To Kill a God
From Duels Content
Legends > Book of the Stygian Orders > To Kill a God
“Mirastina!”
The command issues from the darkness and echoes between the marble columns in the Great Hall of the Ordilum Sacrantas. Approaching footsteps, the rustle of cloth—the cloaked priestess stands bowed before the dais.
She kneels, ignoring the stiffness and pain in her ancient knees; “My Lord Divinity?”
A gloved hand curls away from a face locked by iron, etched by shadows; two embers appear, erupting with cold fire. He dismisses the towering Halkona Hitokiran Guards standing watch at his side.
“Your prophecy remains clouded.” The voice is deep. Annoyed.
“All visions, my Lord Divinity, are subject to the vagaries of fate. This is...no common foe.”
This nemesis...
“There is no fate but that which I command. I shall proceed as planned. Leave.”
“My Lord Divinity....” The priestess bows stiffly in retreat.
Nemesis.
He again contemplates the word.
Goddess of Retribution. Of Just Punishment.
The word has an undeniable intimacy. He savors the familiarity, rolls it around his tongue like wine. A bitter vintage.
Rising from his iron throne—a malevolent serpent waking—he lifts his face to the unseen sky.
One to the other, down through the ages, Harkan: You and I shackled together in a battle only one shall win.
Through gritted teeth he calls out to the high darkness: “Nemesis.”
His mouth fills with the rust of ancient blood.
Atanak! Enough!
He stands before the massive arched windows overlooking the storm-tossed Mira Sea. A flash of lightning; his own watery image stares back at him for an instant—burned on his eyes. Thunder rumbles hollow through the hall.
An old memory intrudes; faint; vaguely disturbing.
The Emperor. Harkan...
Had we once been friends? Anar?
Or was it merely a chance meeting of two tortured souls groping for meaning midst the carnage and horror of the Great War? Even then we shared differing views. Oh, we agreed on the madness and the waste. But still you managed to dredge up a glimmer of nobility—if only to ease your own pain. You propped up those moldering corpses of freedom and liberty against an ancient foe. Against our own distant cousins.
The alternative, you said, was the triumph of evil. I said it was a word to frighten children. I reminded him of the words spoken by his illustrious forebearer, King Argan Hull: True evil is allowing the weak-minded to run the world; to allow millions of brave young warriors to be slaughtered in the name of empty ideals. The world is a charnel house and only the strong deserve to lead, to survive, to restore order. Others have tried. They all sought to eradicate the illness that continues to cripple humanity. Your notions of liberty and freedom have only perpetuated the old sickness—coddled it, protected it, nurtured it. I seek to obliterate them forever.
Now you want this conflict ended. Now you want to show the greatest of weaknesses to the Aseti. You would destroy us all.
Anar?
No, not even then...
He feels her presence like icy smoke; a curious mixture of anticipation and sorrow follows as she draws near.
He speaks without turning, thoughts energized by the maelstrom beyond. “This coast…this barren isle...racked by storms, surrounded by deadly currents, haunted by the souls of murderers and thieves. Parathia. The Kingdom of the Drowning Sun, indeed. Now a dagger poised at the throat of my greatest enemy. And not even he can touch me here. How ironic. The laws we seek to destroy now protect us.”
Flashes of lightning invoke her emerging reflection--stark beauty as pale as moonlight; eyes empty as death. What cruel beauty this...by whom the greatest military clan of the Empire is championed.
“My Lord Divinity,” Alastia says softly. “What kind of man is Emperor Hark--?”
He silences her. Fury rising, barely contained: “I will not have that name spoken here!”
Nemesis...
A momentary lapse. Calmly now: “He and every other Machan Emperor considers themselves gods--a concept we have always rejected, and which led to our Order's ancient exile.
He senses her fear and confusion. He laughs, mirthless and funereal.
“My Divinity?”
He reaches out to her bone-white hair—his fingers brush pass as if through frigid water. “The Emperor is cursed with the ideals of an old god.” He nods slowly. “Yes, I make war on a god. A false god. We stand again on sacred ground, girded for combat, but this time I shall be armed with a power beyond even the gods. This time I shall not be defeated. Is this not a battle worth fighting? Worth winning?”
Alastia, Champion-General of the Clan Kardonas shudders at his touch, his words. “How can you defeat even a false god? This weapon...can it be so?”
He turns to the window. “The people, the peasant and peasant-minded who believe...without him, these mewling masses, the weak, the so-called guardians of freedom, are nothing. He will be in Phyrras for the last great battle, and there he will be lost. The weapon we have is greater than any power known to history. His fate and the fate of the world is in our hands.”
“This is your destiny?”
“Yes.” High Lord of the Ordilum Sacrantas answers, his gloved hands becoming fists. “Our destiny, Champion-General. The Empire will see a new sun dawning; a sun which will burn away the corruption that has rotted the land, which has threatened to bargain away our sacred heritage to the Aseti. Yes, our destiny is...
to kill a god.”
