Tenebroum

Chapter 222: The Infinite Dark

Tenebroum watched the light spilling out from between the icy teeth of its final trap and knew that despite the God's best efforts, they were unlikely to budge any time soon. Siddrim’s skull had never been intended as the only, or even the last resort, to deal with the light, but the new God had blundered into it, so it would do for now.

The harder that the Lord of Light struggled in his new cage, the faster his light would power the frost spells that had been carved into every inch of that terrible room. It wouldn’t be enough to kill him. Not unless he gave up, but it would be enough to make him suffer and long for death, which was exactly the way that Tenebroum wanted its only real opponent until it could decide what to do with him.

It had hoped that in a battle between the darkness and the light, it could just extinguish the new Lord of Light directly with enough shadows, but even after the extended melee in the central cathedral, that did not appear to be the case. For all his inexperience, Siddrim’s replacement was still a font of boundless energy that Tenebroum could not even hope to understand, let alone overpower without further study.

The only way it had managed to defeat the God's predecessor was by building a trap with so many layers that the God did not even know that the shadows were inside its soul until it was too late. That would not work this time because it hadn't had years to lay the groundwork in just the right hosts. If only Tenebroum knew the identity of this new God or had some information it could use against him.

Regardless, the Light God had been a fool to even attempt to challenge it here, where it was the strongest. If Tenebroum had wished it, the God of Shadows could have simply kept the thing stranded there within an infinity the way that the City God of Constantinal had once tried to do to Tenebroum. It had considered doing just that. The only difference between this time and that was that Constantenal had relied on the worship of its citizens and the power it had accrued throughout its history, whereas Tenebroum’s power was now entirely unbounded.

It would have been cleaner to snuff him out, but in the perhaps it is better to keep him in a cage where I can keep an eye on him, Tenebroum thought. After all, there was no telling what his death might trigger.

The last time it had killed the Lord of Light, those infernal sparks had set all sorts of chaos into motion, and Tenebroum had spent years dealing with the fallout. Maybe it would be better to keep him chained up for a few weeks or months until humanity was well and truly dead. It did not see how they would get a reprieve this time.

The only one that could possibly save them at this point is me, Tenebroum mused as it slipped up through the layers of its sprawling dungeon to the world above. There were still a few sparks in the sky, but there were so few it could almost count them on the hands of a skilled flesh worker. They did not seem to be stars either, at least not in the traditional sense. They were not celestial warriors fending off the endless stream of evil and darkness that was even now spilling across the world. Instead, they were some distant object far out in the night sky.

Those would merit further study in time, but then, so would many other things. For now, it was content merely to spread out across the world and study the chaos that had spread everywhere the darkness touched. Across the sea, two continents were burning, an emperor was being laid low, and whole priestly orders were committing suicide in the wake of what had happened to the moon and the stars, and everywhere, there was fear and death.

To think that once I cowered beneath a broken tower in an out-of-the-way swamp, it thought in disgust.

From these lofty heights, it was almost unable to recognize the thing it had been so long ago. Had it ever truly been so weak? It wondered as it remembered that little patch of consecrated ground in Aiden from so long ago.

Now, it could command the storms and split the earth with thunder. It could erase life from whole cities with the barest effort. Though Tenebroum knew it had many limitations left to struggle with, at this moment, as it casts its gaze across all of creation, it was hard to believe that it couldn’t do anything it set its mind to.

There were any number of challenges left, of course. There was still the Voice to punish and the surviving dwarves to find. It also had to find a way to tame or put down the Lord of Light’s remaining horses, deal with the remaining gods, and explore the rest of the world to look for signs of challengers or resistance. If the Magica Collegium in Abenend still stood, they could likely endure this eternal night, which meant that there would be other groups like them that could presumably accomplish similar miracles now that they had received warning.

Given enough time, Tenebroum could fill the Skoeticnomikos with a list of things that yet needed to be done. It had no idea what would come swimming out of the void, either. Though it could not have accomplished any of these without that power, now that the barrier of stars was gone, anything could swarm the world looking for a meal. Tenebroum might yet have to build new wards of its own to prevent that from happening.

Those were problems for later, though, as was unraveling the mysteries of the moon and the afterlife. Tenebroum had accomplished so much in that final series of battles that it would take weeks just to understand it all and decide on priorities.

All that mattered now was that it had won. Its shadow had spread across the whole of the world now, and its domain was complete. It was the God of Shadows and Darkness, and soon, it would be the only God left. It could murder at will and take what it wanted. All it needed to do was decide what it wished to work on next, and its minions would spring to attention to make its will manifest.

It could build a lair made of pure gold this time and make it so large that it connected the earth and sky together physically instead of with magic. Tenebroum did nothing, though. Not right now. Instead, it merely gazed out on the dying world and observed. It was not at peace, for its soul was full of grasping avarice, but this was the closest it had ever been, and it took that moment to bask in its victory.

I made a number of changes to the preceding chapters in the final draft I'm working on. It wouldn't make sense to post those, without posting the preceding chapters, but I am including the epilogue. It's not meant to wrap up the story in a neat little bow so much as make the world feel more alive and put the final chapter into a wider context.

Epilogue: Cycles and Epicycles

Despite the urgency of the request, The Voice of Reason turned them down twice before she agreed to meet. This was both because she feared that the meeting was a trap and because she worried that leaving her twilight city for even a moment would render it vulnerable. It was only when the Queen of the Fae agreed to journey to Tanda that she finally agreed.

Apparently, that was something she hadn’t done in an age, though even then, the Voice didn’t think of it as an honor. Such a gesture could have been a trap as well, of course. Her former master’s darkness often lurked in the sands around where her city had once been. At first, its whole might had manifested out there, creating terrible sandstorms that crackled with black lightning and rage in an attempt to gain entry through some crack or flaw in her defenses.

There was no entry to be found, though. She had folded up the city and hid it and its people safely amidst an infinite void that the Lord of Shadows could not find. Even now that it had given up, it had set terrible snakes and worms that were large enough to swallow a camel whole to patrolling the area in an attempt to catch her off guard. That was troubling and made it difficult for the city to flicker into existence for even a moment or two to gather fresh air and water, but she managed, somehow.

Despite the fact that these would be the first guests that the city would receive since she’d stolen it away from the world, there was little that she could do to welcome them. She had no parades to offer them or even feasts. The most she could do to welcome her guests was a single lantern in the midst of a desert square. It wasn’t much, but she’d picked the place because it allowed all of them to see the most beautiful buildings of the city at a glance. It had stars, too, of course. The mortal world no longer had those, but she still did, in the form of the few reflected lights that still burned in the city.

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She stood there in the near dark, enjoying them in that quiet moment, until the door from nowhere opened up, flooding the square with a brighter light than the Voice had seen in a long time. The only time she’d ever seen such a glow was during those few days when the sun had risen and set just the way it was supposed to. It was an uncomfortable sensation, but she still looked through the door to the greenery on the far side.

The Voice did not miss the light, but it did miss trees and flowers, and she appreciated them for the few seconds she could until the glowing door vanished once more. The entrance had brought four people into her domain, three women and a man, or perhaps an animal dressed up as one. There was a tall woman of incomparable beauty who was over a head taller than the Voice of Reason. She came first, and somehow, despite being made of marble and gold, the voice felt utterly inadequate next to the Faerie queen she’d been corresponding with all this time.

After her came a woman who was only slightly less beautiful but made from flowers, leaves, and bark rather than flesh and blood like everyone else. Normally, the nature Goddess would have outshone everyone, but in her half-wilted state, she would have to settle for being only the third most beautiful woman at this meeting.

Compared to the three goddesses, the last two to join them were nothing special. The Fox-faced God was certainly interesting looking, but he was only slightly more handsome than the ghost of an old woman who accompanied him.

The Voice already knew the first two, but when introductions were made, and she learned that the names of her last two guests were Rondin and Oroza, it was only the last name that resonated with her. “You can’t bring her here,” the Voice answered quickly, interrupting something that Niama was saying. “The darkness is looking for her! It would tear the world apart to find her!”

“It would,” the fox agreed, “But it’s important that we keep her safe. She is key to my, well, our—”

“This is not the first time the Darkness has devoured the world, nor will it be the last,” the Faerie Queen interrupted. “We must use what tools we can, even you, to do what we can to bring around a new age of light.”

“Even me?” The Voice asked, feeling the offense that was intended.

“You are one of its creations, are you not?” the Fae Queen asked coolly. “You helped it to—”

“Ladies, please,” Niama interrupted, but the Voice ignored her.

“I was created to avoid bloodshed whenever possible,” the Voice of Reason insisted. “Which I why I think myself an odd choice for joining your little resistance, but I promised to hear you out, so I will do so.”

“The Goddesses of Death, as well as Sea and Storms are dead, and I am not certain if they will be replaced, or if the Lord of Shadows has co-opted their domains,” Niama said before the Fae Queen could respond and continue the fight she seemed so eager to start. “The number of Gods that have any inclination toward resistance are few and far between.”

“All the more reason why we shouldn’t pick fights that we don’t have to,” The Voice said. “We… You could not defeat the darkness when you controlled the moon and the sea. How will their loss make it any easier?”

That question caused a long moment of silence. The Voice of Reason half feared that the meeting would dissolve into acrimony then, but instead, after the measured pause, she started again.

“When the demons from the lowest pits conspired to take apart the sun in the age of darkness that consumed my Kingdom, my children and I were forced to hide from them for centuries,” the faerie queen said. “We built our own world and stayed there for so long that we’ve all but lost our connection with the mortal realm lapsed and are no longer compatible with it. The darkness did not claim us that time, and it will not claim us this time either.”

“That’s very admirable,” the Voice agreed. “And I hope that perhaps you can offer me some guidance on—”

“I will, but only if you help us,” the Queen snapped.

“How can I help you?” the Voice asked in confusion. “I can barely keep the lights on here. Every day is darkness, and most of my people—”

“You have two things that the rest of us lack,” the fox chimed in. “a connection to its lair and the ability to bend space to your will.”

“I can only do that regarding my city,” she answered swiftly, certain this topic would lead nowhere good.

“No, you can use your magics to connect or distort any place you have a strong connection with,” the fox insisted. “I know secrets, and this is definitely one of them. There is a connection. It continues to exist. You were built, a piece at a time, in the heart of—”

“Wait,” she said slowly as she started to realize what the fox man was implying. “You want me to… connect to Blackwater? I can’t! It will—”

“That’s where it’s keeping the Lord of Light,” Niama interrupted, “And if Rondin is to be believed, he still lives.”

“And you think that what, you can just pluck him from the Heart of Darkness?” the Voice asked, getting noticeably agitated. “If my mast- my former master catches you, it will flay your soul for a decade. There are no bounds to the suffering it can cause. You don’t understand!”

When she’d started talking, she’d been certain that wasn’t even a power that she possessed. However, thinking on it, she probably could, even though the idea horrified her.

It was that connection to the darkness and the awareness of how it thought that was probably keeping her safe even now. She knew how it crept in, so she was able to cut herself off from it better than most. If she were to actually reach out and touch it again, though, well, that was a risk she wasn’t willing to take.

“As long as there is light, there is hope,” the fox-faced man insisted. “Even if it’s a small one. A single, flickering candle is all you need to ignite a bonfire.”

The Voice opened her mouth to cut him off and tell him how crazy this sounded before he could explain further. She’d planned to tell him how no amount of fire could light waterlogged wood and that no spark would catch in the lands that the Darkness had laid claim to, but rather than explain, he produced a book and pressed it into her hands. It was a tattered thing that was overstuffed with pages. Something about it seemed wrong, and she knew intuitively that it contained a tiny infinity that wasn’t so different from her city.

Could something terrible be hiding in there? She wondered. She resolved to scrutinize it more before she opened such a suspect gift. Still, she thanked the strange man.

“While I appreciate this, and indeed all your words,” she said diplomatically, “There can be no fighting my former master, and I do not think it would be wise to try. Better to be small and quiet and evade its notice.”

Her words seemed to disappoint her guests, but not surprise them.

The gray-ghostly woman spoke then. “I, too, am tired of fighting, but like you, my domain was in a place where I could not easily escape the Lich. It will come for all of us. It will pick the bones of the world clean and then make something horrible with the remains. There will be no hiding.”

“It’s nothing to worry about, not for you at least,” the fox god claimed. “I’ve worked out a path through the defenses, and Oroza is key. If we just…”

He kept talking about the Voice couldn’t keep listening. Not with the panic roaring through her mind. To treat the idea of stealing from the Lord of Shadows like it was not just possible but easy frightened her beyond all reason.

“I have promised to hear you out,” the Voice said at last wheel Rondin finished talking, “and I will, but I promise nothing beyond doing what is in the best interests of my city and its people, and truthfully I can’t see how any of this would be in their interest.”

“I would never ask you to do anything else,” the Faerie Queen asked, smiling wanly. “But first I think that you should read the fox’s book. It will explain much of this.”

The Voice of Reason looked down at it warily. Then, against her better judgment, she cracked it open to a random page. There, she found a bizarre diagram of the world. In fact, she could only recognize it as a map of the world because cities she’d been to, including Tanda were labeled on it.

Whatever had happened to it, though, it was not the world she knew. Whole mountain ranges had been leveled and winding canyons had been carved through deserts and plains alike to change the flow of water. It has some arcane purpose, but she lack the information to decode it, let alone understand it. Whole seas had been displaced, so that rings of islands that did not currently exist to the best of her knowledge were created. They seemed to spell out magical words of power at such a scale that they could be read from the moon itself.

That was frightening enough, but the moon no longer seemed to exist. Instead, it formed a sort of skeleton around the world. It was like the glowing cage that her Dark Lord had already used to deface the sky, but… The Voice didn’t want to know more than that, and slammed the book shut before handing it back to the fox. “I can’t,” she whispered, handing the book back.

“I don’t know what it showed you but—” the God of Secrets started, but the Voice interrupted him.

“Just say what you need to say, and then leave,” she repeated. “If the Lord of Shadows is planning to carve up the world like its fleshcrafters would carve up a corpse, then there’s nothing that anyone can do to stop that…”