Chapter XXIV

Cory's return to Therion's castle couldn't have been much more dramatic, as if nature and fate themselves conspired to play him up as the greatest hero Nihilus had ever had. The clouds were dark and rain poured down. Lightning from the Firmament touched the ground, sending thunder rippling across the brown fields. The hot-spring waters that filled the moat were far hotter than usual that day, and steam rose up to shroud the castle. The ground trembled, as if God himself feared the man approaching Therion's castle. Therion was awakened early in the morning by the sounds of the thunder rattling his windows, and he left his bed to look outside and watch the storm. With the steam rising up into the sky and the bolts of lightning coming down from above, it was as if the forces of Heaven and the Void were already at war with one another that day. Then, through the mist and steam rising from the moat, Therion could see the dark silhouette of a man riding across the bridge. Cory rode through the steam and mist on the back of a white horse. He seemed to take some of the steam with him as he passed through, the sole survivor of Qenneth's quest. Normally seeing just one man return after a dangerous expedition would have been reason enough to declare disaster, but even from his window Therion could see the triumphant smile Cory wore on his face and the ancient-looking crown on his head.

“He's back!” Therion cried out and quickly dressed himself. “He's found it! I'm sure!”

“Who's back?” Deidra asked, groggily rubbing her eyes and sitting up in bed.

“Cory! He's returned! And he has Sulaiman's ring, I'm sure of it!”

“When a commoner wears the crown the land of idolaters will inherit oblivion,” Deidra said.

“What? Oh! Of course! Cory was born a commoner, now he wears the crown of Sulaiman! It's a sign! Arx will fall for sure!” Therion kissed Deidra fiercely, then finished dressing and ran down the halls and flights of stairs, eager to greet the triumphant hero. “He's back! Cory has returned, everyone!”

Most of those who heard this cry didn't even know who this “Cory” was, but they knew that their king was excited about something, so they all rushed after him. Boanne heard Therion's shouts from her room and decided to follow to see what was going on. She was skeptical that Cory had indeed returned with the ring, but nonetheless was happy to hear that her friend had returned.

Everyone gathered in the castle's foyer as the double-doors opened and Cory rode in on the back of his stolen horse, the sword he'd taken from the dead sheriff still in his belt. He stopped the horse and dismounted, taking a knee before King Therion. “Your Majesty, as was requested of me I embarked on a noble quest to retrieve one of the most sacred artifacts of our people's history. I expected to merely bring it back and give it to you, but it seems Malkira has chosen me for a far greater honor than I ever could have imagined.” Cory held up the hand on which he wore the ring. “Malkira has declared me worthy of wearing this ring, and he has protected me from every threat that's befallen me since I received his blessing.”

“Why would he choose you?” Therion asked. “Why not me? I'm Sulaiman's heir!”

Before Cory could answer the question the ground shook and in the room appeared a creature twice as tall as the tallest man. It was shaped like a man, with its head touching the ceiling, and black feathered wings wrapped around its torso, like the way a hawk folds its wings. From its head came horns like a ram, piercing through the hood of its robe. Its face was covered in a gold, featureless mask, its feet were cloven hooves, and all around it danced fist-sized white sparks, like stars. People in the castle screamed an ran, or simply stared up at the daemon in paralyzing fear and reverence. When it spoke it did so with two voices, one a deep and commanding man's voice and the other a sultry, seductive woman's voice, speaking simultaneously. “I have chosen Cory because he is the sort of leader we need in order to win this war. Nihilus needs its king here, but Cory can be the hero Nihilus deserves. With my legions at his command he will crush the idolaters! his body will be a doorway through the Firmament to allow us to lay waste to this world and free its prisoners from the tyranny of the false God! In the Void, once this world is destroyed and the traitor's work undone, Cory will be revered for all eternity as the greatest hero humanity has ever known. Yea, even the idolaters, once they have been brought into the Void, shall see the truth and praise him for freeing them from their own stupidity! This is your salvation, faithful people, stand by him until the end, and be prepared to worship him thereafter!”

Seeing the powerful daemon before him and hearing its glorious voice Therion was overcome and fell to his knees, and then upon his face as if he were dead. Later stories would tell of people who, upon seeing the arch-daemon Malkira, died of holy ecstasy or began to speak in tongues they didn't comprehend, but none of these stories were true. Still, the awe, fear, love, and respect that Malkira inspired in the people in that castle was overwhelming, and Cory rose to his feet to stand beside the arch-daemon as the King continued to kneel. It was true, he had become higher even than the King of Nihilus, and even the King knew this. Then, just as suddenly as Malkira had appeared he vanished.

Therion looked up at Cory. “It's incredible! You're our savior, Cory!”

“I know!” Cory yelled in excitement, a huge grin across his face. “Stand, my friend!” Cory grabbed both of Therion's hands and pulled him up to his feet. “Your part in this is great too, for had you not had faith enough in me I would surely never have found this ring, found my destiny!”

To say Therion was not jealous of everything for which Cory was apparently destined would be untrue. He hated the thought that Cory, and not he, would be remembered for destroying Arx and bringing about the end of the world. At the same time, though, he knew he could do nothing about it. With Malkira protecting Cory it wasn't as if Therion could simply kill him and take the ring, and even if he did Malkira wouldn't favor him. Therion knew, then, that he had to simply be grateful that he got to live to see such a time. When he'd started planning the war with Arx he had intended it merely to be a step in eradicating the idolaters from the world by destroying the greatest symbol of their faith. Now he knew that the daemons had so much more planned for this age. This was the last age, the last generation, that would see the tyranny of Saklas, the foolish God.

“Cory, our friend, let's find a place for you to rest, you must be tired after such a journey. Tell us, what happened to Qenneth and his soldiers?”

Cory faked the saddest look that he could, even managed to make tears well up in his eyes as he told Therion his lie. “The angels protecting the ruin got him. I'm sorry, Therion, I know he was a great hero! I'm sorry I couldn't have saved him! Had I gotten the ring sooner I would have!”

“It's alright, Cory!” Therion said and patted his shoulder sympathetically. “Don't blame yourself! Blame the angels and the God they serve! Not long from now we'll make them all pay for what they did, and we can tell Qenneth, when we're reunited with him in the Void, that we avenged his death!”

“True! Yes, let's make them all pay for what they've done! Let all the people know that it was the angels serving the Saklas who killed their beloved war hero!”

Boanne was certain that Therion was just playing along with Cory's obvious lie, and she wasn't sure what made her more nervous; the thought that Cory might have killed General Qenneth and would be trying to cover it up, or the thought that Cory had become so powerful that he could get away with murder so easily. With Malkira supporting him it seemed that there was nothing anyone could do to stop Cory at this point. The only way anyone would be able to even survive around him was to give him whatever he wanted whenever he wanted it. Everyone would have to give in to his every selfish whim and desire, and since Boanne went to Leti Academy with Cory she knew just how selfish that young man really was, even without any substantial power. It's said that some people do right out of compassion and others draw their morality from fear. Cory had a much more fear-based morality, if one could consider him moral at all, and now he had nothing to fear.

“Yes!” Therion agreed. “Let's make that our rallying cry! Remember General Qenneth! Once you've had sufficient rest, my friend, I'd like you to join Meriel's army and aid her in taking the March of Muri!”

“I agree that we need to take Muri and start the invasion of Arx as soon as possible, Therion, but may I make a request?”

“Of course! Anything for our savior!”

“General Qenneth's army is now without a leader. I want them brought under my leadership. I will work closely with Meriel, since she is the more experienced general, but I want to be the one to lead Qenneth's forces to victory. Since I was with Qenneth in his last moments I think I'm the perfect man to take over for him. I'm sure his men will want revenge.”

This was preposterous, truth be told. The very idea that some upstart commoner with no real military experience could suddenly become the commander of one of Nihilus' three largest armies and take the place of a famous general was absurd. However, Cory already had access to a much more dangerous army, one that might very well be able to conquer all of Nihilus and declare him King if he so wished it. Therion didn't want to test that, he wasn't sure what this young man was capable of anymore. “That's a great idea! Who better to lead the forces of our previous war hero than the greatest hero of all time?”

Cory loved the sound of those words, “greatest hero of all time.” he nodded to Therion and winked at Boanne before saying, “Well, I'd better get some rest, then. If anyone needs me I'll be in my quarters.” his room in the castle was a guest-room, not really his “quarters,” but he was implying a more permanent residency in the castle with those words, something that made Therion cringe.

After Cory had walked off, Boanne followed Therion until she could catch him alone. “Sire, please tell me you saw through his lies.”

“What are lies? What is truth?” Therion asked.

“Don't act as if this is some deep, philosophical debate, Sire, please! I'm begging you! See the man for what he is!”

“He's the savior we've been waiting for,” Therion said. “Sulaiman's true heir, more so even than me. We'd do well not to question him.”

“How can we simply let this pass? he was obviously lying, he might have killed Qenneth himself!”

“That's a pretty big jump in logic, Boanne.”

“Yes, but I can't think of any other reason to lie about what happened to Qenneth!”

“Maybe he did kill Qenneth,” Therion said. “Maybe it was cold-blooded murder, maybe it was in self-defense when Qenneth tried to take the ring from him. In any case the lie serves a purpose. It can embolden our troops, boost their morale. When Qenneth was alive he was always great at doing that, his mere presence on the battlefield inspired our soldiers, kept them from retreating, and made them fight like lions! They loved him, more than the warriors of Nihilus have ever loved any king, that's for sure. If we can use that to our advantage I say let's use it.”

“But letting him get away with this just tells him that he can get away with whatever he wants!”

“He can!” Therion said. “That's all there is to it! You remember the story of the Aeon Brogan? he came to this land, speaking the words of Prunikos to the people. No one believed him at first. They locked him in stocks and cut out his tongue to stop his lies. The daemons inhabiting Brogan were furious, and they conjured an army of daemons to lay waste to the town that had treated their Aeon so poorly. When the whole town was ashes Brogan broke out of the stocks, his tongue was healed, and he took with him the one survivor, a young girl who had seen all her brothers and sisters as well as her parents massacred, when he traveled the land. She told people of what she saw, confirmed his awesome power, and no one dared raise a hand against him again for the rest of his days. The people who questioned Brogan and hurt him so were wrong, and the daemons made sure they knew it, that all generations would know it. It was wrong then, and if we were to raise a hand against Cory it would be the same way. Maybe that's what Qenneth did. He may have deserved to die.”

“Do you really think Qenneth would be so greedy?”

“We don't think anyone who saw an opportunity to gain that much power could find it easy to turn it down. Truthfully, just now, had Malkira not spoken in person like he did as to Cory's worthiness, we would have struck him down and taken the ring ourselves. Thankfully Malkira saw our doubts and put them to rest before having to punish us for trying to harm our savior.”

“Fine!” Boanne sighed and shook her head in defeat. “I just hope he doesn't abuse his power too much.”

“We can pray, that's all. Prunikos is still higher than Cory, higher than Malkira. Hopefully she will intervene on our behalf if things get out of hand.”

Cory was on his way to his guest-room, basking in the praises and glory heaped on him every time he passed by a servant, soldier, or courtier. He'd seen them pay only half as much respect to Therion whenever he walked these halls. Just in front of the door to his room stood Deidra. She stared at him with wide-eyes and her mouth hanging open.

“What's wrong with you?” Cory asked.

“You're him!”

“Yes, Deidra, it's me, Cory,” Cory waved to her.

“Those who speak with two tongues shall create unrest against the idolaters, but also against themselves. Fire starting in the Familiar's name will boil the eggs of the hens, too long! Until the shell cannot be broken without taking the white with it! Oh, the termites! They shall multiply and devour the wood! The seventh! Oh, the poor seventh!”

“Can't you speak clearly?” Cory shouted at her. “Or are you just plain crazy? Maybe you're no soothsayer at all but just a nutter! Malkira spoke plainly enough when he told Therion who and what I was, why are you so hard to understand?”

“The daemon's minds in my brain, like water and oil. They only mix in the chaotic stirring, otherwise they are separate!”

“Then what did that prophecy mean, Deidra? Make some sense for once!” Cory was getting increasingly frustrated with Deidra. Not just because she was so cryptic, but because she was competition, in a way. Eventually she and the daemons who fed her these prophecies would become one and the same, and while Cory was revered for having command over an army of daemons, certainly she would be revered since she would be one with daemons. Being in her presence made him feel not so special. She was the only person who under any circumstances could still be considered his equal.

“What did what prophecy mean?” Deidra said, breaking out of her trance and looking at Cory with confusion in her big, black eyes.

This cute innocence, which Cory was so sure Deidra was just faking, was too much for him to handle. In fury Cory struck Deidra across the cheek with the back of his hand and knocked her onto the ground. “Silence! Leave me alone! I don't want to see you or hear from you! Bother me again and I'll kill you!” Cory stormed off into his room and slammed the door shut so hard that tapestries fell off of the walls nearby.

Having no idea what she'd done that had been so upsetting to Cory Deidra assumed that she must have done something truly terrible to make her friend turn so violent, and she sat on the floor. She held her cheek and cried. She was still there thirty minutes later when Therion came upstairs. He walked over to her and knelt on the ground, gently touching the top of her head.

“Deidra, what's wrong?” Therion asked.

“I did something really bad,” Deidra replied.

“What did you do?”

“I don't know. I just know it was really really bad.”

The people of the newly named town of Ormondsburgh had heard stories of a rebel leader named “Kalvyn Silverlocke.” Some insisted the man was just a rumor, made up by anarchists as a fable, a fake leader for their unorganized rebellions, but the people of Ormondsburgh had to believe such a man existed, and they asked around other towns, trying to see if they could find him. They never did.

Quite the contrary, when Kalvyn heard of a large group of people asking about him he found them. First he sent his agents to assess the reasons why they wanted to find him, and when his agents reported that they likely wanted to join his rebellion he sought them out, with the protection of fifty of his soldiers, on the road, between cities.

“I understand you all have been looking for me,” Kalvyn said.

He was exactly the way he was described in the rumors, except older. And taller. And he didn't have horns like a daemon. “Yes, we understand you are trying to bring about the end of this oppressive regime.”

“You understand correctly.” Kalvyn nodded to them.

“We also want to see it end.”

“Why is that?”

“A young man, working for King Therion, came into our village the other day. He had with him an ancient artifact, a ring that can conjure legions of powerful daemons. With it he killed our sheriff, took all our money, and enslaved our entire town for a day. There was nothing we could do to stop him! We understand that he has an arch-daemon's favor, and that means we should respect him, but surely this cannot be the will of our beloved Prunikos! Where's the wisdom in such subjugation? In giving power to murderous madmen? If he was indeed on a quest for King Therion we want to see Therion taken out of power immediately! We cannot allow people like that to go unpunished. If you are indeed planning to overthrow that cruel monster then we will stand with you.”