Chapter 81: Threads Of Fate II

  Given the overwhelming power Shub-Niggurath had just exhibited, one might find it odd that I decided to draw attention to myself instead of attacking her from behind but, for what felt like the first time since we'd set foot in Zeus' tholos, I had a pn. And it hinged on her knowing exactly what I was about to do. Oh, and also on Syr having no idea what I was pnning.

  “What are you doing?!” Syr hissed.

  “Indeed,” Shub-Niggurath said, and both of them scolding me with the exact same voice was disconcerting to say the least.

  “Ending this,” I said, pointing my weapon at her.

  “Sweet Syr,” Shub-Niggurath said, slightly exasperated, “you chose a gorgeous man as your mate, I'll grant, but he is far too foolish.”

  “You've been in his head so you know he's no fool,” Syr said, though with less confidence than I would have hoped for.

  Shub-Niggurath shrugged, conceding the point. “Nevertheless, what could you possibly hope to accomplish? The strongest god present wasn't able to kill me and even if you were stronger than him, would you truly kill your beloved Syr?” She ran her hands over her body, over Syr's body.

  “Don't say it like that,” Syr hissed. “He doesn't think of me that way.”

  Both Shub-Niggurath and I looked at her. Shub-Niggurath had been in my head so of course she knew how I felt about Syr but... Syr didn't seem to think so.

  “Syr, what are you talking about?” I asked. “I love you.”

  She rocked back as if I'd spped her. “No. But... no. You can't!”

  “But I do,” I said. “I always have. And I always will.”

  “I'm a monster!” she shrieked, pointing at her body worn by Shub-Niggurath.

  “I told you before,” I said. “You aren't. And even if you were, I don't care.”

  “And there you have it,” Shub-Niggurath said, then turned back to face me. “You can't harm me.”

  “I have no intention of harming this body,” I began.

  “Felix!” Syr hissed but I talked over her:

  “And I don't have to. All I need to do is set Syr free.”

  Shub-Niggurath raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms. “And how are you going to accomplish that? An exorcism cast by a godling didn't work and neither did your little cleric's miracle.”

  I raised my sword and pointed it at her chest.

  “I thought you didn't want to harm Syr?”

  “I don't,” I said, then raised my sword and pointed it at the fat pulsing tendril coming out the back of her neck. “All I need to do is to cut that.”

  Everyone I could see frowned at me, Shub-Niggurath included. A moment ter her eyes went wide with arm. “No, that's impossible. You can't see that. I would know.”

  I gave her a smirk. “Wanna bet? I'm a lucky bastard, as you know.”

  “Stop him!” she shrieked at the armored knights and she must have used mind magic because the four of them lurched forward as one, their musket weapons drawn.

  Shit. I couldn't attack her and stop four musket balls. Gods above, a single musket would require all my attention. Just like crossbows, while it was impossible to dodge a musket shot, it was possible to dodge the shooter. But dodging four at once would be nearly impossible. Fortunately, I didn't have to.

  There was a blur of blue and red and Yume smmed into one of the knights, her sword striking the side of the musketeer's weapon. And it was a testament to just how tough their weapons were that Yume's legendary, possible even mythic, sword was unable to cleave clean through it.

  A moment ter Selene charged at a second knight, knocking his weapon aside with her sword.

  The third knight was stopped by Anna, her sword spping his weapon away even as a sapphire wing interposed itself between him and me.

  The fourth knight was stopped by Melinoe and Alisha, both of them bsting magic into him until he was reeling.

  All of this took a lot longer to write than it actually took to happen. One moment four barrels were aimed at me and the next moment all four knights were too busy to even think of shooting me.

  Without giving her a chance to build up any kind of defense I smmed Qi into my legs and unched myself toward the tendril. As I sailed through the air I fed more Qi into my arms to deliver a Qi Burst in range of that tendril.

  Shub-Niggurath twisted impossibly, weaving out of the way with a supernatural speed she hadn't even shown when fighting Poseidon, but even so it wasn't quite enough to avoid me. My bde whistled through the air, the tip of the bde just barely touching the tendril before I rushed past it and nded behind her.

  I nded in a forward roll and jumped back to my feet, turning to face her.

  The tendril was entirely unharmed. I knew my bde had gone right through it but I hadn't been able to inflict any damage. Even so, I wasn't fully beaten yet. I still had an ace up my sleeve. All I needed to do was to keep my expression grimly determined rather than terrified. Because on Shub-Niggurath's face I saw what I had been hoping to see. Fear.

  She stared at me, her eyes wide with fear.

  I hefted my bde, set my jaw in determination and narrowed my eyes at her, then said: “I won't miss again.”

  She kept staring at me for an eternity that sted one heartbeat, two, three... And then her face twisted up in utter terror and she bolted through the portal.

  “Shut it off!” she screamed once she was through. “Shut it off NOW!” And a moment ter the portal winked out. My gambit had worked. She had fled.

  But in that one moment, right before the portal shut off, I had caught the gaze of the man standing beside the throne, the bearded man wearing the bck tunic. His eyes had not been human and even having stood next to a manifestation of an Outer God I had never felt the kind of terror that man, no, that thing, inspired. It had looked at me and it had smirked. It had known that I had been bluffing. And it hadn't intervened.

  “She left us to fucking die?” one of the knights from another world demanded.

  “Shut up and keep fighting,” the lead knight said. “She left us here for a reason.”

  “The hell she did,” another said. “That bitch bolted.”

  The only one who didn't contribute to the conversation was the one Alisha and Melinoe had stopped from attacking me. He was on the ground, clearly unconscious, with bands of amethyst magic cuffing his wrists together.

  “Seems to me like you've got a few choices to make,” Odysseus said. “Surrender and you will be spared.”

  “Do you really expect us to spare Outsider worshipers from another world?” Artemis growled.

  “There's a great many things we still don't know about this assault, about the Outsiders and about the world beyond that portal,” Odysseus said gently, clearly trying to talk Artemis down from making a very stupid, very irreversible decision. “I would rather gather intel about that than sate some short-sighted vengeance.”

  Artemis, clearly mollified, was about to open her mouth to give a reply when Wilhelm's body exploded with a corona of bck and purple magic.

  “Attend me,” he said as he began floating in the air, though not with his own voice. Instead he spoke with the voice of Shub-Niggurath, so much like Syr's but reverberating in a strange, unpleasant way. “You may have won this battle but you have not won this war. I shall return with the next alignment.” Wilhelm's head turned to face me and I saw that same purple and bck magic coming out of his eyes, mouth and nostrils, as if he was nothing more than Wilhelm's skin stretched over a ball of magic. And as I saw his fingertips gradually dissolving into thin air I had to assume that's precisely what was happening. “And next time I shall not fall for that same trick. Even if you are able to see the threads of fate, you clearly cannot touch them.”

  “The next convergence isn't for another two years,” one of the knights demanded. “You expect us to survive until then?”

  Wilhelm's head turned to face him and by this point his hands had dissolved to the wrists and his empty boots had cttered to the ground. “My continued incarnation is more important than your survival. Your passing is regrettable but inevitable.”

  “What's going to happen to Wilhelm once you're done with him?” Anna demanded as Wilhelm's sleeves drooped, implying that his arms were nearly gone.

  “This vessel will expire shortly,” Shub-Niggurath said without a trace of regret or remorse. “I merely used its final moments to bring you this message. This vessel is rather more durable than I expected. Communication across worlds is costly.” And finally, when Wilhelm's limbs were gone entirely, his head turned to face Syr. “My sweet daughter, enjoy your time with these mortals. Or come visit me, see what I see in this world. I promise I shall not keep you from returning to him.”

  Before Syr could spit vitriol at her mother the power winked out and the husk that was Wilhelm dropped out of the air.

  Before he could hit the ground Anna rushed over to him, leaving the knight she'd been stopping behind, and caught her brother. From the way she was holding him he weighed as much as a feather at this point.

  “Wilhelm,” she whimpered, tears in her eyes.

  “Hey baby sis,” he said, his voice raspy. He leaned his head into her hand. “Don't cry for me. This body was about to fail in the next day or two anyway.”

  “Nononono...”

  “Shh,” he said. “I told you, Anna. I transcend mortality. We will meet again soon enough, though I fear we will still be enemies then.”

  “It doesn't have to be that way,” she sobbed.

  “I'm afraid I made my bed,” he said. “Now I will... lie in it...” And then he fell apart into dust.