150. Inferno

  Faster than a Rakshasa could say ‘funky business’, the pillars of fire spread and joined each other, engulfing the rotunda in a black-green conflagration.

  Serac stopped in her tracks, reeling under the sudden heat and oppression in the air. Even so, her first thought went to those powerless to protect themselves.

  “The Tamped souls!”

  It was too late. Even if not, the Wayfarers couldn’t have done much to intervene. They watched from the central branch as the floor below turned into a burning ‘Netherpool’, the Tamped cubes now swaying amidst waves of black and green.

  Said waves proved to be the impetus to counteract Tyr’s magic. The souls in question Untamped en masse, filling the burning sea with their various shapes. Some were Calmspawns. Many more were Yakshas, both Anchored and Wayfaring. Yet all were kindling for flames summoned from the depths of hell.

  Serac watched in abject horror as a room full of hapless souls perished in the most painful manner imaginable. Except they didn’t die. Which, if anything, made for an even more horrifying sight.

  The souls remained in place, swaying with the fiery waves even as their bodies joined the hellish pyre. The fire didn’t so much consume the living souls as feed on them at a steady rate. For as long as these souls lived in burning agony, the fire could rage on indefinitely.

  But Serac hadn’t been wrong about the pain. It took no time for an auditory component to further warp the hellscape. A deafening chorus of cries, screams, and lamentations filled and imbued the air with fear and longing.

  Serac fell to her knees, all but Poise-broken. She shut her eyes tight and covered her ears. It didn’t help. The chorus penetrated any barrier a born Penitent could hope to put up, as it burrowed its way deep into her soul. Into her memories. These memories belonged not to some phantom of a previous life; they were her own, forged and ingrained by the Furnaces of hell.

  I can’t! She shouted desperately in her mind, louder even than the chorus all around her. I can’t let them win. I’ve already ascended from hell, haven’t I? What’s to stop me from rising above my memories of it, too?

  Slowly, she recovered herself—unclamping her ears, reopening her eyes, and getting back to her feet. Behind her, the hellscape raged on, unchanged. But with her newfound clarity, Serac managed to see it from a different angle:

  [IMMOLATION—AVICI]

  The Pathsighted terms were unfamiliar to Serac, but somehow, she knew exactly what—or who—they portended. Sure enough…

  Another palpable surge of heat and oppression, as a veritable tidal wave rolled through the sea of fire. The wave—a parasitic ‘harvest’ from the burning souls—sent fresh sparks of black and green into the heat-distorted air. The sparks then combined again, taking on the distinct shape and physical solidity of:

  [Designation: RATHOR TYRSEN—The Eternal Furnace]

  [Aberrant Race: Yaksha-Rakshasa (Mixed)]

  [Aberrant Class: Realm Immortal]

  [INFERNAL-ZEALOUS Instrument: GUNGNIR]

  A pair of onyx horns tempered by hellfire. Ash-gray mane billowing with the embers. Vermilion skin and birth marks of polished basalt, all glistening in the light of their own flames. Here was Rathor Tyrsen in his basest, purest, and most primal form. A secondary transmutation—from Wayfarer to Immortal.

  Just what had happened to this Realm in the short time Serac had spent in solitary confinement? A nigh 400-year-long reign had come to an end, only to be passed down to a blood descendant within a matter of hours! And what of the conniving Queen Loha? She of the chemically induced ‘immortality’ who’d been snubbed twice—once in favor of her husband and now her son…

  Serac met the news with unexpected calm. The warning signs had been there from the start, ever since she’d locked eyes with Pretjord’s half-blood prince. Her fight-or-flight response had perhaps originated from impurity of thought, but now, her instincts and desires couldn’t be purer.

  She wanted to fight Rathor Tyrsen and win. To stop him? To punish him? Yes to all such politics and feelings but most of all to humble him.

  “You think you’re all that, don’t you?”

  Serac’s lungs burned with every breath. She barely heard her own taunt over the din of burning souls. But she couldn’t help herself. This was just who she was.

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  “You think you’re hot shit just because you happen to carry a bit of hell in your blood. But that skin of yours has never felt fire so hot it burns your soul. Those horns have never borne the weight of sins immeasurable yet unknowable. This thing you call a ‘Furnace’ is phony and fake—just like your smile!”

  The accusations only made Rathor smile ever more brightly. The Immortal prince and his fiery smile hovered in the air, held afloat by the heat of his own magic. Then with a regal, languid motion, he raised GUNGNIR—a fishing trident now bejeweled by roiling balls of fire—and pointed its barbed ends straight into Serac’s face.

  “Well, let me tell you something,” Serac continued, undeterred and against her better judgment. Later, she might realize how foolish she was to confront an Immortal without her weapon. But in the moment, she had fire of her own to spit out of her chest. “I know what it really means to burn in hell. Because I’ve lived it. Because I’ve conquered hell itself to get to where I am now. As for you, you were always banging on about learning from your fellow Wayfarers, weren’t you? Well, today’s your lucky day… because I happen to be in a teaching mood!”

  Rathor threw his head back and laughed, hearty and musical. As he did, more flames flared out all around—a sun exhaling its corona. Not the kind of attitude Serac tolerated in her students, and she was keen to correct it. Assuming, of course, she could survive long enough to retrieve REVOLVER!

  But before Serac could rally her troops and call a much-needed audible, Rathor made the first move. A freshly anointed Immortal though he was, he yet retained captaincy over the Kronvakt. He now invoked that authority, amplified by the uncanny charisma of an infernal demon.

  [IMMOLATION—SANJIVA]

  Rathor’s corona, hitherto turbulent and untamed, organized itself into two distinct spheres. The balls of fire peeled away from the main body to then shoot toward the sea of flames below. There, they each found a burning, screaming soul to latch onto.

  The choice had been anything but random. The spheres rose again, each soul secure within their grasp. They rapidly took on shapes Serac knew well, becoming ever more solid as a burst of healing magic washed over them.

  [385!], [331!], [350!] -> [1,066!]

  [364!], [376!], [361!], [336!] -> [1,437!]

  One sphere held the svelte yet imposing figure of a manta-ray woman. The other the muscular hulk of a barracuda man. Hilde Vindsdatter and Skjal Sorensen—Kronvakt team leaders both, and perhaps the two most loyal members of Rathor’s inner circle.

  Here again, Serac had to reckon with the limitations of a Wayfarer missing her Instrument. She wanted desperately to interrupt Rathor’s bizarre ritual, perhaps by sending a few bullets into its midst. Instead, she and her companions could only watch helplessly as the Immortal prince summoned his mightiest minions.

  “Come down here and fight your own battles, you coward!”

  By then, even Serac’s insults had lost their bite. Rathor acknowledged her latest attempt with a smile of blithe amusement, then disappeared.

  [TRUEFLIGHT—KALASUTRA]

  More accurately, he sublimated—solid into fire. The sun along with its corona broke off into a thousand separate embers, only to rejoin the raging pillars that lined and framed the rotunda. Next, each of the pillars swelled and shrank in turn as the essence of their master passed through them like Waystations along a flame-borne journey.

  Serac spun in place, tracking Rathor’s ‘progress’. The prince very quickly bypassed the trio of Team Serac, before continuing his climb up the central branch—and onto the throne hall, which now rightfully belonged to him and him alone.

  What could Serac do but go after him? She took off, pushing up the steeply rising branch on solid legs that felt woefully inadequate for the task. As soon as she did, her two companions turned to follow suit.

  But the trio didn’t make it very far. For Hilde and Skjal, fully healed and imbued with sacred purpose, burst out of their [Sanjiva] bubbles and landed on the same footpath. The barracuda struck first: a buckler-forward tackle to knock a frog woman off her feet and off the branch entirely!

  “Renna!”

  Skjal wasn’t done. He turned sharply from the point of impact, this time aiming his tackle at a Manusya pugilist. He and Zacko clashed, buckler against [Pauldron], right at the edge of the branch. The latter, even with the benefit of prior warning, held his ground for but a brief moment. The beefy barracuda had enough mass and momentum behind him to overpower even a NINEFOLD master in a contest of brawn.

  Just like that, Zacko too fell off the ledge, but not before dragging Skjal with him by the collar of his tunic. Serac’s instinct was to go after her friends… but which one? They’d been pushed off in two opposite directions, Renna to the left and Zacko to the right.

  The moment of hesitation gave the second enemy the opportunity to make her move. Hilde spread her pectoral fins wide and took off, not up the slope of the branch like some landbound animal, but into the air like the graceful acrobat she was.

  Hilde’s ‘flight’, as plain as it was in comparison to her prince, nevertheless allowed her to overtake Serac. She shot toward the apex of the branch, stirring up violent gusts of wind in her wake. The wind rose up on either side of the branch, rending air and fire alike. As a result, two continuous walls of fire joined floor to ceiling, cutting Serac off from both Zacko and Renna. Welp, at least I don’t have to choose anymore!

  And even as Serac squared up to face her manta-ray saboteur, she understood the ‘Path’ that had been laid before her and her trusted friends. Three Wayfarers, each with a direct opponent to test their mettle. Their commitment and ability to see their coup to the end.

  Serac vs Hilde. Zacko vs Skjal. And Renna too had her own score to settle, one at least a decade—or perhaps a whole lifetime—in the making.

  No weapon. No allies. And a whole Realm on fire besides. Yet, even with the odds ludicrously stacked against her, Serac Edin found herself grinning with boundless excitement.

  She couldn’t help herself. This was just who she was.

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