from the higher realms of their usual strengths. As she pondered this realization, her mount reared up, stumbled, and fell back.
Rider pitched over the mare’s haunches, striking the stones of the Hall with a force fit to break bones, but she was unhurt, for her body was still as hard as diamond. The oldest mare in the Heavenly Herd lay thrashing, and Rider turned to see her pain and hurried to inspect her injury.
This should not happen. It was impossible. No power in the mortal realm could harm the Matriarch of the Heavenly Herd or Rider. Yet the proof was before her, as the mare shuddered, then closed her eyes. Despite not belonging to the mortal realm, the celestial mount was confined in form and function by the limits of this reality. She faded into golden smoke, speeding back up the hall toward The Source, where she would reform and once again take her place at the head of her herd.
But Rider now stood afoot, and knew that something profoundly wrong had intercepted her. She turned, her eyes blazing with anger. Drawing her sword, she advanced toward the cause of her fall. And walked into something invisible.
Pain shot through her body, her mind, and into her soul. This barrier was something so profoundly wrong that it tore at her. She fell back and felt the thrumming that came from the barrier grow more intense, rising up the scale to a pitch that hurt her now-mortal ears.
Still, she was Rider, and an agent of the Source. Even in the mortal realms her powers were unmatched by any who abided her. And there was nothing of fear in her being. ‘Show yourself!’ she demanded.
Something rose up before her on the other side of the barrier, roughly man-shaped but immense. It towered over her as a tree did a child.
Rider had lost her place in the Presence, was apart from the Source, but her knowledge was still considerable. Yet before her stood something unknown to her, something that was clearly powerful beyond compare in these mortal realms. ‘What are you?’ she demanded.
A tentacle reached out, passed effortlessly through the barrier and attempted to grapple with her. She swung down with her blade, which burned with Heaven’s fire, and struck a blow that severed the tentacles. It withdrew, the severed section smoking. Then it vanished in a bright flash. From the other side of the barrier came a hollow sound, a distant chuckle that echoed like wind down a canyon. ‘I am,’ it said softly, yet the words were clear. ‘I am that which was before.’ Again the chuckle. ‘I am that which was left behind.’
Rider knew fear then. She turned to flee, and as she did, the thing shot through the barrier to sweep over her, swallowing her in a darkness that was the antithesis of all she had ever known. It was a void so profound that her last, fleeting thought was despair, for she knew she would never again know the Presence, nor approach the Source. This was her end.
The black shape that had destroyed Rider vanished, leaving a chill wind to blow up the Hall. In time, the feathers of wings on the backs of a host of angels would rustle from that wind. And still they would wait, motionless and patient, though one or two among them might wonder when the call would come.
Rider’s last conscious thought was hearing a loud click, as if tumblers in a lock were falling.
Pug probed further and they all heard the ‘click’ in their minds.
Nakor said,
Universes exploded.
Birds took to the sky as they sensed a pulse of energy gathering in the heart of the city. A Pantathian farmer transporting his crops to market noticed a mile away from the city that a massive flock had launched itself skyward. He paused to wonder what could have caused it.
Then his world ended.
The explosion was like nothing before experienced on this world. It was the tearing of the fundamental matter of existence, and the release was so destructive that the entire Pantathian city ceased to exist in the blink of an eye.
A blast of light was released, so bright that had any mortal eye looked at it, that creature would have been rendered blind at a distance of ten miles. A moment after the blast of light, a fireball was preceded by a wave of air moving at the speed of sound, so powerful that trees were knocked flat, animals were instantly killed by the impact, their bodies picked up and hurled for miles.
Then came the heat. Whatever it washed over was instantly turned to cinder.
On the mainland to the north, fishermen working the waters between the south coast of Kesh and the Isle of the Snake Men saw an unnatural flare in the south, climbing into the heavens as if someone had reached up to challenge the gods.
Outward the flames sped, and after two miles the heat dissipated and trees and plants were merely scorched and not set alight. After five miles, animals survived the sudden rise in heat, but saw a monstrous column of flame, dust, smoke, and ash climb into the skies and spread out in a mushroom shape.
From rabbits to eagles, elk to wolves, the animals on the island turned and galloped from the source of this calamity. All knew instinctively that nothing within that blast zone could live, and where once there had been a nation of gentle souls, now only death ruled.
ENTR’ACTE
Tomas sat up.
In the early morning hours he felt something rip through the fabric of this world in a way he had not known since he first donned the white-and-gold armour of the Dragon Lord. He looked around and saw that his wife was now awake, looking at him with wide eyes.
‘Beloved,’ she asked softly, ‘what is it?’
He did not have any words for a moment, then at last he said, ‘It’s Pug … he’s gone.’
She put her hand on his arm. ‘Gone?’
‘We have always had a bond and now it’s severed.’ He sat motionless a few seconds, then said, ‘And there’s something else.’
‘What?’ she asked as she saw his powerful back outlined in the faint moonlight coming in through the window of their quarters. He was moving to the chest in which he kept his armour. ‘Tomas?’
He opened the chest and stared down at his legacy of Ashen-Shugar, the Valheru whose memories he shared. ‘I feel something.’
‘What?’ she asked again.
Looking at the armour, then at his wife, he said, ‘There is another.’
Draken-Korin slumbered on his ebony throne, the last vestiges of his mortal body stripped away. He stirred and saw that all had been returned as he had ordered it. Every inch of the chamber had been cleaned by his loyal tiger-men, and the torches lit. He stood and instantly those who were in the chamber fell to the floor in abject obeisance, touching their foreheads to the stone.
‘I am hungry!’ he roared. ‘Bring me food. I must gather my strength.’ He tilted his head, as if listening. ‘There is another.’
Tanderae could feel the shift in the energy field of the planet. Something huge had just taken place. Whatever it was, it must be catastrophic to be felt at such a distance.
Then heaven tore open.
The blast knocked him off his feet as a massive pillar of ruby light exploded through the roof of the portal building and a wash of heat rolled over him. If there had been anyone inside the building when that explosion took place they were surely dead.
He got up on unsteady legs as the inhabitants of E’bar left their homes to come outside and stare at the monstrous light. Egun found the Loremaster and said, ‘What happened?’
‘An explosion from the portal building.’
‘Ancestors,’ the captain of the Sentinels whispered. ‘I was looking to find you. The Lord Regent was in
