038

For the first time in a long time, Noah felt like he might be heading to his death, and he felt scared. Normally, when things got out of control he always had the option of Ether Walking to safety, but they were going up against an army. That might not be an option. His Ether Walk only lasted a few seconds, and he could only use it a few times per day. He had Justice’s clock staff and could use that to rewind time, but he couldn’t rewind more than 30 or 40 seconds if it was at full charge. And he couldn’t use it if he was dead.

He swallowed nervously and looked back at his allies. Berenice. Sven. Cardi. Chastity. Angel. None of them had the cowardly abilities he had. Berenice was durable, but the others… They might die. Today.

Golgotha was a small, gated city. The Tower of Babel dominated its center, stretching endlessly into the sky. It was further along than he thought. Much further. It shouldn’t have been this far. He couldn’t even see the top. At the base of the Tower was a hexagonal facility, and surrounding that facility were the tiny, white, uniform wooden houses of Golgotha. Everything was simple in design, since golgotha were ascetics. Only the Tower mattered to them.

There was a legion of soldiers outside the walls of the city. They didn’t worry Noah. They were low-level sheeple peons, and Noah had a dragon. The airships hovering around the city like flies also didn’t worry Noah much. He knew the real threats would be Antimogne’s elite soldiers, the golgotha themselves, and Annatto. He could see the gigantic bird coasting through the air, flying circles around the Tower. Chastity had told him that the bird was adept at killing dragons, and was the reason the elves were worried about the longfolk.

The first step of their plan was to drop everyone off close to the city except Noah and Justice. Noah would ride Undoing with Justice, holding a knife to her throat, having her burn as much of Antimogne’s troops as possible, burning a path to the gate. Until she was close enough to be forced into combat with Annatto and the airships. Then Noah would Shadow Step away, leaving Justice trapped in a fight to the death with Antimogne’s air force. He didn’t care who won – he just needed the airships occupied long enough for Noah and his companions to make it through the gate and into the Tower facility.

There, he anticipated trouble. That’s where he’d have to fight through the golgotha and the longfolk empire’s elite soldiers, including the few of Antimogne’s champions that still remained. He hoped they could reach Antimogne without being killed, but nothing was certain. Noah had initially felt hopeless, but Sven reminded him that Antimogne must be afraid of him. If the Emperor’s victory was certain, he wouldn’t have sent Noah visnakes, assassins, and a threatening letter. His aggression proved his insecurity.

If he managed to kill Antimogne, he was still uncertain about what he should do. He thought he would probably be uncertain until the actual moment came. He would have the opportunity to either save the Eye, or to use a piece of Cardi’s soul – the Heart’s soul – to kill the Eye and make the Heart the prime god. He was in theory on board with the plan, but he felt a slight suspicion of Cardi, now, and therefore of the Heart herself. He didn’t believe Justice when she implied Cardi killed Jori – it was just the sort of thing she would say to divide them – but when he looked at Cardi, he couldn’t help but feel there was something sinister underneath her bubbly exterior. He worried about handing the universe to someone like her, even if it might be his best option. He hated that he had to choose between two gods, without enough information to make a good decision. He could also allow the Eye to die without installing a new prime god. Maybe humanity wasn’t meant to be ruled by gods. Maybe humanity could once again control its own destiny. But then wouldn’t there be chaos in the heavens, as the outer gods all fought for control, or something like that?

They landed on a patch of rocky terrain to let everyone off besides Noah and Justice. Cardi fell onto her back, groaning with the impact, dropping the Tesla rod. Noah had lent it to her, since he was at the limit of four artifacts, and she needed a weapon. He hoped he wouldn’t regret that decision.

“Art thou alright, Cardi?” asked Berenice, sliding down the side of Undoing.

“Yeah, I’m fine, Bee. This damned dragon!” she cried, kicking Undoing. He didn’t notice.

“Watch yerself, pinkface,” groaned Justice. She still had a knife pressed against her neck, but that didn’t stop her from talking shit.

“Yeah, yeah,” said Sven, helping Chastity free Angel from Undoing. “Have fun in battle.” Justice frowned at him.

“I’ll see you all soon,” said Noah. “I hope.”

“I do hope so too, mine love,” said Chastity. “Be careful, yea?”

“I will.”

Noah and Justice took off, flying toward Golgotha. Even at quite a distance, Undoing was able to hit airships with jets of dragonfire, melting them and sending their rubble down to land on soldiers below. With one jet of flame, he would take out a dozen airships at a time. In only a few seconds, he cleared the air of nearly half of Antimogne’s airships. They were devastating war machines, but no match for a dragon. Undoing breathed a jet of flame on the legion below, too, killing hundreds.

Annatto quickly noticed their approach. The bird was quite a bit larger than the snakelike dragon they now rode, and she had a taste for dragons. She no longer carried a fortress beneath her. Instead she was naked, aside from her massive, red feathers. She dove down the side of the tower, and swooped toward them. Noah held on tightly to the saddle.

Undoing breathed a jet of flame at her, missing, but taking out several airships with the spray. Undoing tried to swerve right, but Annatto predicted the movement. Annatto reached her gargantuan claws out toward Undoing’s body and grabbed onto the dragon like an eagle holding a snake. Fuck. Noah was nearly rocked from his saddle, and Justice screamed. Noah held onto the clock staff on his back and activated it, turning back time ten seconds. The transition was disorienting, and only he would remember. “Left!” Noah shouted into Justice’s ear, and she nodded. Undoing obeyed her will, swerving left, breathing dragonfire at the bird who had incorrectly predicted Undoing would swerve right. He managed to catch her wing, burning a line through it, nearly severing it from her body. Annatto shrieked. The sound was so loud Noah’s ears rang. The bird flapped her other wing faster to compensate, but she could no longer fly straight. Still, she was airborne. She turned to face Undoing.

Annatto was going to fall from the air. Noah could see it. She couldn’t keep herself afloat. Good. Annatto was the biggest threat to Undoing. Without her, their plan might work.

Annatto made another attempt at Undoing, and it would be her last. She shrieked, and tried to grab Undoing. Undoing tried to dive to avoid the attack – making Noah’s stomach turn – but failed. Annatto’s claws sunk into Undoing’s body. Noah wanted to reverse time to undo this, but he had to reverse time ten seconds at a time. He couldn’t undo the attack without also reversing Undoing’s lucky hit to her wing. Shit. Instead, he let go of the saddle. He had an idea. Annatto’s left foot was holding Undoing only a few feet from where he was sitting.

He leapt toward it. “Ether Walk,” he shouted, turning invisible. In a second, he would reach Annatto’s leg, which despite her size, was only a few feet in diameter. As he passed through the air, he watched as Annatto pecked at Undoing’s body. She tore a huge chunk from him, ripping him almost to his spine. Noah tried to time it just right and yelled “Eclipse Strike! End Ether Walk!” at the right moment. He became corporeal again right as he was about to hit her leg, and punched her leg as he slammed into her. The punch flashed with bright light, blowing a small chunk of flesh from her leg. Not enough to seriously injure her, but he didn’t care. What he wanted was to daze her, and he succeeded. She froze in midair. Her claws relaxed, allowing Undoing to wriggle free.

As Undoing fell away from Annatto, he breathed a jet of flame at Annatto’s body, and another at a cluster of nearby airships. He wasn’t flying straight. He was injured, maybe fatally, but he could still fight. He slowly descended, unable to gain height, but killing dozens of airships with each breath. By the time he hit the ground, there were no airships in left. Undoing landed awkwardly, with Justice underneath him. She didn’t survive.

Annatto’s descent was less graceful. The bird was the mass of a whale, and was dazed in midair, no longer able to flap her wings. She fell from the sky like a boulder. Fortunately for Noah, the leg he clung to was underneath her, in her shadow. He immediately Shadow Stepped into it, emerging on the ground under the shade of a tree near where his friends were. From his new vantage point, he watched as Annatto fell and crushed the soldiers unlucky enough to be beneath her. They say when dropped from a building, a mouse bounces, a rat is killed, a man is broken, and a horse splashes. A thousand-tonne bird, on the other hand, completely liquifies, and a wave of liquid flesh expands outward from the point of impact with enough impact to kill any soldiers caught in it, leaving behind hundreds of dead sheeple and giant, wet feathers.

Noah also saw Undoing finally land on the ground, squirming and spraying fire in every direction as he died like a sprinkler. Most of Antimogne’s sheeple legion was victim to his fire. Well, that went better than expected. The only casualties were Justice, Undoing, and most of Antimogne’s forces. Besides the golgotha, only a much smaller number of elites remained inside the city.

Noah regrouped with his friends. They were running toward the chaos. Antimogne’s troops were in shambles. One group tried to put together a semblance of structure and start firing crossbow bolts and arrows at Noah’s group, but they fell quickly to Cardi’s lightning bolts and Sven’s blood magic. Not to mention the occasional arrow from Chastity. With his allies’ range and ability to control the battlefield, Noah and Berenice didn’t have to fight at all as they pushed their way toward the gate. The hardest part wasn’t fighting the chump soldiers, but routing a safe path through the dragonfire-melted earth. The sheeple outside Golgotha were disorganized and decimated, and those that remained mostly deserted, choosing to flee rather than face the high-level intruders and their lightning powers. Noah noted that Cardi seemed to be enjoying her role a bit too much.

“At last,” said Sven as they arrived at the solid iron gate. It was closed. “That went better than we could have hoped. Thank the gods the two of you managed to get us that dragon,” he said to Chastity and Noah. “Without it, I don’t think we would have stood a chance.”

“Aye, the poor beast did fight well,” said Berenice. “To the last.”

“Cardi, do you mind?” asked Sven, gesturing to the gate.

“Oh. Sure!” she said. She blasted at the gate, poking holes through the iron, cutting out hole large enough from them to fit through. They stepped cautiously through the hole of melted metal. Chastity was last, since Angel was dawdling.

“Come, girl!” she insisted, but Angel was chewing on a fallen sheeple archer’s arm. Chastity rolled her eyes. “Come, Angel!” Angel vanished, and reappeared at her side. She gave Chastity an annoyed look, and then haughtily trotted through the gate.

Noah had been expecting resistance, but instead of a battalion of elite soldiers, the inside of Golgotha was a bloodbath. Grey golgotha arms and legs, blood, and dead sheeple littered the street. It looked like the battle had already happened without them.

“What the hell?” Noah asked.

“Oh, my,” said Cardi, stepping over the intestines of a golgotha halberdier who had been cut in half.

“Eye in heaven,” gasped Berenice as they walked cautiously through the streets. “What could have done this?”

“I think they died fighting each other,” said Sven.

“Lucky us,” said Noah.

“Who won?” asked Cardi. Sven shrugged.

They walked toward the Tower. It was easy to find, of course, since it reached miles into the sky. Each street was bloodier than the last, with dead or dying golgotha and sheeple every few feet. And the occasional dirtfolk or veggiefolk soldier, too. They reached the facility at the base of the Tower without encountering a single enemy soldier.

Noah shouldered open the door to the facility. It was hard to open, as there was a dead body right on the other side of the door. They all walked into the facility, which was mostly empty besides the bodies and the blood. There was so much blood. Blood they were supposed to be the ones to spill.

“Where is Antimogne hiding?” asked Berenice.

“Who knows,” said Noah. “Let’s just head toward the base of the Tower. The artifact should be there.” The Tower stretched upward from the center of the facility. They walked through the halls of the facility, and found the central room where they could access the Tower. Inside, there was one golgotha soldier still alive, resting against the base of the Tower. It was Graven, and he was grievously injured.

“Noah,” he spoke, looking upward. He sounded weak. “Sir, you made it.”

“Graven!” said Noah, rushing to his side. He was his enemy, but also his friend, and he wasn’t a threat now. There were two swords sticking out of his abdomen, and blood dripping from his grey lips.

“Sir. You were right, sir. You were right. The Emperor is evil incarnate. You were right, sir.”

“What happened here?” asked Noah, kneeling down and holding Graven’s arm.

Graven coughed, spilling blood onto his chin, which he painstakingly wiped away. “We found the Emperor’s secret. I did, rather. The son of a bitch never had any intention of bringing the Foot to the center of the heavens. He wanted to become a god himself. We found out, and he found out that we knew. War ensued.”

“Where is he now?” asked Noah.

Graven looked up. “At the top, sir. You must go. You must stop him, there is no time.”

“What? At the top? How did he…?”

“Inside, there is an elevator, my friend. I brought it down. Go.”

“But what about you? Maybe we can heal you, or find a healing potion, or-“

“No,” said Graven firmly, looking Noah in the eyes. “I am beyond healing potions. Do not worry about me, sir. Please, stop the Emperor. That is all that matters. Besides, it is time for me to do my duty. To begin my eternal battle against the devils in hell. My friend, I am happy to have known you,” he said, smiling slightly, “But I do hope I never see you again.” He groaned in pain. “Ah. Here I come, devils. Fear me. Fear… Me…” His face went blank. He was dead.

Noah froze. He clung to Graven, looking down at him. His eyes welled with tears. He felt guilt. It was his fault that Graven was involved in this. If he hadn’t allowed Vincenzio to mind control Graven…

“Noah. We have to go,” said Sven.

Noah nodded, and wiped his eyes. They approached the Tower itself, and the doors opened of their own accord. The base of the Tower was made of a strange, green metal that was unfamiliar to Noah. It was engraved in hexagonal and rectangular patterns, and glowed in parts with soft white light. They stepped through the doors. The Tower was not very large in diameter. It wasn’t much larger than your average house. The entire thing was essentially a glorified elevator shaft to the top. The elevator was in the center of the tower and was more than half the cross-sectional area of the entire Tower. It was hexagonal in shape. The doors closed behind them and began to hum. Noah felt the force of the floor moving up that you usually feel in an elevator, but more intense. It was a smooth ride.

“How long will it take us to reach the top?” asked Cardi, nervously clutching the Tesla rod.

“Hours,” said Sven.

“What?” said Cardi. “But don’t you feel how fast we’re moving?” There were no windows, but they could feel the acceleration, and it was strong.

“We are riding all the way to the Eye, or thereabout. It will be a long ride.”

It took over five hours to get to the top, and during that time they spoke very little. Angel slept. Sven paced. Everyone else sat down. At the halfway point, the acceleration shifted to deceleration, and Noah felt a floaty feeling in his stomach. The elevator itself turned so that the ground was now facing their destination, rather than the Earth. But gravity had shifted, too, keeping them on the floor.

After a long time, Chastity spoke to Noah. “We must be close, yea?” They were holding each other, sitting on the floor with Angel. Before Noah could answer, the elevator made a grinding sound, and seemed to come to a stop.

“Huh?” asked Cardi. “Are we there?”

Then there was a ratcheting sound as the elevator began to lower again. The walls stayed where they were, and only the floor descended on metal pistons. As the walls cleared away, Noah could see the raging green atmosphere of the Eye a mere few miles away. They were inside some kind of glass bubble. And there was a metal floor going all the way around the edge of the bubble, with a huge hexagon cut out in the center. The missing hexagon was the size of the elevator, and the elevator now descended to fit snugly into the gap. Above them was the Tower, all around them were the hexagonal glass panels that allowed them to see the Eye itself, and below them was a green metal floor. And standing all around the perimeter of this room were Antimogne’s forces.

Antimogne himself was seated on a litter, and he looked different than normal. His chest shone brightly with the piercing fire of a sun, but only his right half. His entire left half, including his lanky arms and legs, was coated in thick, black shadow. Where his mouth was narrow and pursed on the right, it was open wide and grinning cartoonishly on the left, exposing shadowy fangs. He had merged with some kind of shadow beast – the Shadow King, most likely.

Around him were his few surviving elites. Two sheeple warriors, one dressed in black like a rogue, and another wearing full plate and holding a bright, shimmering purple longsword. One naked, mechanical copper woman. And one naked, sky blue man with a white footprint icon on his forehead. These were all that remained of his forces. Out of the corner of his eye, Noah spotted the artifact that had been integrated into the machinery of the Tower. The one that had so incredibly accelerated the growth of the tower, and which now housed a fragment of Antimogne’s soul.

Antimogne spoke, and his voice had a buzzing, echoey quality it had never had before.

Noah, thou com’st at such a time unapt.

I hoped to crush thee ere thou did arrive.

But damned golgotha did my secret learn.

Now dead, they lie, no soul alive thou’ll find.

I hold the Tower, its tip doth pierce the Eye.

In minutes my apotheosis witness.

Yet, thou must die for ‘tis my destiny:

Deification mine by killing thee!

The Antimogne-Shadow hybrid seemed giddy as he spoke these words, which made Noah even angrier. “Fuck you,” he spat. “I’m going to cut your head off, like you did to Katherine!”

Shadow Antimogne stood from his litter. He was somehow able to support his own weight, though Noah noticed he was leaning mostly on his shadow side.

Who’s she? Thou shouldst have stayed in Toldenhold,

Where I could wield control of thee, haha!

Thou hast met the Heart’s Avatar, I see?

Is she the cause, the reason thou did flee?

Oh well, the Foot’s Avatar does stand with me.

Noah, meet Wade Footspawn who sees the truth

That I would reign more nobly than the Foot.

And too, I’ve forged a pact with Shadow King,

Together as one god we rise, haha!

Shadow Antimogne laughed, though the shadow side of him seemed to be laughing harder than the other side. At once, his face fell grim, and he spoke with an air that was serious, almost poignant.

And now, mine loyal soldiers, few you be,

Defend me, slay the foes, so we may see

The dawn of my divinity and my reign–

That shall forever last–of dark and pain.

Shadow Antimogne’s shadow began to warp and shift, and Noah could see shadowfolk climbing out of his shadow, standing on the edges of his shadow, still flat against the ground. There were dozens of them. Antimogne’s elites, and the Avatar of the Foot, spread out, standing at the ready. Noah and his friends braced themselves. The final battle was about to begin.