time, he raised his voice, crying out, ‘Obey me — come forth!’
Colours burst all around and lightning lashed the ground between them, ripping the air apart to reveal a swirling column of darkness behind.
‘Come!’
The darkness writhed, coils of energy spreading to encircle the platform. Jagged lightning forked across the sky, again and again, striking all around the perimeter of the earthen platform. The Ralebrat reeled and cowered, some dying even as they supplicated themselves.
Isak pulled Eolis from the ground and levelled it towards the darkness, and the column wrenched around so violently the air itself ignited, burning white-hot. Death stepped out of the dark and raised His golden sceptre and all around the platform the Gods of the Upper Circle of the Pantheon stepped forward, obeying Isak’s call.
The Skull of Ruling was tied to Death, the Chief of the Gods, and it was the most powerful, and the most perilous to use. Aryn Bwr had seen that, and known that possession conferred the strength of rule, but Death’s place was at the very centre of the Land, and that was too much for even a king to bear long.
At the sight of the Gods who’d abandoned them in punishment millennia ago, the Ralebrat attacked once more, throwing themselves with abandon at the Lord of the Menin. His protective cocoon burst blindingly as they destroyed themselves upon it, but still they did not stop.
‘Peerless you were made, and unmatched you will die!’ Isak shouted over the wind that churned around them.
The Gods of the Upper Circle knelt, arms outstretched in the torrent of magic that was whirling, faster and faster, around the platform, all focused on Lord Styrax - save for Nartis, whose blank, midnight-blue face watched Isak.
‘But death is not the only defeat. You taught me that.’
An incantation tolled through the fractured air, the sonorous voices of Gods drawing such a torrent of magic down from the sky that the very clouds above were dragged down.
Styrax didn’t wait to hear more, but started to fight his way towards the platform’s edge, but the Ralebrat continued to bar his way. They didn’t make any attempt to fight their preternaturally swift opponent, just threw their stone bodies in his path to slow him as the energies surrounding the Gods and Isak struck at everything within the circle, battering elementals and mortal alike. The Ralebrat were shattered, but the white-eye was only driven back a step or two as the Crystal Skulls on his armour pierced the blistering hurricane of magic, flaring as bright as the sun.
‘They gave you power,’ Isak cried, feeling the sparks of energy burst from his white eyes and race across his skin. ‘In their fear they gave you more power than any mortal should possess, and with it came pride, and arrogance: an understanding that nothing was beyond your skills. That no being - mortal or God - was your better.’
Isak took hold of Eolis in both hands, letting the blade cut deep into one palm. The blood seemed to boil on its surface and some droplets were scattered by the wind, but there was enough of the viscous liquid to run the length of its edge.
His voice dropped to a whisper, but it resonated around the moor like the heartbeat of the Land itself. It shuddered through earth, flesh and God alike. Somewhere far away he heard Mihn cry out.
‘And so I curse you,’ Isak gasped, both with the pain running through his body and the memories of Styrax’s vengeance.
Up above, the Menin’s wyvern was a dark shape in the sky, compelled by its master’s call despite the lighting. Styrax reached out with his sword and turned in a full circle, casting a burning trail of light that drove even the Gods back, but he could not stop their chant as Isak continued, ‘They made you to be untouched by God or mortal. As I cannot kill you, so I curse you, not with death but life,’ he choked. Limbs shaking and bile rising in his throat, he deflected the vast raw power Styrax was throwing in all directions.
The wyvern dropped closer, close enough for the Menin to reach its claws, but it was too late and they both felt it.
‘I curse you — with the pain of ten thousand days in the Dark Place, with the life’s blood of a mage’s sacrifice, with Death’s authority held in my hands.’
He felt it then, the cold fingers in his mind, and on Styrax’s face he saw the icy