Chapter Nine

The royal airship Areopus sailed towards the setting sun. The yellow orb was already half-swallowed by the dark sea and the sky blazed reds and pink. With the horizon ablaze with colour Prometheus strolled out of the dining hall towards the narrow bar. He himself had recently finished yet another fine dinner of the trip. Dozens of tables had littered the room to feed the hundred souls aboard. And each of those hundred it seemed wanted to shake hands of the Prince of Light. He had dined at the Captain's table and listened to the drunk old man’s tales of high-adventure in the sky. The old ladies fawned at the captain’s tales until he could take it no more. Prometheus excused himself with the suspicion that a stiff drink might improve his mood and encourage his sleep.

The Areopus spared no luxury and in moments he had his drink of choice. He paid in small bills and a left a few coins behind as a handsome tip. Now armed with his drink he wandered the wood-walled corridors in search of a smoking room and perhaps a library in which to while away the last of the evening hours. Prometheus settled into the deep soft chair in in the scant library of the airship. He left the books untouched as the hum of the engines lulled him into quiet reflection. He thought of his daughter, his country far away, and the throb of his machine

A few miles behind them, the swift Krys airship swallowed the last of the distance between them. Lucian Dorjan was the first to announce that they were close. The Tarquins had grown accustomed to the man’s strange behaviour and took no notice when he sealed himself up in his room. As soon as his door was closed he lost himself to a trance. The magician projected his thoughts forward through the empty sky between them until they settled around the Areopus. He had but the merest impression of the location of the coin of Zro, and needed to be sure the time was right. Carefully he gathered his will and wove himself a watcher.

Aboard the Areopus, the small bar began to fill with sated diners in search of libations. Though the air in the once corner of the bar began to shimmer, it was beyond their conception and they remained oblivious to the shape that drew itself into reality. The walnut panels walls, and the lush red carpet seemed to bend inward. The once smooth surfaces puckered and stretched wrapping itself around the projection of Lucian’s desire. A human shape pulled itself from the very airship itself. The watcher stood very still and observed the scene. No one noticed it, they could not, with their small closed minds, Lucian gloated. The avatar relayed the scene, missing the main actor and Lucian’s quarry, Prometheus himself. Yet the coin was close. He had a sense of it from the bar and realized that Prometheus must have given it up a few moments ago.

He uttered a few words, taught to him by Oxyathes’ spirit, words that could command the coin of Zro to life. The Zroggoth, as Lucian has named it, shivered and lost it’s thin circular shape. It split and coalesced a tiny smear of silver death that moved towards the nearest warm flesh. The bartender served up a few glasses of wine and searched for a clean towel when the Zro found him. It had hardened itself to a sharp narrow blade, as thin as a needle. The piercing of his flesh caused him to draw his hand up and back, bringing with it a silver barb that already had begun to wriggle into the bloody gash. The bartender cursed and drew his hand up to survey the wound but it was already too late.

The Zro was an ancient element, crystallized aether, magic incarnate Oxyathes had explained. He had brought with him through the ages the last of a particular permutation of the substance that would multiply itself through blood sacrifice. It was this substance that they had crafted the lucky coin, and it was this substance that ripped the bartender apart in seconds as it exponentially grew inside the wound. It turned his blood to solid metal on the instant of contact and raced towards his heart erupting jagged shards of metal that rendered flesh from bone. His last thought was of frantic survival as the surface of his skin began to rupture from the inside. Just before he realized what was happening his life was extinguished in a shower of silver tendrils. The screams of anyone else who noticed were deafened by the sound of breaking glass and rending of wood as the Zroggoth exploded in size.

It sent out sharp spires, erupting in all directions, slicing through the wooden bar, and anyone who stood before it. Their bodies were reduced to a red mist by the explosive force. Like a gruesome silver tree, it collected its mass at the center of where it had burst forth. The silver metal pooled like liquid and flowed across every surface sending glittering spines into the air as it flowed. In a moment it had consumed everyone in the narrow bar, even those scrambling to escape the slaughter and then spilled out into the dining room and hallway like an invasive silver vine seeking sunlight.

On the bridge of the airship, reports of the approaching ship began to reach the navigators ears. There were no scheduled rendezvous and no other airships on this route. She turned to the relay a warning to the gunners, but the sound of screams began to emerge from the bronze communication tubes. She craned her head to see the slender ivory ship bearing the crest of Krys come alongside, faster and more nimble than the craft at her command. The sound of panic behind her and a violent impact on the metal door to the bridge caused her hands to begin to tremble.

Only Lucian’s watcher remained, untouchable and unseen. It pulled itself from the fabric of bloodied interior and traveled haltingly after the creature as it tore its way through ship in search of a single occupant. Lucian had commanded the creature to spare the inventor. The Zroggoth broke through every cabin door, and sent up radiant thorns across every surface. Where it found warm wet flesh it sent other tendrils, smaller snaking ones through the wound to sup every drop of blood it could while the mass continued to expand.

Prometheus barely had time to stand before as the library door buckled and the Zroggoth impaled him through the shoulder, pinning him through the shoulder to the wall of the shattered library. Every surface was slick with silver and blood. Through the hole he could see the roughly crafted Watcher begin to slip away back into the components of it’s creation. They had come for him, he realized and struggled against the pain to cast his sigils and conjure up his power.

He could not destroy the silver mass that pierced him through, but he found he could bring it to completion. The holy Zro, twisted into this blood thirsty metal was but a temporary condition. The application of a little of his will transformed it further and ceased its growth. With this change, it’s explosive expanse ended as suddenly as it had begun.

Aboard the Krys airship Lucian finally emerged from his trance and let the Watcher return to nothingness. He was greeted by a view of the Areopus when he exited his private cabin. Soldier clamoured to catch a glimpse of the gleaming ship. Their faces paled when they saw the blood splattered windows and deep cracks in the hull of the Areopus.
Lucian beamed at his work. “I’ve disabled the ship for you, General.” He said to Gerhild who gawked with the rest of his men.
“Launch the grapples and prepare to board.” the General ordered.

In this position Prometheus could feel the whole ship tremble. Deep within the ship the hum of the engines struggled and died. It was long helpless minutes before his fate revealed itself. Lucian and the Tarquins boarded and he made their way through the piles of fabric and bones scattered across the room. The thorns that begun to melt into a viscus reflective metal but not before unsettling the Tarquin soldiers. They pointed their rifles at the shuddering Zroggoth but Lucian held up a hand. “My creation, you have nothing to fear from it.” He said in Tarq.

Prometheus heard the gruff language of the invaders and realized the recent vibrations were symptoms of being boarded by a Tarquin force. He had studied their culture and history, but never their language and could not discern from the brisk barks the content of the communication. Heavy footsteps and the clang of metal grew louder. Finally they stepped into view. From the broken door he could make out the glossy black hair and piercing hungry gaze of an all too familiar face.

“Lucian.” He said, tasting blood in his mouth. The spines of the Zroggoth wilted as the dark magician strode into the shattered room.

“Prometheus, my old friend.” He said in their common tongue. Lucian waved his hand and the spine of Zro that pinned Prometheus recoiled, dissolving into a silver mist. Blood surged from the fist-sized hole. Prometheus knew his time was short, his vision already darkened. He turned inward and called out to all the gods, and unearthly forces both uranic and odic that he had met in his travels for strength and their magic. They were silent, absent in his hour of need or perhaps ambivalent, tired of the meddling inventor who’d reconfigured their world in his image. He called out to again and only the Goddess of Death stirred from the depths.

“Prometheus,” someone called his name again. It was Lucian who knelt over him and fingered the wound. The pain ripped him from his trance and dragged him back to his fading sense. “I’ve come for your secrets. Your precious transmitter is my key to absolute dominion of the whole of creation… or should I call it by it’s true name. The Torquetum, that’s what my ancestors called it.”

“Torquetum. That word has been dead for millennia,” Prometheus groaned, he could barely make out the man leaning over him, as a haze of dark blue settled over his vision. “My secrets, will die with me.” He swallowed, and the taste of fresh blood caused him to sputter.

“You are dying.” A woman whispered in his ear.
“Hectae. I knew you’d come.”
“I’ve waited long to get my hands on you Prometheus.” she said and a ghostly shape drew herself from the aether. Her skeletal hands probed his wound and a wicked smile, equal parts full soft lips, bared bone, and teeth flashed across his thoughts.

Lucian spoke over her ghostly taunts, oblivious to the shade tormenting his prey. “The location of the transmitter, give it to me.”

“Never.” Prometheus said and flinched as the Goddess’s frigid touch grazed his cheek. “It will die with me.”

“That is unlikely. I know others who know of it’s hiding place. Your daughter?”

“Leave her alone. She knows nothing of my work.” He growled with there last of his strength.
“You remember how fond I was of haruspicy ? Your entrails might talk and if not your’s perhaps when I gut her open she’ll tell of your secrets.”

“Do whatever you want to me.” Lucian said, but his voice trailed off as his lungs filled with blood.
“Oh, I will, first though, I shall give your journal a good long read.” Lucian said and reached for the blood pocket of his vest.

“Hecate” He commanded her with the word that bound her to him. “You owe me one last favour.”
Outside the world and Lucian moved sluggishly, compared to the divine time that swirled around the goddess and the dying man. He had a few moments to convince her.
“I will not spare your life.” said the shade. He could see her and only her, the room faded to black.
“No, I would not beg for that.” Prometheus had traveled to the boundaries of life, and accomplished all that his soul might while tethered to his flesh. He had pondered this moment many times, and escaped it many more times with his tricks of intellect or skill, yet as the shadows closed around him he knew the bridge beyond the veils awaited. Hecate was ready to reap all that he had sown in life.
“Hecate, you needed my assistance on the Plains of Las-Tamaron and I gave it to you willingly. I only ask that you deliver to Cybele my journal, and let me see her once more...” Prometheus sighed emptying his lungs with air, but feeling unable to fill them again as warm coppery fluid filled his mouth. He was prepared to die, but did not want to. His thoughts caressed the image of his daughter, traced the familiar memories of their brief time together. She was coiled, like a spring about to burst forth in all her power and her spiritual inheritance. This was not the violent end he’d imagined.

Hecate snarled, a vision of beauty one moment that flickered a gaunt skeletal form the next. “Thy will be done.”

Lucian’s hand had only moved a few inches before the feeling of frost burned at his flesh. Around the crumpled bloodsoaked genius a mist began to coalesce. A pale luminous hand clawed its way into manifestation and now Lucian could see the ghostly form with its flicker of curves and skeletal bones.
Once she was solid enough she drew from the vest the leather bound treasure he’d come so far to retrieve.

“What trick is this!?” Lucian roared as he watched the spectre’s hands close around the journal. His hands fles up in archaic gestures to bind the spirit. His summoned prison was one of tissues for the ghostly woman turned with the book clutched to her chest to stare into the wizard.

“Quickly now, Hecate." He tasted blood, and every breath was wet with the warm fluid. "Take my soul with you. Consume me.” Prometheus uttered, this time aloud with the last of his breath. She snatched the golden thread that tethered his soul to his body and vanished.

Lucian’s anger surged and Zro responded in kind by darting up in a flash of silver. The Tarquin soldiers who had gawked in awe were sliced to ribbons, yet the Zro did not multiply. Prometheus had transmuted it into the next state of it’s progress. No longer could it multiply on the blood of it’s victims but Lucian found he could still animate it. Flames of anger dripped from his hands as he stepped over the gore. His hate burned the walls and floor. Alone, Lucian and his silver horror returned to the Kyrs airship without his prize. They unmoored and turned back towards Angleford leaving behind airship consumed in flames. Lucian imagined both the dead and alive reduced to cinder that would rain down to the dark sea below.