He could feel the crushing weight of the castle above him. The tiny hallway pressed in upon him, the darkness cold and oppressive. But he was bred in a darkness more pure and everlasting than even the bowels of Castle Bonnheim had ever witnessed, and he ignored the slight feeling of claustrophobia, and concentrated instead on the scent of wyrm.
The Revenant could taste the Child of Set, and he knew it was there. Only a moment ago he had heard the beast slither, it's scales creating a raspy melody as they encountered cold stone. It was close, now. But the Revenant needed to be on top of the beast in order to slay it, and he needed to descend deeper into the catacombs.
He chose a side passage at random, and followed it until it terminated at a cast iron gate. Beyond, he could see the tomb of some ancient noble, resting eternally beneath a canopy of carved stone. In the recesses of the chamber, he saw a suit of baroque, stylized jousting armor, now rusted and pitted with age. A heavy broadsword was held, point downward, in the empty gauntlets.
The Revenant found it curious that such an antiquity would remain in the catacombs beneath the castle, rather than find its way to a display in one of the upper chambers. Impulsively, the Nightbreed pushed open the gate and stepped into the room, feeling drawn to the great stone coffin, carved with the likeness of the one who slumbered within.
A small man, a little over five feet, with a heavy beard and -- glasses? The Revenant, were he in human form, would have blinked in surprise. Lacking eyes, he did not. Realization came slowly, but when it did, he chuckled to himself for his ignorance. The man entombed here was Virchow himself, the collector. The likeness on the tomb dressed him in vestments of Medieval Germany, with the Bonnheim crest emblazoned on the chest, but the sculptor had carved a face that was entirely of the twentieth century.
The Revenant looked up at the armor. Now, when he was closer, he realized that the marks he had taken for rust were actually scorch marks. Scorch marks? The Revenant drew closer to investigate. <Where did these come from?> he thought, tracing a colorless finger across one of the blackened welts. As he did so, he realized that the welt had three parallel marks; instinctively, he placed each of his other fingers across them, and traced the pattern.
Confused, the Revenant eyed other marks, and found that these, too, corresponded to fingers. A blob that could have been the mark of a hand was burned into the back of a gauntlet. <This doesn't make any sense,> the Revenant thought. <A wyrm could not have done this...>
His thought was broken, as, behind him, Virchow's tomb exploded open with a thunderous peal and a flash of intense, crimson light. The Revenant whirled, his eyes glowing deep blue in their sockets. Fragments of stone littered the floor, and a gaping hole had been rent in the tomb. The sinuous form of a wyrm, bathed in a red aura, slid from the hole, its dark, baleful eyes regarding the Revenant with clinical detachment.
The wyrm was a massive creature, though most of its bulk was concealed within the coffin, it easily measured twenty feet in length, and a good five feet in diameter. The scales were burnished black, with a soft green undersheen. The belly was only slightly discolored, a bit less dark than the rest of its hide. Black spines protruded all along its sides; they were brittle, easy to snap off, but the Wyrm was able to grow them back at a phenomenal rate. A set of vestigial limbs protruded near the head -- though they were useless for locomotion, the Revenant knew the claws at the end of those arms would be as sharp as steel.
The head itself was massive, with thick bony spurs over the eyes and nose. Nostrils belched pink tinged smoke as the lipless mouth opened, exposing row upon row of sharp, serrated teeth. The eyes were a deep crimson, shining with intelligence and hate, each one ringed by dozens of tiny black spines.
The Revenant froze, his cloud of gray hair in disarray, fists clenched in rage and surprise. No Angel born in Hell could catch the Revenant unawares. How had this monster done so? He waited, aware of the preening egos of the Children of Set. The creature would brag, boast, cajole or threaten before it made its attack. Then would be the time for the Revenant to strike.
Such an attitude almost cost him his life. Without word or warning the beast exploded, launching itself at the Revenant like a cornered cobra, venom flying from its opened mouth. Preternatural reflexes kicked into overdrive, and the Revenant was just able to avoid death's embrace. He crashed to the ground on hands and knees, spinning around and scrambling to his feet.
The wyrm caught itself before it crashed into the suit of armor. Its carmine exhalations washed over the cold iron mail, dissipating as it did so. The Revenant was puzzled for a moment, but only for a moment, as the wyrm re-oriented itself for another attack.
In the small dimensions of the room, the size of the wyrm could only help it, and prove the Revenant's undoing. As the creature's bulk slammed into the ground where the Revenant had stood, the Nightspawn bolted out of the room and down the corridor.
He spun to a halt halfway down the passage, and turned to face the wyrm as it followed him, shredding the gate as it passed into the hallway, eyes blazing, the shining aura pulsing with anger. The Revenant concentrated, pooling his energies, and unleashed a spray of coiling blue flame from his fingertips. The fire blasted into the wyrm, but, inexplicably, washed over the body without doing harm.
The wyrm plowed on, tearing stones out of the wall as its bulk crashed through the corridor.
The Revenant turned and ran. This would be more difficult than he anticipated.
Perseus lifted the cigarette to take a puff, but belatedly realized that there was nothing left to it but ash. He flicked it into the ash tray on the table, and then produced another one and lit it.
Shelley eyed the bottle of whiskey and the shot glass at her elbow, but the thought of drinking anything made her feel queasy. "Perseus," she said, "I have to ask... how did you beat Ivan? He had you dead to rights. You were disemboweled -- nobody comes back from that."
Perseus smiled thinly. "In almost every battle I've ever won, the difference between losing my head and surviving has been the simple refusal to accept defeat. I won because I would not accept losing."
"Okay," Shelley said. "That makes sense. Barely. But I mean, really, your intestines were spilling all over the place..."
Perseus' smile broadened. "I have lived my life by a few rules. Foremost among them is this: pain is but a temporary affliction. Death is forever. In my early days I learned to ignore pain, to focus past it, and continue my duel."
"Of course, at my age something like a disembowelment isn't as horrible as it may seem. With all the Quickening I've absorbed, my healing abilities are fairly advanced. Mortal wounds do not keep me down for long."
Shelley shook her head. "It's so hard to believe. I mean, I've seen Quin take on guys twice his age and win."
Perseus' smile slipped a bit. "There comes a time in every Immortal's life when he or she begins to tire of the Game, of eternal youth. Death begins to look more attractive -- an end to all the 'suffering' that an Immortal must endure."
"So, what, you're saying that they let Quin kill them? That they were suicidal?"
"Something like that. It might not even be a conscious decision. An Immortal might miss a crucial block or be too slow on a cross stroke. Errors that he or she might not make if they were in a more enlightened mood. Sometimes an Immortal will recognize when they are feeling this way, and actively avoid combat. I've seen several join monasteries or otherwise remove themselves from human society. After a while, they return, their depression lifted, their sword arms limber."
"Others recognize where they're going, and what dangers they face, and they seek out combat. Suicide by battle. It's a fairly common occurrence, really. I've lost count of the number of friends who have perished while in mourning."
"Have you...?" Shelley trailed off, not quite sure how to phrase the question.
Another brief smile. "Many times. When my wife died, I did not think I could survive without her. I had the added disadvantage of being very young and inexperienced in the Game. Easy prey, you might say."
"How many times have you been married?" Shelley asked.
Perseus shrugged. "Only once. It was Lyconaen law -- what with the Helots outnumbering us ten to one -- I was forced to marry. I grew to love her all the same. She loved me too, even though I could never give her any children." Perseus eyes grew wistful. "That duty fell to my closest friend."
"Whoa. Whoa, wait a second. Your wife had an affair, and you still loved her? If my husband cheated on me -- ffft." She made a cutting gesture with her hand. "He's done."
Perseus' eyes refocused. "The Spartans needed to populate. If a man was incapable of giving a woman a child, another man would have to do it; there was no dishonor associated with the act, at least, not for the woman. I was the one who was looked down upon. My only saving grace was that I could not be beaten in battle.
"But we're getting away from the original question. The death of my wife devastated me. So much so that I have never remarried, not in all my long life." He gave a sardonic smile. "I cannot afford any weakness."
"That's so... sad," Shelley said.
Perseus met her eyes. "Remember. I said pain is better than death."
The wyrm retaliated with some fire of its own. Red and orange flames exploded from its mouth, illuminating the passage with a bursts of light and heat that scorched the walls and sucked all the oxygen out of the hallway.
The Revenant felt the heat caress his back and singe his hair, but he did not look back. Lungs labored desperately to find suitable air, and failed. The Revenant coughed as the heated air seared his lungs and throat.
He faltered in his flight, stumbled, and crashed to the ground. He rolled over onto his back as the wyrm leapt towards him. He held his palms out and unleashed a second torrent of blue and violet flame. The Revenant's attack splattered harmlessly off the aura of the wyrm.
Again.
The Revenant stared into the open mouth of the wyrm, looking past row upon row of sharp, triangular teeth into the red, pulsing throat of the beast, and knew that his long life, his long career, was over. And then he had a sudden moment of clarity -- as the wyrm descended, and two and a half tons of serpent flesh prepared to flatten the Nightbane like a bug.
The Revenant was an accomplished monster hunter. Since his early days on the Saharan dunes, hunting djinn and efreet, to his long years in the Orient as a spice merchant, fighting the servants of the Yama Kings, to the prestigious rank he held in the Inquisition as an exterminator of Vampires and other vermin, all the way to his present duty as New Orleans' resident expert on all things paranormal, the Revenant had made it his business to learn about the creatures he hunted.
He familiarized himself with their breeding habits, their favored food types and favorite lairs. He could identify particular strains of Vampire, Lycanthrope, or Gargoyle by the merest difference in the alignment of horns, fur, or fangs. Most importantly the Revenant was well versed in the special weaknesses of each creature he hunted. Fire for Vampires. Silver for Lycanthropes. Mistletoe for Kherubim. And coldfire for the Children of Set.
Coldfire would -- should -- slay a wyrm with ease and speed. Yet this specimen seemed immune. The Revenant was caught flat-footed, unprepared for a new bloodline. It was not surprising, really. The Revenant had long expected his death to come in such a manner -- there was no way he could keep ahead of evolution, no way to learn all the secrets, or piece together all the clues.
Clues. Something he forgot about, failed to take into account. Clues could mean the difference between life and, well, being wyrm food. But like an amateur he had discounted the ones he saw, so sure of himself and his analysis of the situation. He had sensed wyrm, so, naturally, predictably, he had faced a wyrm. Or what he took to be a wyrm.
But there was the armor in Virchow's tomb -- an anomaly that he had quickly discounted in the face of visual proof of the wyrm's presence. Yet he knew -- absolutely knew -- that no wyrm would mark human steel in such a manner. Their claws were too clumsy to make such delicate cuts in the metal. And there was little motive for such a creature to manhandle an ancient suit of armor.
As the wyrm fell towards him, fetid breath blasting over his face, the heat of the creature's aura reaching out towards him, the Revenant averted his eyes, and held his breath. <There is no Wyrm> he told himself. <No Wyrm.>
He waited a moment, not daring to breath. When nothing happened, he looked up. At an empty corridor. <No Wyrm> he thought. <Shit.>
The Revenant leapt to his feet and bolted down the corridor, back the way he had come. If he was right -- and so far, he seemed to be -- there was only one weapon he could use against his opponent.
Perseus ground the cigarette out in the tray, and picked up the pack. He tapped the side: three left. He drew one and lit it. A halo of smoke swirled around his dark features.
"Do you think Kurt is doing okay?" Shelley asked.
Perseus looked up. "The Revenant can take care of himself. He's hunted monsters for centuries. There are few tricks he has not witnessed. He'll be fine." Shelley nodded, but couldn't quell the worry she felt for the Nightbane.
There were no burn marks in the main corridor. There were no rents in the catacomb walls. The wyrm was an illusion. Entirely.
The Revenant cursed himself for being such a fool. How could he have overlooked the obvious? He let himself be led by the nose by the real culprit. He only hoped he could make it back to Virchow's tomb before...
The Revenant was halfway down the passage when a burst of pink light inundated the end of the hallway. As the light faded, and the Revenant caught the first whiff of brimstone, he beheld his true foe.
The being was tall and slender, easily reaching past the seven foot mark. His skin was like alabaster, and a mane of long, platinum blond hair was held back from his forehead by a crown of adamantine steel. His eyes were cold and gray beneath finely drawn brows. His aquiline nose perched over a thin lipped mouth that grinned hugely, showing off a set of perfectly white teeth. He wore a suit of form fitting black armor, fluted and carved in strange geometric shapes. A gray cape was affixed to his shoulders, with the trailing ends tied to his wrists.
The Revenant screeched to a halt and raised his hands protectively, waiting for the Svartlheimr to make his move.
The Sidhe raised delicate artist's hands and traced a pattern in the air. At once, the temperature in the Revenant's immediate vicinity began to rise. Sweat dampened his brow, and the ends of his hair curled up, beginning to steam. He watched as the stones he stood upon began to bubble and shift. Melting. As the floor liquefied, he began to sink, sucked down into the heat and fluid.
<It is all illusion,> he told himself, even though he could feel the magma burning through his boots, smell the sickly sweet stench of burning flesh. He forced himself to advance, to take a step forward, ignoring the drag on his feet as he lifted them from the mire.
"Fuck this," he mumbled, raising his hands. Coldfire erupted from his fingertips and rocketed down the hall. The Sidhe was barely to raise a shield in time, and the coldfire did not touch him. But his attention faltered, and the Revenant found himself on dry, solid ground once again. He pressed his advantage, unleashing swathe after swathe of violet and blue flame as he raced down the hall. The Sidhe left the shield up for a moment, and then disappeared in a burst of pink light.
The Revenant was left in the main hallway, alone once more. Just five feet away stood the doorway that would lead him to Virchow's tomb. He approached it cautiously. The side passage beyond was empty and dark. The Revenant took a deep breath and stepped inside.
He took a few steps down the hall, and stopped as he came up against a solid metal door. He covered his eyes and stepped forward, through the illusion. Next he found a flight of stairs blocking his path. He ignored that as well. A sheet of flames and a cave-in did not deter him either.
At last he arrived at the burial chamber. He pushed the gate open and stepped inside. The tomb was whole again, without any sign that a wyrm had ripped through it. As the Revenant advanced into the room, a burst of pink light carried the Sidhe into the room. He lighted on top of the coffin.
"Perhaps we can talk this over," the Sidhe said in tongue that was not exactly Gaelic, not exactly Old Norse, and not exactly Latin, yet seemed a strange combination of all three.
The Revenant ignored him, and brushed past an outstretched hand to reach the armor. He unfastened the gauntlets and grabbed the hilt of the sword.
"Nightbane -- stay your hand. I have not unleashed the full fury of my power. Do not force me to do so." The gray eyes blazed with fury.
The Revenant pointed the sword at the elf. "You have one chance, elf. Return to Tir Nan Og, and swear by Amaterasu that you will not trouble the mortal plane again -- or else taste cold iron."
Fire dripped from the Faerie's eyes, and his hands balled into fists. "I will do no such thing, 'bane. And I will not forget this insult to me either." The Faerie prepared to disappear again, but the Revenant was quicker by far than the elf.
He slashed out with the German sword in a wide arc, and the tip sliced across the chest of the Sidhe. The blade shook in the Revenant's hand, and the Sidhe cried out in surprise and pain as real fire -- not an illusion of his conjuring -- exploded across the Faerie's chest. He crumpled to a heap on the stone coffin, clutching his breast and moaning.
The Revenant placed the edge of the blade against the Sidhe's exposed throat. As pale white skin smoked and blackened at the iron's touch, the Revenant leaned close and whispered. "Swear, and I shall spare you."
Hot tears of indignation and rage slid down the Faerie's cheeks. He looked at the Revenant with hate and spat, "Very well. I swear by Amaterasu that I shall leave, and never play in man's realm again."
The Revenant stepped back, and the Sidhe disappeared in a blast of intense, pink and white light.
The Revenant waited a moment, and then made good his own departure.
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PoT_Ch10.php -- Revised: January 27, 2021.