Slowly Erebus turned to stare at the lead ingot upon the altar, face inscrutable. Well nearly, there was no hiding the rage in his eyes or the way every movement was too deliberate, too carefully controlled. A body under the complete control of its mind, bent to a single purpose.

By the time he’d taken his first step towards the altar Lana was already reaching to stop him, yelling with fervent desperation, “Don’t let him touch the chain.”

Erebus twitched his fingers once, from Lana to the darkness, and the demon went flying into the hungry mass, her shield punctured with the ease of a needle piercing hot wax, her armour, designed to stop just about any magical bombardment would stop any attack from piercing it, so he hadn’t bothered, telekinetically grabbing the armour as well. She’d live, probably.

Natalya stared him down, staff held across her body in a defensive gesture, “What are you going to do?” She asked, trying to be delicate.

“Move.” The necromancer told her sharply. “Or be moved.”

His friend took only a brief glance at the glittering and glistening rage in those steely orbs before she stepped aside even as Lana leapt out of the morass of shadows for his back. Erebus didn’t even look at the demon lord as an unseen hand swatted her to the floor.

“Don’t you think this might be an overreaction?” Weaver suggested delicately only to quail beneath the necromancer’s attention as he reached for the chain.

His fingers didn’t close around it, an impossibly slippery and intangible barrier stopped him. He turned to glare at Lana, the demoness’ power pouring from her outstretched hand from her prone position on the hard rock.

The devil didn’t flinch away from his gimlet gaze, “You can’t! The Lady said you need three aces, you only have two. You can’t use that. Please.”

“Susan is dead Lana. I will have vengeance.” With a growl he grabbed the ingot upon the altar tightly, forcing his way through the devil’s last defence.

Triumphantly he lifted it into the air, brandishing it at the darkness still trying to press its way through to them. “Now let us talk, primordial.”

“Oh dear.” The shadows chorused. “What gave me away?”

“Two things really. The cruelty was the big one, a true hivemind wouldn’t have made me watch Susan join the mass, there’d have been no point. That was an act of ego and an act of spite. The second giveaway Lana tipped me off to, after Susan travelled with us through Arcadia, the shadows are your eyes and ears on Reath. A spy that can’t report is no spy at all.”

“My thanks for the explanation.” The darkness drawled, smug as a cat napping inside a recently vacated birdcage. “I shall not make those errors again.”

“You won’t get the opportunity.” Erebus told the fourth primordial flatly.

The eldest monster of all laughed, a rich and treacly rumble, and it made the very earth around them quake, and that was just its voice. The Devourer of All wasn’t really there, speaking through a distant proxy. It wasn’t even trying to show off, that kind of power simply was. It oozed into its every act, its every word.

Where once a voice had said ‘let there be light’, this voice had said ‘let there be darkness’ and this voice had won.

“And what, morsel, do you think you can do to me?” The laughter in its words was thoroughly hideous, the winner of the primordial war was more prideful than any demon of ego, and not, it had to be said, without reason.

Natalya was first to notice the effect the voice was having on them, dabbing at a wetness on her cheeks only for her fingers to come away sticky and scarlet. She didn’t know what a primordial was but whatever this creature was it was so inimical to life that it was killing them just by the echo its presence.

She showed her sticky fingers to Weaver and the remaining arachni scout as she turned her senses inwards, trying to find the injury and repair it without having to rely on a mana intensive panacea. The result was shocking, internal bleeding just about everywhere, bones with hairline fractures running through them. It was like her entire body was being slowly shaken apart.

Erebus ignored the blood leaking from his eyes and ears as he stared down the darkness, and when he spoke his words were as soft as an assassin’s silk shoes, “What can I do? I am going to blind you, you arrogant pustule. I am going to tear out your ears and strangle your voice. I am going to rid Reath of your little army of scouts so that the next time you so much as hear a whisper of what goes on in this world will be when I drag you out of the void so that you can look upon this world you covet so as I kill you.”

He didn’t give it a chance to respond, the lead ingot running into a liquid in his grasp as he repurposed the aetheric chain it represented.

This was going to be difficult to achieve. Even with a structural aetheric chain, and one of the more powerful at that, as well as his very own divine spark to feed it, none of that would matter if he didn’t have an object to anchor his intent to.

The problem was annihilation couldn’t really be anchored to an object. How could it when it was so opposed to the very idea of objects? There were ways to contain a spell of annihilation, but they were temporary things, unstable and prone to destroying themselves without warning.

He carried one now, the lilac pearl from Arcadia was a sphere of annihilation, and a powerful one, but to use it for this… he doubted it could take the strain.

Perhaps it didn’t need anchoring though? If he could just impose the rule on the world, for even a moment, there would be no coming back. They’d be wiped from Reath, quite possibly forever.

The gods had laid the groundwork for this, by making them vulnerable to sunlight. Now the shadows could be killed it would be easy to keep their numbers down if they had to start again from nothing.

The only reason the Underreath was so deadly was that the shadows had built up incredible numbers down in the dark, wiping clean the thriving ecosystems and civilisations that had once lived down here. Without anything to feed on and unable to face the sun, even if the fourth primordial was able to get another shadow to Reath it would find itself facing a far more prepared and far more capable opposition than its predecessors.

Perhaps the nameless primordial saw a glimmer of the thoughts dancing behind Erebus’ bloodshot eyes because it nearly got to him as he created his own aetheric chain. The mass of darkness finally piercing the barrier and reaching hungrily for him. It would be the work of moments to consume him, the chain took too much power and he had none to spare for a shield spell.

The lead tendril burst apart, Natalya’s sunbeam raking back and forth across the nigh infinite tendrils, and just like that it was too late as Erebus brought a new law of magic into being.

“The shadows of oblivion cannot survive on Reath.” He intoned, the words echoing around the world, though he wouldn’t find that out for several days.

The shadows didn’t try to run, and their cruel creator did not scream. There was no time to. Just like that the Encroaching Darkness, the Devouring Shadows, and a hundred other names for it, simply ceased to exist, dispersing into a fading black smoke and then was gone forever.

Erebus held the new chain in place as long as he could. The aetheric chains weren’t absolute, not even the structural chains, and a strong enough will could override them locally. He fed first the power of the gravity chain into it, then the divine spark, cutting it every bit as roughly from his soul as when he’d grafted it – that would have a toll later – then finally what little magicka he had left before he collapsed to the ground.

Slowly, tentatively, Natalya moved to sit besides the almost insensate archmage, and he was an archmage. For all she’d tried to deny it in her own head it was clear that Erebus more than qualified for the title, his knowledge of the arcane deep enough that she could drown in it.

The necromancer didn’t acknowledge her at first, his breathing slow and heavy as he fought to just stay conscious. Nat didn’t know what effects running two entire godhoods through a human body would have but she knew what magicka depletion felt like, if Erebus could still move under his own power it would only be out of the same suicidal stubbornness that had typified his entire career.

Erebus slowly raised his head to stare mournfully at his friend, “I promised I would protect her. I gave her my word.”

Natalya nodded, “Sometimes we fail. Sometimes the cost of victory is too high. Sometimes there just never was a way to win.”

His laugh was more of a sob, “I’m sick of it Nat. When will I ever be powerful enough that other people stop paying for my mistakes?”

“Never Ere, the answer is never.” She hugged him as best she could, it was more than a little awkward – neither of them had ever been good huggers. “The only way to stop other people paying for your mistakes is not to make any. And the only way not to make any is to be dead.”

“It was an unpleasant death by any measure.” Lana sighed, also putting an arm around his shoulders, “You should take some time once we’re in the sunlight. Whatever comes next you need to harden your heart to it.”

“Not the time Lana.” Natalya hissed, not pushing the demon away but only because she’d hurt herself on Lana’s armour.

“It’s never the time.” She growled, giving her a humourless smile, allowing her lips to draw back just enough to show too white teeth. “It doesn’t stop me being right. The Lady said he’d face losses on this path, that he’d suffer terrible defeats, and the path is long indeed and only he can walk it.”

Somehow Erebus seemed to draw some strength from that, if not comfort, rising slowly but steadily to his feet and if his cheeks were wet then everyone had the good grace not to call attention to it. “We should go back to Valda.”

“Probably.” Natalya replied after a moment, “But I haven’t the strength to teleport us. Do you?”

“I’ve barely the strength to stand. We’ll walk.” He answered before adding more thoughtfully, and far more optimistically than he felt, “You know, with the shadows gone, we can actually enjoy the sights on the way back.”

“That certainly would be something.” Lana noted, “Even in the Hells dwarven architecture was held in high esteem.”

“Before we do that,” Weaver began, the arachni who had challenged Ariadne would have struggled to sound more timid, “could we perhaps visit the Great Web one final time? Shroomlight needs an escort home and I have a suggestion to pass by my honoured ancestor.”

“Of course.” Erebus and Nat practically raced to promise. The archmage laughed, it was a little forced but only a little, recovering from his sudden attack of humanity. Just one more thing to carefully not think about until he had less responsibilities – so quite possibly until the end of time.

With Natalya supporting some of his weight, they began their slow march back towards daylight.

 

*

 

Deep in what the imperators called the Great Abyss, gods called the Endless Void and what few mortals had dared venture that far called the Outermost Hells, the fourth primordial waged an endless war.

It had had a name once, just after the Primordial War, when it had feasted upon god, primordial and old one such that even its terrible hunger had almost been sated. It had torn the throat of Life herself out and glutted upon her golden blood as Death’s great scythe had broken upon its skin.

It had been indomitable, invincible, nigh infinite but that had all been a very long time ago. So long ago that even minor gods like Pheus had only heard the stories.

It had always known hunger, from the moment it had incepted itself into being, but in the time since the war it had truly known starvation.

The imperators did not have the power of the primordials or conceptuals but what they did have was a single foe. The Primordial War had been one of those rare cavalcades of chaos where there may have actually been more factions than participants.

 What they also had, and unusually for demons,  was unity of purpose and total trust in each other. It was not that they did not desire their fellows’ strength, but that they could not afford infighting.

For all that the Old War was, broadly speaking, stable, the loss of an imperator would shatter that uneasy balance. There was not a single imperator that wouldn’t risk gravest peril to save another, well save the Imperator of Madness but that was another matter entirely.

The imperators knew the moods of the great enemy almost as well as they knew their own but they did not know this mood. For the first time since the Primordial War, the enemy retreated.

On a thousand thousand worlds the devouring one withdrew, not fled, for it was in no danger, but abandoned its meals, some of them worlds that had been scoured of life with it supping upon the hollowed out shell.

Slowly, across realities, dimensions and planes, it withdrew itself, condensing down and down until it was a perfect sphere floating in one of the voids it had created.

Oblivion took a moment to ponder, and to rejoice, things it had not had the capacity to do for a very, very long time. Eating its name had been a terrible mistake, the loss of identity had rendered it, not mindless but incapable of any motivation or action outside of its nature. Incapable of growth. A perfect static being, hungering and cruel, and doomed to be so forever.

It had still been an overwhelming force, able by sheer metaphysical mass to strike so many worlds there was no way for the imperators to defend them all, but that kind of simple strategy was ill becoming of the mind that had won the Primordial War.

Which brought it to its next feeling, gratitude, towards a mortal of all things. That was new, and in desperate times the memory would feast delightfully but for now it focused on that feeling. Trying to remember how gratitude worked.

You were supposed to do something nice for them right? But what did Oblivion have to give a mortal that they might appreciate except perhaps surcease?

It was a conundrum thorny enough to justify on its own the choice to condense itself, its consciousness no longer spread and split countless times but working as a single cohesive whole. Perhaps the mortal had enemies?

That was a possibility and removing an enemy would be nice wouldn’t it? Oh but how to do so when it was barred from Reath. It had pawns of course, the shadows had not been its only piece on the board, just the most extensive.

Its other tools tended to be singular entities with their own wants and wishes and thus Oblivion was inclined to distrust them on principle.

Perhaps it had enemies in the Hells, afterall the demons did covet Reath so, indeed it had designed them for that very purpose.

That too presented problems enough that Oblivion nearly gave up on the spot. Now it remembered why it seldom took the time to be aware, thinking was exhausting when it was so much easier just to consume everything around it.

They had no contacts in the Hells, no information networks. What few demons that hadn’t rebelled had been devoured long, long ago. So what could it offer the morsel… the mortal even?

It could choose not to kill them. That was certainly an idea. But the mortal was trying to kill them, and under normal circumstances that wouldn’t even have registered as a threat, but she had killed the shadows hadn’t she? It might need to kill her at some point.

Oblivion was pretty sure the mage had been a she. Biology had always been an inefficient and messy means of living. They could vaguely recall being opposed to it at the time. Either way it didn’t matter. The mortal shouldn’t matter at all, but the unpaid debt rankled.

They owed the mortal. The mortal had threatened them. These facts were incontrovertible.

Perhaps they should repay the mortal with forgiveness? Yes that worked. They would forgive them their threat and not act against them.

Relief coursed through the sphere of darkness, conundrum solved.

There was one more matter Oblivion had to attend to. With the shadows out of play it was time to develop another piece on Reath to take over, then it could go back to just unthinkingly feeding for a time. That would be nice.

It was hard to alter things on Reath. Impossible even. But the adjacent worlds were not so impermeable. Lazily Oblivion extended their will into one of the pocket dimensions that festooned that world like parasites, changed a single thing, then let its awareness spread thin once more. Bliss.

 

*

 

Oblivion was not the only one experiencing misbegotten gratitude towards Erebus. The Bard sat watching the necromancer on their scrying orb. The necromancer’s grand spell had echoed across the globe and they had been one of the few to realise the significance of that quiet proclamation.

They had already put out feelers to try and find the fugitive mage. The tip off that he was hiding in a death zone had been theirs and credit to the Council of Mages they’d danced to that particular tune with remarkable efficiency.

The Bard had never expected a report of ‘Erebus is hiding here’, whichever First Response team encountered him would doubtless just go missing, and sure enough three of them had.

After that it had just been a matter of figuring out which one had ran into their least favourite necromancer.

They ignored the missing team from Rapturous Horizon, doubtless they had simply made the mistake of glancing at the sunset. Unfortunate but not unforeseen. Which left Forsaken Valda and Grandmother Ethel’s Bakery.

This would normally be the part where the detective would make some clever observation that ruled out one of the remaining options, but the truth was they had just spied both of them and concluded it was the one that had half of Erebus’ accomplices trying to cheer up a still tearful Alec.

At which point, a mere ten seconds later, all of that hard work and intricate scheming had been made pointless by Erebus announcing his presence to the entire world. Life was just like that sometimes.

It had been the work of minutes to retune the main orb to the Underreath. Searching the tunnels had taken somewhat longer, with one very alarming false alarm where they’d zoned in on a source of light only to rapidly search elsewhere as they stumbled upon Saiko and the Questing Beast in mortal combat.

The next light source they found, far, far deeper down, was indeed Erebus and his companions. The blazing magelights a resounding testament that the mage had actually killed the shadows. One of the great threats of the world lay fallen at his feet and even the Bard had to admire it.

It wasn’t going to stay their own hand, not for a second, what lay between them was personal. No amount of good deeds was going to fix it but begrudgingly they poured out a small measure of whisky and toasted the deed.

There was little enough to be done now but watch. Erebus had, of his own recognizance, stolen the information needed to find the architect of the Maltz disaster as well as the attempted slayer of Amara, and while they could accelerate the process to help them pick through that massive pile of information they saw no need to.

The time for bardic magic was past. Now it was just a matter of letting the dice fall where they chose then mop up the survivors. For the Cult of the Ardent Wildfyre a combined arms attachment of mage and paladin would likely suffice. For Erebus, they had something more personal in mind.