Ignatius gave the technical monk a sideways glance. “You do?”
“In books, yeah.” Brouse struck a match and lit his cigarette. The grizzled monk stared down his stubbly beard at the instruments lining the plaza. Devices whirled and whistled. His briefcase sat open on the ground, and every crystal set in it flashed with panicked urgency. Brouse grunted, satisfied with his interpretation of the signs. “Classic armageddon.”
“How can you tell?” Ignatius asked, uncertain if the monk was right but absolutely convinced that Brouse’s confidence was unwarranted.
Brouse rolled his eyes. “See that string of holy beads dancin’ and jumpin’ like it wants to escape that silver hook I hung it from? That’d be swaying gently if someone’s premonition was about to come to pass. We’ve got dozens, no, hundreds of prophecies and counter-prophecies competin’ to become reality.”
Ignatius was still skeptical. “Well, yes, but—”
“And see that clay fat fellow whose sweatin’ like a guilty man before the magistrate? Statues of the false monk Titus Ur’Sloot only sweat when gods or their influence are nearby. And I know it’s reading right, because the Umbraxian fertility idol has rolled behind a potted bush, and it only gets modest when divine eyes are focused nearby.”
“I suppose,” conceded the priest of Mordo Ogg. “But—”
“Your magical currents are up, your causal wavelengths are compressed, your metaphysical index is all over the place…” Brouse rattled off indicators as he pointed to the various devices, totems, and meters that he had arranged around the square. “Your cosmological flux is everywhere, your ontological connections are all tangled up, your probability curve is inverting, and then there’s that.” The monk pointed triumphantly to a simple device consisting of a chicken foot set upside down in an iron candlestick. All of the foot’s bony digits were curled up like a fist save the middle one, which was extended toward the sky. “That one tells me we’re totally—”
“Yes, fine, a classic armageddon,” snapped Ignatius. “But what do we do?”
“Have a smoke. Keep our heads down.” Brouse offered a rolling paper to the old priest. “Might want to head inside at some point, mister sir, but… nah, your guy’s a neutral party. Probably no trouble for you.”
“No, what do we do about the master’s shrine?” Ignatius’ voice cracked. The death priest found himself on the eve of a world-shattering crisis without use of his shrine, and was experiencing the sort of desperate anxiety normally only seen in mages whose crystal balls malfunction right before the Academy Dueling Tournament.
Brouse considered the shrine of Mordo Ogg. The sculpture’s skull hissed and bubbled from the heat of its searing eyes, and molten tears ran down its stone cheeks. “Hmmph. Seems like some stubborn soul might’ve got ol’ Mordo Ogg stoppered up, like a Gnomish music box with sand in its gears. Or maybe a dog choking on a chicken bone.”
“But what do we do about it?” whined Ignatius.
“My job’s fixin’ relics and artifacts, not their patrons. Not much we can do but step back and wait for things to get moving again.” Brouse gave a shrug, then cocked his head to the side. A keening whistle scraped at the razor’s edge of hearing, like a teakettle about to boil over a few blocks away. “Although we should give the shrine a healthy distance.”
“Get back! Get away!” Gorm waved his axe at other adventurers as he was sprinting through the spider-spattered halls of the Great Vault. He could hear Mannon’s screams behind him, the scrabbling of claws and teeth on stone. The Felfather wouldn’t stay down for long. “Run!” he screamed at the bewildered adventurers emerging from the side chambers and passageways of the expansive treasury.
To a man and woman, the other heroes ran. Among the many unspoken rules of professional heroics is that when one hero calls for flight, everyone of the same rank or lower should bolt in the same direction as fast as possible. So when the adventurers looting the Great Vault saw the hero once known as the Pyrebeard sprinting alongside the Archmage of the Gray Tower and one of the most famous mages in the Freedlands, each hero’s risk-reward analysis reached the same conclusion in the blink of an eye. Sacks of gold and gems hit the floor and heavier artifacts were tossed aside as the crowd of heroes poured for the exit, taking up the cry for retreat.
“What’s the plan?” Laruna huffed.
“Don’t know. Do ye believe that thing is actually Mannon?” Gorm asked, still struggling to wrap his mind around the nature of the threat.
“Perhaps there’s another demonic entity powerful enough to corrupt Tandos and his temple, subvert the kingdoms of Arth, and evade detection by all the mages and priests in the nation for centuries,” said Jynn. “But that doesn’t seem much better!”
Gorm grunted. How did one make a plan to combat something on the scale of gods and demons and destiny?
If the old berserker had a destiny, if there was some grand purpose in his life, it needed to show up soon. Niln had told him the scriptures would show him the signs, and signs couldn’t get much clearer than this. But his old friend had also said that he’d know what to do when the time came, and here at the intersection of now and never, Gorm couldn’t fathom what to do.
“This is just like him!” Jynn ranted. “This is typical Detarr Ur’Mayan at his finest!”
“An apocalyptic battle with the source of all evil is typical of your father?” Laruna asked dryly.
“The secrecy!” Jynn snarled. “He knew that Johan didn’t defeat Mannon in Az’Anon’s lair, or somehow deduced that Johan and Mannon had entered a dark pact. And he could have warned us, or the kingdom, or anyone else. But no! Instead he set out to kill Johan himself and everyone on Arth in the process. The man would literally rather destroy the world than open up to his own son! He never told me…”
Jynn trailed off, lost in a new thought.
Destroy the world. The phrase stuck with Gorm. He recalled that Mannon said the world was exactly as he wanted it, that he owned it. To defeat him would be to… to overthrow the ruler of the world. It might tear down the kingdom. It would mean revenge for the Sten. Niln’s scriptures attributed all of those goals to the Dark Prince.
And suddenly Gorm realized why the scriptures never talked about the Seventh Hero of Destiny and the Dark Prince fighting. They never were meant to fight. The Dark Prince was destined to strike down the king, sunder the powers that led the kingdom. The Seventh Hero was to save the good people of Arth and stop evil from triumphing. Since the crowned King of Andarun was currently an ancient entity made of oily goop and hate, their goals were one and the same.
“It’s the same person!” Gorm exclaimed.
“Well, maybe I’m a little like him,” Jynn said. “But I—”
“Not what I mean, and not important,” the Dwarf barked. “I’ve got a plan! I just need to get to the plaza.”
“That might be a problem,” Laruna shouted, looking over her shoulder.
Gorm glanced back and into a nightmare. The hallway behind him ended abruptly in a coal-colored mass of snarling faces. Luminescent green oozed from innumerable gashes in Mannon’s oily membrane. Mercurial tendrils covered in sharp thorns whipped from the Felfather’s bulk and clung to the stones. They dragged the shapeless malice through the hall in bursts of fluid motion, like ink dripping across a parchment.
“Go!” screamed Gorm, looking forward. The door to the Great Vault was just ahead, illuminated by the receding torchlight of the fleeing heroes ahead of them.
“I can hold him here,” Jynn breathed as they stepped through the entrance.
Gorm shot him a sideways, “What?”
“Help me close it!” The wizard stopped running and leaned against the heavy iron door to the vault, straining to push it shut. “I can hold him—” He stumbled as Gorm shoved the door shut with one hand.
“Metal and stone ain’t going to hold him!” Gorm gestured angrily at the door.
“Wards will buy you time,” said Jynn, already weaving. Magic danced from the tips of his gloved hand and the end of the Wyrmwood Staff as he waved them over the portal. “You won’t make it to the plaza if someone doesn’t slow Mannon down. Just go.”
“But—” Laruna began, but she was cut off when several inhuman mouths screamed from within the vault.
