Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 4

Apollyon

"Go to hell." She snapped

The creature did not get angry at her, in a way it seemed almost sad, "It pains me to watch you cling to them, to the ones that do not deserve you.... To Grace." She bristled at the mention of Ramirez.

"Keep his name out of your filthy mouth!"

Again the creature shook its head, "I see that you will not see the reason of my words simply spoken, but no matter, I have come prepared with truth." Though she couldn't see it's face, Maverick would have sworn she could see it smiling at her, "The light of revelation is not the only thing that can lift the veil and grant you your sight."

And all at once Maverick was overcome with a tide of thoughts and feelings and memories, sweeping through her like a wave and dashing her human thoughts to pieces. Her human mind was simply an island against a great swell, against the ocean, a thousand years or more of memories spilling and flooding through her, filling her until she thought her mind would burst.

She tried to scream, but had no mouth to do so.

The landscape around her broke apart, fracturing into its true reality

An expanse, another dimension stretching out before her in ways that she could hardly comprehend, and with it came her thoughts and memories of thing that had gone before.

The light of revelation.

The Architect standing in rays of golden light, Warriors stretching in ranks that seemed to go on into infinity, marching across a bridge of stars in armor that glowed with the Maker's golden light, and then she remembered....

It.

The voidfather Apollyon.

Tht hing that, even now her mind could not comprehend, a creature of damnation and lies that spread across the great vastness of space, its being so horrid that she was in the same moment driven to madness and recovered from it, only to experience the madness anew as she tried to remember. She tried to fling the memory from herself, to rid her mind of the awful vision, but as she did she finally remembered.

Bitterness.

Hatred.

Jalousy.

She had lived for Eons, for time that couldn't be explained by mortal words, for it could not be comprehended. She had stood in the ranks of the Architect when there were but a dozen, before the worlds had formed from disks of sand. She had been a soldier to the Makers, a loyal commander at the head of armies, a general to heaven, but then she stood, standing still in a rolling crowd as THEY came, wreathed in golden light.

Deus.

The last cohort.

The Architect's youngest and most dearly beloved, and so when they came the crowd cheered and she was buffeted from all sides by a wave of bodies praising the ones who, unlike her, had not seen real battle. They had not seen the face of the great serpent, the destroyer, their faces were unmarked by fate. She watched, fading into obscurity as they stepped forward, taking on the great fight as if it were a simple joke, a thing to e played with, and yet the people loved them for it.

The Architect's eyes was turned more and more from her, to deal with the earrings, petty squabbles and pitiful triumphs of the last cohort, who had not earned their strength like she did.

The darkness had come to her as she stood watch above the bounds of revelation.

She had raised her spear to sent it back to the father of lies, back to its creeping darkness.

"Lower your spear oh forgotten one." and in near amusement she had paused for a time. It carried with it no weapons, and though it had no real form, it seemed to smile at her grimly, "Oh forgotten one, how the Architect does ignore your great triumphs."