Heraldin turned. Gorm’s crazed grin was fading, and a shadow of fear fell over his features as the guttural laughter echoed through the chamber. Gaist backed away from the king’s body. Johan still wore an expression of final shock, his eyes vacant and glassy, his mouth slack and dead. Yet he was laughing, or at least something was laughing through him. The king’s skin spasmed and twitched with each stomach-turning guffaw. His body began to shake and distend, and the fluid seeping from his fatal wound was now a black, shimmering tar.
“What’s happening?” Heraldin asked, taking a step away from Johan. All five heroes shuffled toward the edges of the room, their eyes locked on the king’s convulsing corpse. The tremors stopped suddenly, leaving the body still for a pregnant pause.
Heraldin shuddered. “What—”
Johan burst like a lanced boil, sending spirals of black fluid curling toward the ceiling. Tendrils of spraying ooze became vines of black thorns that lashed the floor and gripped the ceiling. An impossible fountain of mucilaginous darkness erupted from the empty armor, running in an oily mess in some places, firming into coal-black chunks in others, growing to fill the room. A leering face emerged from the torrent, as though a skull was pushing through a curtain of oil, but even as it grinned down at the party a pair of jaws took shape around it, and it was swallowed by a visage even more hideous. Other faces were taking shape, bubbling to the surface of the muck like gray meat from a black stew. Some were Human, some animal, all laughing even as they bit and tore and swallowed one another.
The bard choked on his own rising bile. “W-what—what is—?”
“Keep it together,” snarled Laruna. She squared her shoulders and ignited her fists as she stared. “The bastard’s true-forming.”
“I can see that,” said Heraldin. “But into what? A shadow beast? A greater demon? How bad is this?”
“As bad as it could possibly be,” said Jynn.
“All is lost,” Kaitha sobbed, staring at the bloodred walls. “It’s all lost.”
There were few figures left on the wall now. The War of Betrayal was nearing its grim end, with all armies shattered and civilization nearing the brink of collapse. The lights that formed the watery people on the walls faded as their bodies fell; the darkness closed in, running down the walls in a malevolent tide. She could feel the void’s smugness, she could see how it advanced and slaked its foul thirst on the blood shed as the people of Arth slaughtered each other.
Beneath the creeping evil, Kaitha saw the siege of Andarun cast in the dying light of its fallen defenders and citizens. The remnants of Issan’s armies were at the gates of the Palace of Andarun. Beneath the mountain, Stennish magic users carved stones and painted murals with the frenetic energy that more sensible defenders might have used to erect barricades. Outside the gates, a crew of Stennish priests carved a statue with similar determination. They finished the sculpture just as Issan’s forces cut them down as they marched toward the palace.
The deepest rooms of the palace suddenly illuminated, where the last cadre of wizards and priests stood around the king and queen of the Sten. The royal family held a young child, who cried while the gathered Sten worked some strange magic over him with desperate urgency. This cluster of royals and advisors were, as far as Kaitha could tell, the last of the Sten; Issan’s forces had scoured the ancient city clean.
Her eyes turned upward, where the colored water twisted to form new shapes on the wall. These figures were larger, and instantly recognizable. She saw Musana stepping from beams of light, and Fulgen with his lantern, and Maeneth, and Kaedna, and all of the gods of Arth battling in a great melee. The deities of Elves and Dwarves fought those of Orcs and Goblins and every other manner of Shadowkin, and all of them fought against the gods of the Sten. At the center of the maelstrom, she could see Al’Thadan, the All Father, battling a grinning Tandos. And on the edge, staring back at Kaitha with sorrow and pain that the ranger felt more than saw, was the All Mother. The queen of the gods seemed unsure what to do, or whom to side with as her husband battled her son.
“Stop,” Kaitha whispered, though she knew the queen wouldn’t listen. “Don’t—”
But Al’Matra did. The darkness cast a shadow over the Falcon Lady’s face, and she closed her eyes as she reached out a hand toward her son. Empowered by his mother’s blessing, the god of war glowed a little brighter as he surged forward, and below him Issan burst through the last doors of Andarun’s palace. Kaitha sobbed as the king and the queen of the Sten fell, dropping in sad splashes from the wall. And as Issan’s cruel spear found its mark in the toddler prince, Tandos’ weapon struck true at Al’Thadan’s heart. The water on the walls glowed with a sudden searing redness before all light in the chamber winked out. The water fell from the walls in a sudden shower as whatever magic that had suspended it left.
Kaitha knelt alone in the damp darkness. Pain and grief pressed down on her; a weight like Wynspar itself was set atop her chest. This was her doing. She had sided with the traitor god Tandos, worshipped him when she worked as a hero, blessed him when he and his army had betrayed Al’Thadan. She had lent the power that felled her love, loosed the arrow that stuck in his throat, driven him away with her mistrust. Her guilt twisted and stretched between consciousnesses, through the veil of reality, across millennia, until her mind threatened to snap under the strain. The sweet oblivion of madness called to her again. Tears poured down her face anew as she felt herself falling back into the welcoming embrace of insanity. She might have tumbled into it forever, but a thought caught her.
“He came back,” she whispered.
She saw Thane’s garden again and remembered his familiar presence, felt the warmth of his arms when he carried her across the Plains of Aberreth, saw his final smile as his last breath slipped away. And it ached to remember, ached in the deepest parts of her soul, but it was a different kind of pain, as different as ice is from fire. He had returned for her. He had given everything for her. He had forgiven her. He loved her still.
She seized on to that thought, and the world snapped back into focus around her. The shame and madness fled, and sudden clarity took their place. Her grief was still with her, next to a growing rage. He loved her still. They could have been together. They never should have parted. And they might not have, had it not been for the vile force that had tricked her, had brought her to this dungeon, had seduced her son and blinded her to her husband’s nature.
An emerald light flared in the darkness, and some distant part of Kaitha recognized that it came from her own face, that the tears running down her cheeks were alight with jade flames, pooling in growing green fire beneath her. But that was just a small part of the ranger’s consciousness, and she was just a small part of the mind staring out from her green, glowing eyes. Her mouth turned into a furious sneer and her hands balled into crackling fists as she stared down the darkness that had taken everything from her and driven her into the shadows. When she opened her mouth again, she called the evil by its foul name.
“Mannon!” roared Al’Matra.
“That can’t be,” Gorm told the mages with a confidence he wished he felt. “Mannon’s dead. Or missing. Or… or…” He trailed off as the impossibility of what Jynn said and the impossible horror unfurling before his eyes mixed together into a foul possibility that he didn’t want to acknowledge.
“See?” Heraldin said to Gaist. “Epic. This is why I hate being right.”
Gaist was too preoccupied with Johan’s transformation to so much as glance at the bard.
Mannon, Nemesis of the Creator, Foe of the Gods, Father of Demons, Destroyer of Worlds… the great enemy had amassed enough superlatives for an entire foul pantheon. Yet when Gorm visited temples, they didn’t talk about the Felfather as a being so much as a concept. The name Mannon was synonymous with Evil; encountering him in a dungeon was like having Hospitality over for dinner or meeting Travel on the street.
Yet Gorm could think of no other name for the horror rising from the shattered remnants of Johan’s armor. The geyser of liquid malice flowed and twisted up to the ceiling, where the darkness pooled against the stone like the cap of a great black toadstool. Innumerable mouths laughed softly from its moist, undulating body. The same thorny tentacles that had haunted Gorm’s nightmares for decades wreathed its bulbous crown. The Pyrebeard had fought greater demons back in the day; he knew what they looked like—and he even saw their visages among those in the melee of faces twisting through the black morass above them. But this was something different, something ineffably worse than anything he’d faced before.
Gorm looked back to the mages. “We can’t—” he began, but a tentacle the size of a tree trunk slammed down against the stone between them. The force of the impact dislodged the rubble at the edge of the pit, and it widened like a broken-toothed maw as the stonework plummeted into its depths. Above the hole seven other tentacles had peeled away from the trunk of the oozing mass, so that it almost resembled a great spider. The largest head that pushed from its round, full body, however, was that of a ram’s skull as big as a wagon, with misshapen horns and a single leering eyeball that locked onto Gorm as it opened its mouth to speak.
It said, “Baa-aaah.”
“Come again?” said Gorm, some of his icy fear retreating.
A small tentacle unfurled from the bulk of the black mass and, after growing a handlike appendage, extended a single finger toward the ceiling, as a coughing person might ask for a moment to clear their throat. The creature seemed to be doing the opposite, however, as another huge face was already emerging from the morass, closing around the protesting ram’s skull. The new visage was like a Human skull, but with bloodred eyes and curled horns growing from its top. It swallowed its predecessor, cleared its throat, and spoke in a voice as smooth and cheerful as the rainbow on an oil slick. “Ahem. Excuse me. Hello, adventurers! By way of introduction, I am the one they call Mannon, and I’ve come to parley.”
Gorm considered the ancient, world-shattering evil that had just bleated in his face before requesting an audience. “What?” he managed.
“Negotiate. Discuss. Come to terms as quickly as possible. I know you’re familiar with the concept, Gorm Ingerson.” The demonic visage kept speaking as the face of an Elven woman emerged from the mass around it, mouth agape to consume the speaking face. “You proposed it to my associate just a while ago.”
Gorm had trouble processing the Felfather’s words, if only because it was difficult to concentrate on anything but the huge face of the Elven woman working her lips around the demon skull like an ambitious snake tackling a griffon egg. “Ye… ye mean Johan.”
“Yes, an old business partner.” Mannon paused as the Elven face closed her lips over the diabolical skull, swallowed, and licked her teeth with a grimace. Then she seamlessly continued the discussion. “We had quite a run together, he and I. I took him from farm boy to king. Did some impressive work together. Good guy.” Tentacles wrapped around Mannon’s current face and pulled it back into the emerging maw of some nameless creature that was both canine and squid-like. It swallowed noisily and wiped its greasy maw with a tentacle. “But things happen. We move on. The past is the past. Let’s talk about the future.”
“We don’t bargain with evil!” Laruna shouted.
The faces covering Mannon sighed and rolled their eyes at the pyromancer’s declaration. “Evil?” sneered the squid face. “What a silly, outmoded term. I am self-interested, and self-interest is practically a virtue. It inspires people, drives them to moral labor, and powers the thriving economy that builds all of our wondrous things! Why, imagine what life would be like if every person stopped eating, stopped bathing, stopped caring for themselves in general. Madness. No, there’s little better for Mankind than self-interest. Especially when two reasonable beings can come to an arrangement that’s… mutually beneficial.”
“Mutually beneficial?” snorted Gorm. “All ye want is conquest and destruction!”
“Conquest? Destruction?” Mannon’s faces all began to laugh like the audience in a mummer’s play. “What is left to conquer, little Dwarf? What would I destroy? This world is mine. It bowed to my plans ages before I planted my king upon its greatest nation’s throne. The gods elevated my most faithful servant even as they reviled the deities I bargained with long ago. And the people who claim to wish to stop me chase markets all day long for the sake of self-interest! This world is everything I could want it to be, and it’s totally mine.” His visage looked thoughtful for a moment, and he raised a finger on the handlike appendage again. “With one little exception. I do have a few loose to ends to wrap up. Mostly just the thrice-cursed ones my associate and I were working on.”
