***
Lucifer refused to look at Batarel again. That wasn’t his uncle. That was just a heap of flesh, bone, wings, and charred skin. He grabbed a set of throwing knives from an assassin he’d killed and then vaulted toward the middle of the maze.
The chaos bolt loomed large in front of him. It blocked out the pavilion, his brother Michael, and his ultimate target—the destroyer of a trusted friend, patron, and mentor. It was Phillip’s time to die.
But the channeled magic ruined his angle. He ran across the hedge in a semicircle to get a better view. There was Michael. He was yelling at Elandril, but the Elven King was in a staring contest with the bolt. Above him, just out of range, was Phillip. His face was livid as he maneuvered that horrific ray of death back toward the dais.
Lucifer panicked as he jumped to a hedge and almost slipped off. The bolt was close to Elandril—too damned close. Michael was shielding and motioning for Elandril to join him, but the blue-skinned elf waved him off.
Lucifer only had two throwing knives, and seconds to set his feet for an accurate toss. Another friend was about to die.
He skidded to a stop on the manicured hedge and heaved a first throw. It flipped end-to-end and whizzed over Michael and Elandril’s heads before embedding itself in Philip’s shoulder. The channeled spell sputtered momentarily as the ambassador winced in pain, but the bolt moved on. Maybe Phillip couldn’t stop it at this point.
Lucifer had been aiming for the center of the ambassador’s chest, but throwing-knives weren’t his top proficiency. The next throw would have to be more accurate.
The bolt travelled faster. It was almost on top of the pavilion now, but Elandril seemed unconcerned with it or its wielder. Lucifer noticed an opening in the floorboards where the trunk had risen earlier. A blue globe appeared there at Elandril’s feet, and the King picked it up.
Lucifer cocked his arm with the last projectile, breathed deeply, and let it fly. The blade’s finely-honed zinanbar sang as it arced over the dais, but the spell was faster than his throw. The platform disappeared under a swirling, dripping magma of concentrated energy and chaos, and for a moment, Phillip’s head angled backward and the stadium microphones broadcast his maniacal laugh.
But the laughing turned to sputtering, and the jumbotrons focused in on the blood flowing down his face and neck and the hilt protruding from his torso. Lucifer’s last throw had been true. Too late but accurate.
The bolt dissipated, and the last of its potent maelstroms wasted away into the afternoon air. Two blobs remained on the platform where Michael and Elandril had been. The goo cleared from Michael’s shield first. He was yelling, but Lucifer couldn’t hear anything from outside the shield. He pushed himself over the last hedge and onto the peak of the maze, just in front of the platform, but out of reach of the congealing magma and chaos, which was already solidifying.
“Elandril …” Lucifer said as tears welled in his eyes.
He expected the blob to break apart like a statue hit with a hammer, but the dripping gel was leaving something solid. A bright globe that Elandril had grabbed earlier was the first thing to appear, and then a blue, ethereal forearm.
“Fool,” a hollow voice said from the pavilion. “You think I, an elf that has undergone the celestial forgewright training, could be killed by energy and chaos? Look upon my true form and tremble!”
The jumbotron screens showed Phillip’s frightened, illuminated face and body as he jerked in his death throes. The peak was now bathed in soft blue as flames of soul arced off Elandril’s body onto the floor and Michael’s shield.
Elandril peeked at Phillip from behind the orb and smiled through those wispy lips and shadows of teeth.
“Take your wasted form back to the Courts and give Eranos my kindest regards,” Elandril called.
He whispered into the globe and a fiery jet wrapped around the object, consuming the orb in light before erupting upward toward Phillip. The beam of energy carried him high into the heavens and out of sight.
Lucifer dropped to his knees and gazed at the jumbotrons as they flipped between the new king and the elated crowd. Well-dressed elves hugged painted, naked ones while others pounded their fists against tree limbs and the magical shield that kept them from pouring onto the field. Lucifer rolled onto his back to look over the maze and field below. Far away, his brother and Anne knelt beside a burnt path and a writhing figure.
He stood and launched himself like a bullet toward them. Before he even impacted the ground, he could hear and see his uncle screaming in pain. Sariel sobbed into his hands, and Anne tucked her head between her knees and cried. Lucifer wiped away his own tears and shook his brother by the shoulder.
“What can we do, Sariel?”
“Nothing. He’s dead. He just doesn’t know it yet.”
“Save the realm,” Batarel whispered through short breaths. “Save them both.”
“We will,” Anne promised him.
Anne’s armor and clothing changed from white to periwinkle, and Lucifer turned around to see Elandril and his blue corona floating down to join them. Michael was ahead of him, white wings flaring as they punched into the earth below. Lucifer was glad to see some emotion washing over his face.
“Can your magic help him?” Lucifer called to Elandril.
“No. His wounds are beyond our abilities.”
Michael shook his head. “I know of nothing that can save him.”
All around the stadium, elves stopped hugging and pounding on the shield. The screens were now showing Batarel’s grimace and the tears of the Kadingirs surrounding him.
“Ah, but you do,” Elandril said. “What our primal patterns lack, yours possesses.”
“The Hall of Souls?” Michael asked.
“What are you talking about?” Lucifer said. “Are you saying that if we carried him into the primal, it would restore his …” Lucifer looked at Batarel’s missing arm and legs. He couldn’t seem to form the words, so he pointed at them instead.
“In a way,” Elandril said.
“The Hall of Souls recycles souls not bodies, Lucifer,” Michael said tentatively. “We would be taking him there to die.”
“So, he would become an angel?” Lucifer said.
“So that he could be reborn, yes.”
“Over my dead body.”
“I’m sure we could arrange for you to die there as well.” Michael said. “But that has no bearing on the options for our uncle. You could let him die here in Arnessa, or I could try to bring him back to Order.”
“You mean you can’t just teleport him there?”
“We already talked about this,” Sariel said. “Trillions of light years.”
“I could try to trigger a vortex back, but it will be dangerous,” Michael said. “We would be traveling through the heart of the Primal Order, and the pattern will actively reject him. He’s not made of the same stuff.”
“Then it will reject me too,” Anne said.
“And me,” Sariel added.
“That makes four of us.” Lucifer said.
“I don’t even have permission to try this,” Michael said, watching himself on the jumbotrons and trying to hide his words with his hands, but the microphones were picking him up just fine.
The crowd booed at his reluctance.
“I’m not saying that I won’t try,” Michael said, more for the mob of elves than anyone nearby. “I know for a fact that Jehovah won’t mind another immortal soul in the pattern, least of all our uncle’s. I would just rather have Batarel ask for it. It should be his choice.”
They all turned to him, but Batarel had passed out from the pain.
“Did you give my legion a choice?” Lucifer asked.
“They chose to kill the Intellectuals,” Michael said.
“Well, that’s perfectly rational.” Sariel rolled his eyes. “There isn’t another choice, anyway. If there is a way to bring Batarel back, even if it’s with that ridiculous wing color, I would suffer this vortex a million
times.”
“We’ll see,” Michael said.
“Yes, we will.”
“Let’s get him out of here.” Lucifer dropped to his knees and searched for a hold that wasn’t burnt or bloody. “Someone help me carry him.”
To his surprise, Elandril stepped up alongside his brothers and Anne. And as the front entrance opened and the shields came down, thousands flocked into the stadium and surrounded them. A few medical personnel parted the spectators and passed a stretcher to the Kadingir party. They were joined by Ganymede and all of the elven Certamen champions who each took up positions around Batarel’s charred form.
They lifted the wizard onto the stretcher and called for a path to be made to the exit. Followed by Elandril, flanked by royal elven guards and watched by millions of immortal eyes, the death march of the greatest battle wizard in all of Chaos made its solemn exit from the Coliseum.