Chapter 16 It’s Raining Gods
It’s Raining Gods
The couple swayed close together, arms encircled, lost in one another.
Birds called out to each other in the trees surrounding them.
A light wind blew over the spectacular alpine vista littered with the remnants of the fierce battle.
Idan kissed Sheba’s forehead. ‘Sante, salkia. You saved my freakin’ immortal skin.’
She laughed, stroking his jaw. ‘I couldn’t let him take you from me.’
‘I’m grateful for your fierceness, my love.’
He was about to claim her mouth once more when the ground reverberated beneath the pair as a rhythmic tremor surged from the gut of the mining pit.
‘What now?’ Sheba whispered, her voice lost in the groan of shifting tectonic plates. ‘Three times is too much.’
Idan, cursed long and hard as he encircled her waist and shielded her frame with his own.
Milliseconds later, the quarry spewed a pillar of amethyst flame into the heavens.
The incandescent fire vaporized the remains of the massive excavating drill, turning the sky into a bruised expanse of radiating energy.
From the blazing column of radiance, a silhouette ascended on a surge of shimmering heat.
Launching high above the couple, it drifted back to the surface with terrifying grace, landing a few meters in front of them.
‘The fokk?’ Sheba gasped, her fingers digging into Idan’s arm.
A wash of pure horror surged in her throat as a tall, thin, luminous form appeared, composed of gold and obsidian.
Constellations, some fading and some fresh, traced his skin like scars, all of them ancient and archaic.
A crown of thinning comet-fire hair clung with stubbornness to his skull, and behind his gaunt, sagging cheeks, his eyes flamed with the light of collapsing stars.
Still, Sheba sensed that the being before them was ailing.
His dermis leaked starlight and motes of aurum, as if he were excoriating one molecule at a time.
The entity brought his hands together in a series of slow, mocking claps that echoed across the valley like gunshots, his eyes blazing.
‘Well done, good and faithful son. Tis a pleasure to make your acquaintance again and to witness the extent of your power when motivated to save that which you treasure the most.’
His lips, dry and cracked, scarcely parted when he spoke, yet each word caused the earth around them to shake.
Sheba jolted. ‘What’s he talking about? He’s your dad?’
Idan took a deep inhale. ‘He speaks the truth, salkia, but let me get rid of him first before I offer my full explanation.’
A surge of indignation hit Sheba, and she gave her man a shake of her head and a pursing of her mouth. ‘You do that.’
Idan jerked his chin toward her, then, keeping her safe behind him, he turned to address the newcomer in a growl of raw disdain.
‘Behold Sulfiqar,’ he grated, his eyes burning with a cold, internal light. ‘Void-bringer, Unmaker, feckless monster, heartless parasite with a heart of terminal mass in a last burst of extinction.’
The entity smiled, his dried, scaly maw pulling back from rotting gums and stained teeth, in a state of decay and entropy.
‘Always so theatrical, my son. I’ve eons left before I get snuffed out,’ the being scoffed, his utterance a thunderous rumble that was a whisper at the same time. ‘I hold on to my immortality with a vengeance, even though some would like to rip it from me.’
The quiddity turned to a shocked Sheba and gave her a dramatic bow.
‘My dear, a pleasure to finally meet you. My name is Sulfiqar, King of the Seven Heavens. The majestic storm god, sovereign ruler of the Divine Immortal. Also, the celestial being who once commanded the greatest Empyrean empire and dictated the tides of war and peace across Sacra. Moreover, the architect of your lover’s lineage. ’
‘What the fokk do you want?’ Idan growled.
‘To let you know that you passed the test, scion of mine,’ the Sacran Patriarch announced, his voice a tidal wave of resonance that echoed through the glade.
‘I designated Tiberius and Ty Si’Rhix as baits to assess your skill set.
By defeating them, you proved that you possess the grit to serve me once again and the cold-bloodedness required for the sacred skirmish ahead. ’
‘So you mean to say the slaughter at the clinic, the pursuit, the mountain sanctuary, all of it was a crucible? One designed to test my preparedness for a bloody crusade to reclaim the Highest Heaven on Sacra?’ Idan murmured, his spine braced, his sigils pulsing with rage.
‘Naam, and you surpassed my expectations. Your woman, however, was a gift. I wanted you to have someone you cared enough for to fight for. You will torch down the Seventh Elysium to keep her alive, nada?’
Idan snarled at his father, almost lunging at him.
‘My experiment worked,’ Sulfiqar chuckled with maniacal glee.
‘I cast her down, caused her to crash, all so you would save her and fall in love with her. She now gives your life purpose; you have her now to fight for. You WILL wage war for me if she is to live. Find your brother, Molan,’ Sulfiqar commanded, his gaze ignoring Sheba as if she were a mere speck of carbon.
‘The two of you will stand as the vanguard of my return to the highest heaven. Join the crusade, or witness your lovers and family, as well as the galaxy, burn in the wake of my aspiration.’
‘I’m not your weapon, nor your mercenary,’ Idan rasped in defiance. ‘I once bent the knee before you, carrying out venal missions for you and the Sacran guard. I sacrificed years of pain and agony to help you meet your ambition, but no more. I’m done.’
He stepped in front of Sheba, his body a shield of bristling power and flaming sigils against the overwhelming magnitude of his father’s ambition.
‘Now, get the fokk out of here.’
‘Nada, I will not, not until your acquiescence. Perhaps an injury to your woman will motivate you.’
Sulfiqar’s expression hardened into a mask of celestial cold rage.
He raised a hand, the air around him coiling into a necromantic storm of epic proportions.
The sky darkened as wind, clouds, and a storming energy whipped up, preparing to crush Tansinia with the savagery of a god’s tantrum.
As he raised his hand to fling his fury about, Sulfiqar paused, his head jerking to the side as a new, high-frequency noise pierced the atmosphere.
A pitched roar cut through the bellow of the gathering tempest.
Sheba’s wrist comm burst into life, the display projecting a pulsing, rotating sigil with a distinct Riders’ ID.
‘It’s Ki’Remi,’ Sheba gasped as the signal flared with a blinding intensity.
A message pulsed through Sheba’s neural node.
I sense you might be in a spot of bother, my friend, Ki’Remi’s sub vox rumbled in her mind.
Sheba almost jumped for joy.
We are! Hurry, Remi, we need a fokkin’ ride out of here, Sheba pleaded.
We? came the amused murmur in her inner ear. I’ve got eyes on the other half of this ‘we’, and I understand why you want to run away with him.
Remi, hell, not now with the teasing! Will you freakin’ get us far from this monstrous Sacran megalomaniac?
Sulfiqar, ay? Is he back playing his wretched games on our mortal plain? Damn, it’ll be my pleasure to exfil you, if only to witness the rage on his blasted face.
The clouds above shattered as Ki’Remi’s corvette descended from the upper atmosphere.
The ship arrived as a sliver of blinding white radiance, deploying a liminal shield that acted as a momentary barrier against Sulfiqar’s dark energy.
A spatial vortex folded open over the clearing, a shimmering rift that promised a path through the celestial disturbance.
As Sulfiqar’s growls of protest and a tantrum storm rained hell on the landscape, Sheba turned to Idan and gripped his hand.
‘We’re leaving, Idan. Move!’
The long-haired deity hesitated, his eyes fixed on the horizon, towards the cliffs.
The farm, my flock.
‘We can return to it later! We’ll secure it when it’s safe!’ Sheba yelled over the roar of the vessel’s thrusters.
With a scowl and a curse, Idan gave in.
He seized Sheba and drew her to his chest, his grip a solid anchor in the chaos as he glimmered them into the rift.
The maelstrom lunged them into the ship’s hold just as Ki’Remi’s corvette banked into a steep, gravity-defying ascent.
In their wake, Sulfiqar’s guttural bellow of fury shook the foundation of the mountain, his subvocal scream echoing in their mind.
You can run, but you can’t hide. I will find you and your brother, and you WILL help me retake my throne!
The vortex snapped shut, leaving the frozen peaks and the burning god behind as the sleek craft vanished into the silent, star-streaked sanctuary of the skies.
The spatial rift collapsed with a pressurized thud, dumping Sheba and Idan onto the deck plating of the hunter-class corvette.
The sudden shift from the mountain’s freezing bite to the ship’s recycled, climate-controlled warmth forced the air from Sheba’s lungs in a gasp as she fell.
Idan caught her before her knees hit the metal, hauling her flush against his chest.
He took the brunt of the fall, slumping on the alloy-lined surface; his arm tightened around her waist.
Moments later, they scrambled to their feet, taking in their new surroundings with a touch of disbelief.
The ship was a masterclass in stealth engineering, with matte carbon bulkheads and glowing holo displays swathed in violet light.
A gold-emblazoned marquee on the wall declared the name of the craft: The Alatyr.
Beneath their boots, the floor thrummed with the pulse of the fusion reactor, marking their explosive speed through space.
A man with skin the color of obsidian, stunning features, and locks trailing to his waist stepped down a set of stairs onto the decking level above them.
With a nonchalant grin, he leaned over the railing, gazing down at the couple.
‘Welcome on board, my friends,’ Ki’Remi Sable rasped, the gravel of his timbre filling the bay. ‘We’re on a vector to Eden II. Anyone object?’
Sheba glanced at Idan, who gave her a shrug.
Wherever you think best, he growled into her mind.