“Not this again.” Hunter said dejectedly.
He was on the roof of a CERN building. The wreckage from the above-ground portion of the ATLAS facility was nearby. The fumarole at the center was still billowing away. The smoke was still rising and drifting toward Mount Blanc, where it accumulated and spun in a deuced-looking vortex. Tiyana, Hongo, and Virgil were on the roof with him. They were in chains. They looked exactly as they did back in Ghaelvord’s jungle compound, except this time, Hongo had taken Hunter’s place in the chains. Malacoda and Shenouda were on the roof as well. They were not wearing chains.
“Ah, there you are. Do not worry, you all have the front row seats. It will be quite the show.” Malacoda said.
“Let them go. I am not going to say it twice.” Hunter replied.
Hunter had a steely look in his eyes.
“Okay boss.” Malacoda gave up surprisingly easily.
He unfastened the chains.
“Hunter!” Tiyana screamed. “Are you okay?”
“Better than you from the looks of it.”
Hunter walked up and put an arm around Tiyana.
“Well, what do the two of you have to say for yourselves?” He asked Malacoda and Shenouda.
He did not know what to expect from them. He had anticipated a fight. He was not sure what to do now. Malacoda was not even Dahjaat. He was just an olive-skinned man with eerie eyes.
“Are we too high up for you to declopse?” Hunter asked.
“Yes, probably. It is difficult to connect with the power source when there is so much air and metal beneath me.” Malacoda replied conversationally.
“I should kill you both.”
Malacoda laughed. “Come now. Be serious. You will do no such thing.”
“You would kill me?” Shenouda asked.
She sounded like a scared child.
Hunter tried to be reassuring, “No dear, of course not. We only want to help you. That is all we ever wanted.”
Hongo and Virgil were rubbing their wrists, which were sore from the chains. Virgil had no staff, Hongo had no guns, Tiyana seemed to have nothing, but then, she always did have a trick up her sleeve. Hunter was Dahjaat and strong enough to clap Shenouda and Malacoda in their own irons. He wondered if he should.
“Tell me why I should let the two of you go.” Hunter demanded.
Malacoda cackled again. “Because it is time. All you can do now is sit back and watch it happen.”
“He’s coming.” Shenouda said. “I can feel it.”
She was right. The vortex had moved down from the mountain. It came cascading down like an avalanche. It was a dark, sooty avalanche, unnatural and terrifying. Hunter watched as farms were engulfed by the chaotic maelstrom. It was coming straight for the city, receding back along the line feeding it from the fumarole.
“Dear God,” Hunter gasped.
“For he commanded and raised the stormy wind, which lifted up the waves; they mount up to the heaven; they go down again to the depths; their souls are melted because of trouble; they reel to and fro and stagger like drunken men; and are at their wits’ end.” Shenouda cried into the howling winds that had crept up around them.
Tiyana wanted to slap her, but she refrained. Virgil bolted.
“Oh no you don’t!” Malacoda shouted.
With a leap and a tackle, Malacoda had pinned Virgil to the floor.
“Everyone watches the inception. That is how this goes.”
Hunter dashed over and picked Malacoda up with one hand. He held him by the scruff of his neck.
“What do we do Virgil?” Hunter asked.
“You can do nothing. It is too late.” Malacoda interjected.
“I’m not talking to you!” Hunter screamed into Malacoda’s ear with Dahjaat intensity.
Virgil replied, “Hunter, we cannot stop Ghaelvord if he has become a Titan. We will need the full might of the Kingdom. Ghaelvord was already dangerous, but now, he may even lose his sanity.”
“I don’t think he ever had it.” Hunter said.
“Hunter! I must return to the Kingdom. I must wake the Aempyreans! There is no other way!” Virgil pleaded.
“Go.” Hunter said. “Godspeed.”
Virgil ran toward the door to the roof. As he ran, he felt the wind blowing harder against him. It picked up speed. It became difficult to run. Virgil thought that he would be swept off of his feet and he looked up. He saw the building surrounded by a vortex of smoke. The wind created a murky wall. From the wall, a gust blew directly at him. It kept him from reaching the door.
“Pilgrims!” A grandiloquent voice boomed out.
The voice echoed from one end of the roof to another. The vortex had consumed the building. All that they could see was the storm and the roof.
“Lend me your ears!” The voice melted into mellifluous laughter.
Hunter watched as the formless cyclone bulged forward and took shape. The gray surge took on an ivory hue. Hunter saw a torso and shoulders. The head was just a lump at first, but facial features broke out across it. Then Hunter could see the eyes, the piercing ice-blue eyes set against pale skin.
“No one is going anywhere.” The voice boomed.
Virgil turned, “Do not do this Ghaelvord, please! You need them. We waited so long.”
Ghaelvord laughed. The laugh came through the wind and filled the rooftop from all angles.
“Do not worry my friend.” Ghaelvord said reassuringly. “I may lose control at times. The power is intoxicating. But I can assure you, this is not the epoch of the Aldenduenum. This is the epoch of the new world. They will not be destroyed, only tamed.”
Ghaelvord laughed again, “Now lend me your ears! You have all been on a journey. You have hurt me and you have helped me. You are both my enemy and my benefactor. I am deeply grateful that you awoke me and deeply disturbed by your interference with my plans. Our fates are inextricably intertwined. It is fitting that you all should be the first to witness the inception of the epoch!”
Virgil interjected coldly, “The Aempyreans will not forgive this. You are going too far this time.”
“Imagine the world that your brethren will find when they rise! I will have had over a millennium to build my empire here! This new world will be ready for their awakening. I will prepare a fitting welcome for them.” Ghaelvord’s smile was full of mirth.
Ghaelvord went on, “You six will be the witnesses to new world’s birth. It begins here and now and with a cataclysm, as it often does. To make an omlet, one must break eggs.” Then, Ghaelvord recited the verses that he had recited to Shenouda so long ago.
Music plays and roses grow,
Upon the fields where rivers flow,
The angelic life, void of strife,
Brought on by the epoch.
Angels dance, revel, and prance,
The epoch done,
The people run to find the sun, but
Take their place,
As they fall from grace
“Shenouda is the first in a new line. We will build a race of supermen that will put the Aldenduenum to shame. Mankind will be majestic once again, but far and beyond anything that they could have dreamed of before with all of their anachronistic sentiments and obsolete rules. The Dahjaat will rule benevolently over them as they grow, and we will grow with them.”
“No!” Hunter shouted.
The storm rose up around him and tried to drown him out, but his Dahjaat lungs rang out like a clarion battlecry.
“The madness ends now!” Hunter screamed the phrase with his entire torso. The words originated in his belly and bellowed out of his throat with a force that set even Ghaelvord the colossus aback.
Ghaelvord recovered quickly and responded, “And who would stop me, you? I have yet again become Typhon, the father of all monsters, and the typhoon that ended the vanity of the Aldenduenum will revisit the Earth. I was stopped once, but this is not that time. And you. You are no Zeus!”
Ghaelvord was sneering now, watching their every move. Hunter strode toward Tiyana. He did not walk fast enough to look nervous. He walked resolutely. He cusped her cheek.
“I will always love you.” He said.
He kissed her again.
“Give him hell.” Tiyana said as she clasped his hand and kissed him back. “No regrets.”
Then, Hunter was off. He ran like a cheetah, sprinting wildly forward toward the edge of the roof. The storm surged around him. A bulge appeared beneath Ghaelvord’s monumental shoulder. The bulge became an arm and a fist and it came down on Hunter like a hammer. The god-like hand tried again and again to crush him like an insect, but he kept going. He ducked and rolled, bobbed and wove. He reached the edge. As he crested the edge, he activated the kebaac. Normally, the sonar of his sixth sense would reveal a clear picture of his surroundings. This time, however, the wind interfered and he saw only fuzzy shapes. Nevertheless, he found three balconies, a flagpole, and a scaffold for window-washing. He dropped from one to the other, breaking his fall in stages as he dropped to the pavement.
Hunter looked up and saw the cyclone receding. It was coming for him. He sprinted toward the wreckage of the CERN facility and the shaft leading down to the ATLAS detector. As he ran, he turned his head and saw Ghaelvord’s colossal torso at the apex of a violent tornado. The tornado was moving toward him at breakneck speed. He ran harder than he thought possible.
“You can run, but you can’t hide.” Ghaelvord boomed smugly.
The booming voice filled the Route de Meyrin like a public announcement megaphone. Hunter climbed the wreckage of the old ATLAS shaft facility. When he reached the fumarole he glanced back. Ghaelvord towered behind him. Ghaelvord had ended the pursuit and simply stared down at him.
“And what do you think you will accomplish here?” Ghaelvord boomed.
Hunter narrowed his eyes, but said nothing. He plunged his hand into the smoke that was billowing out of the shaft. He could feel dark energy in the nebula. He could feel it being pulled out through the singularities inside the great ATLAS detector. His eyes rolled back into his head and he let the energy from the aether flow into himself.
Hunter groaned as the energy filled him. He felt the fibers of his body vibrate harder. His body bulged with the otherworldly energy.
“It is incredible. Is it not?” Ghaelvord asked. “To feel all of that all at once.”
Hunter just moaned and drew as much of it away from Ghaelvord’s vortex as he could.
“As much fun as this is, your time has come, Hunter. The charade ends now.”
“N, n, n, no.” Hunter mumbled.
He had a hard time articulating himself. His face was contorted. His veins were throbbing.
Ghaelvord remarked condescendingly, “Come now, I am too far ahead of you. I have been drawing from the well all day. You cannot start now and expect to catch up.”
Then, Ghaelvord laughed and raised his giant, pale palm. He swung it downward toward Hunter. He would crush Hunter. He would squish him into the stanchions and beams and galvanized steel of the wrecked facility.
At that, Hunter began chanting the words of Virgil’s enigmatic prophesy.
Music plays and roses grow,
Beside the golden river flow,
The kingdom’s life, salvation’s light,
Waiting for the epoch,
From the sun, in days to come,
Fueled by fire, lit by mortal desire
A thousand years and one day,
Stone of earth becoming clay,
The human strife, void of life,
Turned the face of immaculate grace,
From evil drivers of flaming desires,
Forged in the crucible of idol’s ire,
But angels remain despite the chain,
Basking in heaven’s light,
Destined to end mankind’s flight,
Glory remains upon the plains,
And the lord of light ended tyrannical might,
So freedom reigned and the ark remained,
Amid the world until the end of time,
Then the journey to the dark unseen places where the darkness bends its knees to the morning’s majesty as the children come of age
As he recited the verses, Hunter raised his palm to meet Ghaelvord’s palm. He stopped taking energy from the deep into himself and instead, released it through himself like a catalyst. An arc of energy hurdled out from Hunter’s palm and met Ghaelvord’s in mid-strike. It burned white-hot with ethereal light.
“Ah!” Ghaelvord exclaimed. “What are you doing?” He shrieked in horror.
Hunter was whispering the verses at first, but as he pushed Ghaelvord’s palm back, he spoke louder. Hunter threw his shoulders back and with one hand in the nebula and one raised in defiance to the god of darkness and chaos, he belted out the verses.
“Stop you fool! You reckless imbecile! You will kill yourself!” Ghaelvord said condescendingly as he struggled to press his palm downward.
The beam of energy held Ghaelvord’s palm up and for a few moments it seemed as if Ghaelvord would overpower the beam and crush Hunter. Hunter, however, became stronger and cried the verses ever louder. The beam surged forward and redoubled its luminosity. Ghaelvord staggered backwards, still trying to hold the beam off.
Fear crept into Ghaelvord’s tone, “You cannot channel the energy, Hunter Price. It will tear you apart!”
Hunter continued unfazed, but the beam no longer emanated from his palm. Hunter had watched the flesh melt off of the bones of his outstreached Dahjaat hand. Then, his bones withered and fell. The beam still came ever stronger from what was left of his arm, but his arm was melting away. Hunter felt intense, searing pain as his body withered, and he shouted louder. The verse became a primal yell. Meanwhile, radiation waves cascaded through Ghaelvord’s Typhonic body. The brief look of fear on Ghaelvord’s face became dread.
The rhythmic syncopation of Hunter’s chanting built to an unstoppable crescendo. Then, Hunter was no more. The beam of energy exploded. A blinding flash illuminated the valley. Tiyana, Shenouda, Virgil, Hongo, and Malacoda, who had been watching the spectacle from the rooftop, went blind momentarily. Their retinas burned as if they had stared defiantly into the sun. When they could see again, they saw nothing. The vortex was gone, the fumarole had stopped billowing, and Ghaelvord and Hunter were nowhere to be seen.