Destroyer of Worlds

11

With every beat of the drum reverberating through the walls and floor, Church felt his anger ratcheting up. From the moment it started, he knew it was counting out the remaining moments of Ruth's life, each thoom bringing a flash of the woman he loved in pain; he saw each cut, each beating, each agonised expression as if he were standing next to her. The images seared into his mind and pushed him towards the brink of madness.

With his exertion in the heat of the rows of lamps and candles, he had sweated himself dry. He could no longer feel his wrists. The constant drip-drip-drip into the puddle on the floor matched the drum's steady rhythm.

Occasionally his dread for Ruth shifted into blind, red hatred for the Libertarian, who swayed before his mind's eye with his sickeningly mocking grin, and his lies and his contempt, the architect of all his misery. Church knew he could kill the Libertarian without a second thought, the realisation no less troubling than the conundrum of whether it would be murder or suicide.

Thoom. Ruth. Thoom. Ruth. Thoom.

Finally the combustible mixture of dread and hatred exploded in uncontrollable rage. He half-stood, the chair rising with him, and raced backwards, crashing the seat against the wall. The force of the impact jarred every bone in his body, the wood of the upright smashing into his back, but still the rage did not diminish. In a fury, he did it again, and again, falling to the ground, struggling to pick himself up, once knocking himself unconscious.

When he was in the kind of pain he imagined Ruth was experiencing, he heard a loud crack. Barely able to think straight, he slammed into the wall one more time and the chair shattered into several pieces. Stepping through his bonds, he ignored the tattered mess of his wrists and tried the door. It was open. Caledfwlch stood outside.

Stupid, he thought. Do you really think that little of me?

Working the rope against the blade, he was free within a moment and lurching quickly down the corridor towards the drum-beat. His head spun and every fibre of his body ached, but his hatred kept him going.

A maze of stairs and corridors passed in a blur until he found himself stepping out into a small gallery overlooking a great hall filled with several ranks of Aztec warriors. All else faded into a mist when his gaze fell on Ruth, bound to a table on the other side of the hall, either unconscious or dead, her body leaking blood from numerous wounds. The boom of the drum reverberating in the pit of his stomach only added to his queasy despair.

A twitch of Ruth's hand allowed his rage to surface once more, and though the Libertarian was nowhere to be seen — Coward, he thought — his attention fell on what appeared to be a decomposing corpse now looming over Ruth with a black knife.

At the same time, the door into the hall burst open. With a fierce yell, Veitch began to chop and hack at the Aztec Warriors.

Without a thought for his own safety, Church threw himself from the gallery into the midst of the warriors. Several fell beneath Caledfwlch before the warriors realised they were being attacked from behind, and by then Church was cutting a path through them towards Ruth.

In the enclosed space, the warriors' obsidian-tipped spears were useless, and their wooden swords were no match for Caledfwlch. The Blue Fire blazed around the blade with more ferocity than Church had ever seen before, filling his gaze, his mind.

In the chaos of battle, he caught only glimpses of the grotesque grey figure holding the knife above Ruth. His feverish prayers appeared to work, for the knife did not fall. Instead he caught sight of a mirror that appeared to smoke, and then the figure was gone and the Libertarian stood in his place, mocking Church silently.

The sight of the one he hated most in the world drove the last of his rational thoughts away, and then there was only a red haze of blood and bone and flesh as he cut through the final warriors and leaped onto the small dais where the table stood.

Despite the extent of her wounds, Ruth had already come round. She mouthed his name, other words he could no longer hear, and he had no idea why the concern in her face became fear. Slicing through her bonds, he lurched past the table towards the Libertarian.

'You're not going to hurt anybody any more!' he roared.

With a devilish grin, the Libertarian held the smoking mirror towards him, and as the smoke cleared, Church saw what could only have been the reflection of another world. In it, a hellish figure covered from head to toe in blood stared back at him, wild-eyed, in its hands a sword of Black Fire, remarkably like his own. The truth of the reflection did not touch him, or if it did, he did not care, for he advanced on the Libertarian with a renewed rage.

Behind him, he heard one of Ruth's words of power. A flash of lightning and a furious gale assailed the remaining warriors.

Oblivious to the turmoil behind him, Church advanced on the Libertarian. 'I'm going to kill you,' he snarled.

Someone called his name. He ignored it.

From the side of the room, another Libertarian appeared to knock the mirror from the hands of his twin where it shattered on the floor. A look of abject betrayal filled the face of the first Libertarian, but then his features began to swim.

Church was too consumed by his passions to comprehend what was happening or to wait for an outcome. As the second Libertarian darted towards the window, Church attacked his prey, even as his features began to alter back to those of Tezcatlipoca. An inhuman shriek made his head ring as the blade bit deep, the blue flames a consuming inferno. No cries for mercy would make him relent.

A troubling calm came over him, so he did not hear the thud of the sword that matched the beat of the now-silent drum. Thoom. Thoom. Thoom. The Libertarian was gone, but still Church did not stop. Whatever was before him was now an unidentifiable mass that had to be reduced to the smallest parts possible. So he continued, chopping and hacking and slicing, even when there was only a slurry spread across the dais, and a voice told him that he would never stop, because he could never be sure he could eradicate the foulness he would become. He could never change things, or make them better. He could only destroy.

Rough hands grabbed him, and by then he was too weak to resist. Caledfwlch clattered to the floor and he turned to face Shavi and Tom. Shavi was crying openly, and for some reason Tom would not meet his eyes.

Reeling, his gaze was drawn past them to Ruth, finally worried about her now that his rage had burned itself out. Suddenly he wondered if it was too late, for him, for them, for everything. Veitch held Ruth tightly, comforting her, and they were both looking at him as if he were the monster he had seen reflected in the smoking mirror.