I

SHARDS

Adam Kearney

It was a war to end all wars,

A war of power, a war of sacrifice,

And there under the broken sun,

He smote the ground with his angst,

For where the stars shined brightest,

His tormentors trembled,

From twilight to dawn, they clashed,

Man against man, Maker against Maker,

And at the end of the world, one Ascendant stood against him...

(From the Aureaus Codex,

Their Time: The Beginning and End of All Things

Lord Prior. Eligar Varga,

The Council of Eight,

The Arcanaeum,

Avandir,

1023 AR)

II

Mondragon pushed his hand free of the rubble. For a moment, the light from the red

sky blinded him. It was a momentary hindrance. His armour had protected him from

the force of the blast, it seemed. Once again, he had evaded death. His bones still

ached, his muscles still burned, just as if they had been perforated with stalagmites of

molten rock. Stripped bare of all perception, it was all he could do to climb free from his

hiding place.

He would have called himself a coward, had he not seen the mounds of human

bodies wrapped around the demonic beasts in pools of blood. The colours of those

pools were mixed. Some red, others orange, even black … but the emitting steam held

each in common. They had all been breathing, fighting, only seconds earlier.

But I survived.

Few plants remained, even after what had happened. The Dark Tyrant had made

it his curse to poison these once vibrant and fertile fields. They would go by a new

name now, at the turn of a new Age. Men would never know their true elegance. The

Cloak of the Cosmos had finally succeeded. After years of pain, Varramas had delivered

his punishment.

Though none of the bodies around him stirred, there was a faint whistling noise

in the distance, like the last gasps of a storm. Mondragon turned toward the source. A

large plume of dense, black smoke broke through the ash-filled clouds, rising higher

than any pillar of light. Mondragon ran a gauntlet through his hair tied back with a braid

— the ash had turned the black to grey. He shook his head and reached for the sword

he had dropped in his haste to hide.

The glowing blade vanished at his touch, doused like a flame without air. Only

the gilded hilt remained, adorned with flamboyant runestones. Staring momentarily at

the plume, then at the death it had caused, it seemed folly to Mondragon that he

should carry such a thing. Wrought with the same energies used in his own creation,

the Soulblade threatened more than it protected. Its energies were embodied by the

power of Kal’lora, the Hand of his Makers, a power without the invention of this world

would never have occurred. The same power that now threatened its destruction.

This is not a field of victory…

III

The plume wasn’t far from his ditch. Beyond it stood the memory of Acilion, the

city’s broken walls a stark reminder of what may have been. Mondragon winced. No

amount of mental preparation could have prepared any man for what had unfolded

here. Everything had collapsed — the assault, their army, all hope the Lord Ascendant

had bestowed upon their people. Now the world itself was suffering.

Mondragon stepped over the nearest beast.

The Dragonoc’s scales had hardened in the flames. They shone a bright orange

as opposed to their natural black. Its teeth had been blown to shards in the blast, and

both its eyes had burst in their sockets. The blood burned more fiercely than usual,

gleamed more fluorescently in the flames. The creature didn’t even shift. He had never

seen one of their breed so docile. The blast had made a husk of its body.

He could have said the same for the man lying beside it. Armoured in much the

same enamelled blue and white as Mondragon, the soldier would have been one of

hundreds of thousands to have been incinerated by the blast. The plate helmet had

protected his eyes, but the metal armour would have seared him from the inside. He

must have gone down with the force. There were no signs of a struggle, no blade

wound that had drawn blood.

Around him, the battlefield smouldered. Residues of the explosion left nothing to

the imagination. Rocks bore numerous scars. Some of the red stone ridges were

shattered or cracked. He staggered around large fissures where the Brood Queens had

landed during the fighting, or where the Titanus Gigantis had trodden entire legions of

soldiers. Separate strands of smoke curled from the occasional stacks of burning

bodies.

It was a struggle to put one foot ahead of the other. The pain, the burning in his

muscles, the force of the blast ... it was all wearing on him. There was only so much

even his body could take. But something compelled Mondragon to push forward. The

plume was getting darker with each step, and the closer he got, the more pain it

caused him. No man should live to suffer like this, he thought desperately. Now he

understood what Artus, Laine, and the other deserters had meant.

But I am a different sort of man.

IV

He approached the lip of a large — no, an enormous — crater. The plume was

coming from its centre, some thirty feet below. Mondragon peered over the lip, his

vision hazed with smoke and dust.

A cough broke the silence.

“Lord Ascendant!” Mondragon called, his voice stifled. “Is it done? Have you

triumphed for the world where faith could not?”

There was no reply.

He held out the hilt of his Soulblade. If the Lord Ascendant had not survived,

there was only one other possible outcome. There was a groaning sound behind him as

the world shattered. Mountains crumbled under their own weight into clouds of dust.

Even now, the sun glared with a poisonous red, and the sky burned. Mondragon would

stand between life and death, between freedom and tyranny. He would be the last

hope.

His blade began to form…

But something reached out of the smoke, seizing his ankle.

He stumbled, attempting to pull himself free, but the hand locked him in place.

There was so much strength in that hand, so much energy. It pulsated with a golden

radiance. The smoke cleared around the form of a man — or what seemed to be a man

— in shining gold armour, the helmet an armoured crown around his temple, with an

enormous blade clutched in one fist. That blade was more than a Soulblade. It was

unique. Tailored. More so than a Soulblade could ever be.

Mondragon knelt, taking the man’s gauntleted hand in his own. “By the Makers

own strength! You have done it, Lord Ascendant! You have done it, the Forges honour

us!” He tried pulling the man to his feet, but he would not move. The Light surrounding

him sent warmth up Mondragon’s arm.

Mondragon blinked. Was he injured? Was the Lord Ascendant actually injured?

“He is banished.” The Lord Ascendant’s imposing, celestial voice was weak now.

Light seeped from his helmet’s visor — the blood of those chosen few. “To a realm

where no man need worry again of his terror. He is banished, Mondragon. He is

banished…”

V

“What would you have me do, Lord Ascendant?”

“Write the story about what happened here, Mondragon. Let these actions echo

across eternity. Unite us all.”

“But, Lord Ascendant, I—”

“We have not won. Even after all this, we have not won. You must give the

world something it has never had. The one thing it needs. Give it hope, Mondragon.

Give Calador one last hope.”

The Lord Ascendant rose, unsteadily at first, golden armour creaking and

clinking. Something flashed in his other hand. Could it be? Mondragon looked into the

visor of the immortal man’s helmet, looked into his eyes. They gleamed, pearls of

radiant Light, and he understood. There, in his master’s eyes, Mondragon saw anguish

and exhaustion. Perhaps even grief. This was a man who knew what the future would

hold for this broken world. A future that only he, at least in this moment, would

understand.

Mondragon bowed.

The Lord Ascendant took him by the shoulder and nodded, then turned to walk

back into the crater, Light leaking from rents and cracks in his armour, smoke

enveloping him.

Moments later, as Mondragon was returning to a group of survivors, there was a

second explosion. But this one did not threaten life. It felt … refreshing. It is done, he

thought to himself. For the first time ever, he did not feel fear. Mondragon smiled. The

Age of Tyranny is done.