feel the darkness unmake his armor before it dissolved the rest of his body into swirling shadows.

For Tenebroum, the torrent was nothing at all. Instead of trying to defend against it at all, the God simply took it all in. Its creation had been filled with a truly formidable amount of darkness to destroy the forces of light, which was the reason why it continued to survive and thrive even in the absence of connection to Tenebroum, but it was reclaiming that darkness now.

Indeed, even as Tsson’vek realized his mistake and tried to stop the tide of shadows, Tenebroum continued to pull on the stream. The Shadow Drake did not understand the magnitude of its error until that moment.

It gasped and struggled then, rising to its feet and even trying to rear up. It couldn’t, though. This was over the moment it had exhaled. They were not fighting. This was an execution.

Tenebroum drained it until there was nothing left to drain. It removed the last dregs of power until the eyes of the powerful construct were dull and glassy, and its ebon scales lost their dark sheen. In the end, it ripped out its still squirming soul and shredded it as the veneer of magic that held the thing together slowly made the six-winged dragon-shaped thing fall apart into a pile of rusted scales, wooden timbers, and yellowed bone.

The traitorous pet died screaming, and once that was done, it looked around, and its physical form began to slowly dissolve back into the mist from which it had sprung into being. Then, it gazed upon the tribe that flourished far below. By night, they were in their nests, but it was easy to see that their numbers were larger than ever. It was a significant number of souls it could harvest with almost no effort.

Tenebroum knew exactly what it should do. Despite the fact that the Shadow Drake was no more, it still should have smote his tribe of lizardmen. That was the source of the construct’s betrayal and the punishment that Tsson’vek’s betrayal merited.

Yet, as it drifted over the valley, the darkness saw both the current totem pole and the scraps of the old one. Both of them had a golden skull at the top, which told it all it needed to about their dogged loyalty to forces that they couldn’t possibly understand. The lizardmen, as a whole, had never disobeyed it or betrayed it, and thus, it could not smite them from existence now. Instead, it merely drifted away and left them to their fate.

Long after mankind and the children of the forest had joined the dwarves on the graveyard of history, the lizardmen would continue to thrive. That would be the case until all light was eliminated, and the world froze completely solid, at least, but even then, it might find some way to preserve them.

With that thought, Tenebroum moved further skyward and began moving to the west. Krulm’venor was next on its list, and it had not yet decided if it would shred his soul as it had done to Tsson’vek or not.