Hubris - 40. A Leap of Faith

Crowe watched the practitioners file out of the room. Their collective silence reflected the flutter of anxiety in his chest. Everything was happening too fast. Faster than what he could keep up with. We've come all this way for help, for answers, and I feel more lost than the day I buried Petras.

“You and Barghast must come from me.” Wrinkles of panic etched brackets of worry around Maeve's mouth.

Barghast paced back and forth. Already his rifle was in hand. He stopped in front of the window and looked out the window. More reptilian shrieks sounded from the ghostly streets below.

“I can help.” Crowe pulled out his rod.

“You will only get Barghast and yourself killed if you tried. This is our fight not yours.”

The herald gnashed his teeth together in frustration. “I'm getting real tired of everyone telling me how to do my job. I'm done running. I'm done hiding. Barghast and I are going to help whether you like it or not. Let's go, Barghast.”

“Twin o’rre!” the lycan growled. He followed Crowe out into the corridor.

Crowe and Barghast followed the thunder of footsteps down the staircase. Despite the chill in the tower, the herald’s blood boiled with excitement. The clack of heels at his back made him pause at the bottom of the staircase. Maeve was right behind them. She carried her staff with her. “Not going to try and change my mind?”

“I know better than to waste my breath. If you're anything like Petras, there's nothing I can say that will change your mind.”

“Stop comparing me to Petras!” No sooner had the words left his mouth, the floor trembled beneath his feet. Shouts, shrieks, and detonations sounded from the street. The herald staggered into the night with Barghast and Maeve on his heels.

Streaks of fire and blue light shot through the air, throwing the reptilian shapes of the reavers into illumination. Crowe watched one burst apart in an explosion of green ichor. Half a dozen more crawled over its ruined carcass, hissing and spitting. The sorcerer squinted. Am I seeing what I think I’m seeing? The shape of the creatures was different from what he’d seen before. Spines of bone that ended in sharp tips trailed the lengths of their back. Was it just the trick of the gloom or did their scales look black when before they had been pale. An all too familiar dread pulled at his mind.

The practitioners who had sat around the table now formed a line in front of the spire. Their arms spun and weaved, their curses steaming the air. Each time fire struck the ground, the stone beneath Crowe’s feet shifted. The battle drew him forward.

An older practitioner surprised the herald by stepping back to give Crowe and Barghast space at the front of the line. The man's eyes twinkled with genuine warmth. “We have waited so long for you, herald. We will fight for you. We will die for you.”

There was no time to respond. The reavers were spilling over each other in greater volumes than Crowe had yet to see. When a dozen crumbled away under the onslaught of mana, a dozen more advanced forward to take their place. Already one leapt through the air, talons catching the moonlight.

Pushing his will into his rod, Crowe slashed the air. Monad’s fire burst from the tip, suffusing the street in white light as it whistled towards its target. Like a flare striking oil, the reaver was engulfed in fire. Foul-smelling excrement pelted the combatants below, catching on the shoulders of their robes and in their hair. Crowe twisted his head to shake the filth out of his eyes.

Barghast shouted something in Okanavian, pumping a clenched fist in the air. The rifle swung around to bear on a target closing in on the line. The rifle bucked. The reaver’s limbs went limp in death. It slammed into the ground, sliding across the ice. It stopped a foot away from where the barbarian stood. Up close Crowe could see that the body of the creature had indeed been altered, its skins blackened by the corruption of Inferno. A familiar growl pulled the practitioner’s eyes to the lycan. They exchanged uneasy looks.

“What is your name?” Crowe asked the sorcerer who had said he would give up his life for the herald. They fought beside each other, dancing and pivoting, weaving back and forth as the endless assault continued.

“Maximus. It is an honor to fight at your side.”

The reverence in the man’s voice sent waves of uneasiness through the practitioner. We've never met before. He doesn't know me. Why would he want to give his life for me?

Crowe gulped. I need to stay focused! He pointed to the nearest dead creature. Maximus’ eyes flicked quickly away from the empty space where his first two fingers had been. “These creatures are different. They’ve been altered. I’ve seen this before in a place called Timberford. And once before that.”

Maximus swung his staff, before slamming the end into the ground before his feet. Twin balls of crackling blue light burst from the top end. After a moment he peered at the dead creature the younger practitioner had referred to. “Aye,” he agreed. “This is Hamon’s doing. He’s corrupted them to do his bidding. He’s bound them to him by feeding them the black filth in his veins.”

A scream sounded somewhere to his right. One of the fighters was being hauled back by a reaver, her leg gripped in its muzzle. Her screams were shrill and sent slivers of ice down the sorcerer’s spine. Hands reached for her, but she was already being dragged back into the hoard, leaving a streak of blood in the snow behind her. Someone cried out after her, but the sound of her name was lost in the cacophony.

The battle continued. The bodies of dead reavers filled the street, forming a barricade. It did not slow down the hoard.

Maeve appeared at Crowe’s side, her hair damp with sweat. Gone was the wry sense of humor, replaced by a grimness that made the herald stop to give her his full attention. A glance to the left showed that their numbers were dwindling. Where a line had been formed out of a dozen practitioners he now counted only eight, excluding himself. “We cannot remain here,” she panted. “We must back away into the building. There’s too many of them.”

The herald searched the gloom for a smaller shape with misshapen limbs. “Where is he? If it’s me he wants, why hasn’t he appeared yet?”

“Hamon is devious. This tactic is just like him: draw everyone’s eyes to the front and dwindle their numbers while he sneaks around from the side. That is why we must go inside and barricade the door. It’s time we play our last hand.”

The practitioner’s heart plummeted. “I’ve doomed us, haven’t I?”

Maeve’s frown softened. “We’ve always known we were doomed long before you came here and still we fight. We will die so that you can live. That is the way things must be if we are to change them.” She lifted her head towards the sky. “Fall back!” she bellowed, cupping her hands around her mouth. “Everyone fall back!”

The remaining practitioners started to back towards the tower. Crowe turned to follow only to feel someone slam into him from behind. He fell forward, scraping his palms on the steps. A second later, Barghast hauled him to his feet, steering him towards the entrance as a new wave of reavers flooded over the barricade made of their father brethren. Just when it seemed they would make it through the door, Barghast yipped, “Twin o’rre!”

The sound stabbed into Crowe’s heart like a dagger. His head twisted around so fast his neck popped.

A reaver had Barghast by the back of a leg and was dragging him back down the steps. Down into the growing hoard.

Images passed fleetingly through Crowe’s mind in rapid succession. That brief glimpse of the woman’s hand disappearing into the reaver’s hoard, as Barghast’s paw was doing right now…reaching and then gone; that brief moment of quiet when they’d been in the water with the bear right before Barghast fell over the side of the waterfall. That terrible moment when the practitioner thought he would die alone; the terror at the thought of losing the Okanavian now. It echoed inside him now and exited out of his mouth in a scream of defiance. His eyes blazed white with fury and fear. “No!” he shouted. Sparks shot from the end of his rod.

An Inferno-corrupted reaver scuttled towards him, insect legs a blur, spines glinting in the moonlight. Its mouth snapped open and closed as it loomed closer. Crowe slashed the air with his wand. An invisible blade dropped down from the sky like a guillotine; it sliced through the creature, bisecting it in half.

The practitioner charged down the steps, slicing his way through the hoard. Flames shot out of him, turning scaly flesh into charred meat. One dead reaver became two dead reavers. Three became four until he lost count. It seemed black ichor sprayed him from every direction. It was impossible to breathe. With every second he felt his heart would combust. No, no, no…this is not how things are meant to happen!

He found Barghast at the center of a standoff. Even while surrounded by a half a dozen reavers, the Okanavian was like a mountain. Several slashes marked his back and shoulders…a set of new scars to add to the museum he’d acquired…but he was very much still alive. He stood at his full height, his claws unfurled. His teeth flashed like steel needles. Spittle frothed at his lips. Tectonic muscle and vein stood out against dark gray fur that stood on end.

“Barghast!” Crowe shouted.

He blasted one apart with his rage. He dodged the claws of another and turned it into smoking slag.

The barbarian’s claws sliced through the air, parting scaly flesh, spilling out blackened intestines that had begun to fuse together.

They fought their way to each other until they met in the middle of the street. There was no time to rejoice in their reunification. Already the gap they’d opened for themselves was closing, reavers pouring in from every side. Barghast lifted Crowe in his arms, securing him to his chest. He lunged over the ice and snow, leaping up the steps four at a time. Crowe clung to him, an arm hooked around his shoulders. In the twisting, writhing hoard of reavers that teemed between the rotting spires, a single slim figure strolled between them, grinning at them with a cruel stitch of a mouth.

As soon as Crowe and Barghast were through the door, a wall of shimmering white mana appeared over the door. The creatures at the front of the line drew away with hostile hisses before they could collide with it. Crowe went to his lycan companion. “Are you okay?” He spun circles around Barghast. The sight of the wounds made the inside of his mouth go numb with fear. “Please, somebody…I need bandages.” He searched the unfamiliars faces for Maeve.

The lycan’s paws fell on his shoulders, pulling him around to face him. Warm lips engulfed his. All too soon he pulled back; his eyes were round orbs of concerns that pulled the practitioner into their depths “I…safe. You…safe?” His other paw rested against the practitioner’s lower back. He pressed his snout to Crowe’s forehead and sniffed several times. “Safe,” he confirmed with a satisfied nod.

A wave of disquiet stilled the chaos around them. Barghast growled, pulling Crowe tighter against him. Every pale grim-eyed face in the room was focused on the front of the tower. The reavers had fallen back. Hamon’s twisted face grinned at them through the barricade. The air inside the spire crackled with the sorcerers’ mingled effort to keep the shield in place. Hamon pressed a rotting finger to the dancing wall. “This will only hold me back for so long,” he said in a voice that sounded like dead leaves scraping against stone. His flesh sizzled and smoked on contact, but he did not pull back. “You only delay the inevitable. I will take great joy in making each and every one of you suffer.”

Maeve pulled urgently at the sleeve of Crowe’s robes. “You and Barghast must come with me. There is something else you must see. If you don’t, you will die and if you die everything we have sacrificed will be in vain.”

Crowe waved at Barghast to follow them. “Lead the way.”

“Matthias!”

The man stepped out of his hiding place behind a winged statue. “Demoness?”

“Your moment is here. Are you sober enough to do what needs to be done?”

The man paled, flicking a nervous glance in the herald’s direction. “I suppose I don’t have much of a choice.”

Crowe looked to the seven remaining sorcerers who stood in a half circle before the entrance. Every bit of their focus was put into maintaining the barrier. Hamon slammed his fist into it, The shield shuddered as if it were made of solid matter. Cracks crawled up the sides of the wall, splitting stone. It seemed wrong to leave them to fight his battle…to die for his cause. His feet moved of their own accord, moving along a path that had been set for him long before this moment. Matthias stumbled ahead of him, huffing and puffing. The practitioner caught the occasional curse beneath his high-pitched wheezing.

                                                                …

The sounds of battle followed them up winding staircase after winding staircase. The air crackled and popped. A window exploded just as Crowe passed it. Shards of glass caught in his hair. Maeve did not stop to make sure he and Barghast followed. She was a woman intent on reaching her destination. One flight of stairs became two. Two became three. By the time they reached the last landing and the demoness came to a door, the practitioner thought he would collapse from exhaustion.

“The hardest part is yet ahead,” the fox-eyed woman told him.

“You really know how to offer one words of encouragement,” the herald muttered dryly. He straightened to his full height.

Matthias grunted under something under his breath. “Didn’t you just say we don’t have all day?” He shoved past Crowe, bustling into the room like a temperamental rooster.

Crowe stepped into the room after him. His eyes rose to the ceiling. His jaw dropped. He simply had no words to describe what he saw. Black cables with steel casings trailed from a large oculus in the ceiling; they traveled down the wall like reaching tendrils, leading down to a metal table set in the center of the room. Four poles stood at each corner of the table with a round glass globe at the top with twin prongs inside. What he found himself looking at resembled the surgery room of a doctor.

“What is this?” The practitioner felt everything inside of him go rigid. The last time he’d been strapped to a table like this was all too fresh in his mind. The empty spaces where his first two fingers used to be burned.

“My invention,” Matthias said. The unmistakable pride in his voice echoed around the room as he shuffled to the front of the table. “I finished it just before I got here.”

Crowe looked to Maeve for an explanation.

“All of Monad’s people - each and every practitioner - carries a spark of Monad’s flame,” she told him as if this was the answer she’d recited many times over for this very occasion. “It is the source from which we draw our power. You already know this.”

“Go on.”

“Events are taking place in this Iteration earlier than they did in the last Iteration. You are here when you should not yet be.”

“Why?”

The demoness shook her head. “That is not for us to answer.”

Crowe ground his teeth. “Who can?”

“Petras would have been able to.”

The herald scoffed. “Petras is dead.”

“Then I suppose you will have to take another leap of faith.”

“And what does that entail exactly? What is it you’re asking me to do?”

“While every practitioner contains a spark of Monad’s flame within them you store within you the biggest ember of all. But it is premature. Underdeveloped. If you are to survive this night we must give it strength from the source.”

With each question he asked only more confusion awaited him. “The source?”

It was not Maeve who answered but Matthias. “Metropolis - your beloved Eternal City. These wires channel the energy - the same energy a practitioner expels when they use their mana - from the city itself. Into you. It will give you a boost. The currents would travel through this…” The portly man held up a heavy round device that resembled a helmet. Nuts and bolts had been screwed into the top. A tangle of wires fed into the back. More bolts at the side of the device gave it a most ominous appearance.

“So you mean to stick that on my head?”

“There’s more to it than that.” Matthias’ face reddened. “It doesn’t just stick on your head. These two needles - ” he pointed two needlike prongs the sorcerer didn’t like the look of one bit - “go into your temple, straight into the brain, where we believe the source of Monad’s power resides.”

“You believe.” Crowe arched an eyebrow. “So you’re not certain?”

Matthias shot Maeve a frightened look. Whatever guidance he sought from her, it seemed she did not have to give; her intent was focused solely on the herald. “We’ve run tests in the past and were successful. But there are still risks.”

A heavy silence filled the room. Crowe could feel Barghast watching them from the corner of the room; each confused flick of his tail reflected the growing confusion mounting inside the practitioner. Maeve and Matthias both looked away when he tried to meet their gaze. “There’s something else you aren’t telling me, isn’t there?” he demanded in a sharper tone than he’d meant to; a tone that sounded strangely reminiscent of Petras’. He clamped his jaw shut hard enough to hear it clack. “As you said, we don’t have a lot of time, so you might as well just come out and say it…”

Maeve’s lip trembled. She glanced at the lycan quickly before returning her gaze to the practitioner. “The process could kill you. It could do irreparable damage to your brain. What we’re doing isn’t natural.”

“So I only have two options. If I go through with the surgery there is a very real chance I could die. But if I don’t, there is a definite chance we will die…is that what you’re telling me?”

“Yes,” Maeve and Matthias said in unison.

Crowe sucked in a deep breath. A leap of faith, is it? A leap of faith it is then. You’ve yet to lead me wrong, Monad. He kissed the necklace at his throat. “Alright, let’s do this. What do I do?”

Matthias patted the table. “Lay up here.”

Crowe brushed past Maeve. He climbed up the three metal steps to the table.

“Twin o’rre!” Barghast took a startled step towards the table.

The practitioner held up a hand, stopping him. The shadow of the helmet fell across his face. Already Matthias was lowering it to fit the crude device over his head. “It’s going to be okay, Barghast.” He wanted to look at the barbarian, anything to comfort him, but in order to do so he would have had to move his head. “Monad is with me still. Maeve, he has no idea what’s going on. He’s frightened. Talk to him, damn you. I know you can speak in Okanavian.”

He listened to the soothing murmur of her voice as Matthias fitted the helmet over his head. He had a perfect view of the night sky through the hole in the ceiling.

“You’re not going to like this…” Matthias said apologetically. “The needles have to go directly through your temples into your brain. It will help like a bitch and I don’t have the time or the supply to give you anything for it.”

“Just do it.” The practitioner injected more courage into his voice than he felt. “Whatever pain it takes, I can take it…”