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The Demon’s Cantos Part 29

After Byron explained his plan Korbius was eager to put it into action immediately. The Unmaker was significantly closer than the day before and Byron was tempted to oblige the eager octopus, but ultimately Tilda’s voice of reason won out and everyone agreed to wait until the next morning.

Byron even agreed to allow Tilda to artificially manipulate his mood, calming the palpitating fear growing in his heart. She rested a gentle hand on his shoulder and moments later Byron’s mind was clear, the roiling ache in his belly a distant memory, and he found he was both very hungry and very tired.

Tilda made one last dinner – a delicious multi-course meal assisted by Faustus in the kitchen and the House itself in the procurement of various gourmet ingredients. Byron had never had Kobe Beef before, but whatever dimension the House plucked the steaks from, along with the biggest lobsters Byron had ever seen in his life, they were absolutely succulent.

With a belly full of richness and the sun still in the sky, his mind kept at ease by force of Tilda’s will, Byron shuffled down the long, forested hallway to his bedroom and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

He awoke with the sun, itself fresh and on the opposite side of the sky. Tilda’s influence had worn off by then, but despite the burgeoning anxiety in his chest, Byron felt exceptionally well rested. It took a great deal of courage to get up and out of his bed and make the long walk to the kitchen, where Tilda, Faustus, and even Korbius – crammed into a corner of the room – waited for him. Expectant tension rippled invisibly through the air as all eyes fell on Byron.

“Good morning,” Byron said with a tight lipped smile.

“Morning,” Tilda answered, and made him a bowl of oats.

They ate in silence, almost remorsefully, and it felt to Byron like the last day of summer, if, after the summer ended, you then had to enter mortal combat with an evil God.

Faustus collected the bowls one at a time and deposited them in the sink and, after taking a collective deep breath, all four of them walked out onto the beach and stood in a semi-circle arrayed before the purple door and the portal.

Beyond the threshold, in the twisted landscape of the real world, the Unmaker had moved forward almost two more feet. It almost felt to Byron that he could reach out and touch the black, featureless figure. Byron looked into the place where the Unmaker’s eyes ought to have been and a shiver ran up his spine. He ran his fingers through a cycle until his heartbeat evened out and then turned to Tilda.

“Well,” Byron said and stood there, uncertain what to say next.

Wearing a mask of taut resolve, but still managing an earnest smile, Tilda didn’t hesitate for a moment. She stepped forward and hugged Byron tightly. Although she didn’t use her ability, Byron nonetheless felt some of his anxiety melt away in her warm embrace and he hugged her back.

“Thank you, Tilda,” Byron said.

“Thank *you* Byron,” she whispered, her voice hoarse with emotion and stepped back. Looking Byron up and down, Tilda swiped at her eyes and nodded proudly, “you’re a good one, Byron. A good person and a good Cantor.”

Byron breathed heavily and his eyes fell on the Unmaker again. “I hope so,” he said. Then he turned back toward Tilda and looked down at the sand, “Tilda, if we don’t see each other again —”

But Tilda cut him off. “None of that,” she said and laid a calming hand on Byron’s shoulder. “You’re a Cantor, Byron, and a talented one. You have the power of a God inside you, don’t forget that.”

Byron nodded, as much in acknowledgement of Tilda’s point as to put himself at ease. Behind him Korbius bobbed in anticipation, expanding and contracting his central mass, twirling his tentacles in the air, like a sprinter warming up for a race.

The smallest human is correct – Master Byron is prepared for combat, as is Korbius. Oh how prepared Korbius is! Korbius shall tear the ene to pieces!

Usually, Byron found Korbius’s overtures to violence a bit overwhelming, but this time he was glad for the Lord of the Octopodiae’s enthusiasm. In fact, he couldn’t possibly imagine entering this battle without Korbius at his side.

Faustus walked up to Byron and presented the fur of his wide arachnid head for petting. Byron happily obliged him, crouching down and holding the spider’s head with both hands. “Take care of Tilda, Faustus,” Byron whispered into the spot where he thought Faustus might have ears. The spider gave a curt nod and Byron took that as a yes.

“You’re sure you won’t take the Cantos?” Tilda asked one more time.

Byron nodded, looking up from where he was still petting Faustus’s head. “Too bulky, and I wouldn’t be able to read it fast enough anyway. If this works —”

“When this works,” Tilda corrected.

Byron continued “— we’ll come back and get it. If not . . . ” his voice trailed off.

Tilda held firm, “It will work. It’s a good plan.”

Byron forced himself to look into the portal one last time, straight at the target of his enmity. That dark figure was the only thing standing between Byron and the future. He would defeat it, he told himself. He had to.

Turning back to Tilda, he gave her a small smile, infused with more confidence than he felt. “Fake it till you make it,” Nan always used to say, and this seemed like as good a time as any to heed that advice. Tilda nodded curtly back and Byron turned to Korbius.

“You ready?” Byron asked, cracking his fingers shaking out his hands.

Korbius swelled himself up to many times his normal size and opened his single eye expectantly. His proud, deep voice came over the loudspeaker of Byron’s mind.

Korbius is ready, Master Cantor. It will be Korbius’s honor to enter combat with Master Byron! The Lord of the Octopodiae, Sovereign of the Nether Sea, fighting beside a Master Cantor! Oh! Oh! Korbius is ready, Master Byron! He is ready!

Byron nodded and took a deep breath. “OK,” he said, and raised his hands up in front of him. “D on’t . Move.”

Hot wind howled across the plains of destruction which had once been Ocracoke island. Shots of yellow lightning snapped down from the brimstone sky and impacted the dust as twisters of sulfur and smoke scoured the shattered remnants of the flattened landscape. Without the houses or the trees the island was laid bare, and looking through the maelstrom of destruction, the Unmaker could see miles in every direction.

Beneath the veil of formless shadow, the Unmaker wore an eager smile. How long It had waited for this day. To destroy the final Cantor, the final vestige of Brother’s influence on this dying reality. How the Unmaker pined for it, to finally begin Its true work – to finally fulfill Its true purpose.

It would take an eternity to destroy all that Brother had made, and the Unmaker would relish every moment. But nothing would compare to the joy of today’s victory. The Unmaker wanted to savor this day. It found Itself hoping that young Byron would put up a fight – just enough resistance that the tension of the long hunt might be drawn out a few precious moments longer. An unlikely prospect, seeing as the “Cantor” was little more than a child, and a witless one at that.

All around, the Faces watched hungrily – the Unmaker’s spies and heralds of doom. Hundreds of them hovered expectantly in a half-sphere around the portal, with dozens arriving every minute. Each was a sliver of the Unmaker’s hateful will, each a corrupted soul stolen from countless worlds and countless peoples and twisted to the Unmaker’s ends.

It would not be long now.

The Unmaker took another small step toward the shimmering portal. It was no more than a few meters away when a white flash, brighter and purer than the Unmaker’s foul lightning, lit of the air in what used to be Tilda’s backyard. The flash frightened the meek Faces, burning their foul eyes and sending them scattering into the wind. Even the Unmaker had to avert its gaze momentarily, raising a shadowed hand up to Its face.

The flash wavered and dimmed enough for the Unmaker to look up, though the portal continued to flicker intermittently, like a malfunctioning lightbulb. Silhouetted in that periodic white afterglow, where before there had been no one, now there stood the small form of a young man. The Unmaker lowered Its dark hand and froze in place, assessing the final Cantor for the first time.

A long silence passed between them, during which time the portal continued to flicker strangely, neither on nor off. Byron stood in front of it, trying to stand tall as panic coursed through his veins. This was not how the plan was supposed to go. Byron forced himself not to turn away from the Unmaker and instead delved into his own mind and prepared the various new muscles he’d developed on the island, readying himself to unleash whatever he could onto the shadowy figure.

Byron was about to blast the shadow with lightning when It started to laugh.

The Unmaker’s laughter began as a quiet chuckle and escalated, in sound and intensity, until manic guffaws filled the air like chlorine gas. At its peak, the laughter resonated like the cumulative mad cackling of every psyche ward on Earth summoned at once, and still the Unmaker grew louder and more crazed. It bent over, hands on Its shadowy knees and laughed with such piercing lunacy that the force of the sound made Byron stagger, hands clasped over his ringing ears.

Slowly, the sound of the Unmaker’s laughter died away, and in the twitching flicker of the portal’s odd, periodic glow Byron looked up from where he kneeled in the dust. No, this was definitely not how the plan was supposed to go.

When, at last, the Unmaker composed Itself, It stood up straight, Its dark shoulders still quivering with a tepid chuckle. Byron felt the Unmaker’s gaze upon him, though the shadowy form had no eyes, and a cold chill ran up Byron’s spine. His hands began to shake as the Unmaker spoke. The words came into Byron’s mind, not unlike Korbius’s voice, but where they touched even the Unmaker’s thoughts burned.

BY-RON.

Byron felt the Unmaker’s words as a physical assault, searing their impression directly upon his mind. Panic coursed wildly through his veins as his hands rose up of their own accord and grabbed at his skull, desperate to alleviate the unbelievable pain of the Unmaker’s psychic pressure.

Poor Byron. The final Cantor. You. A child. Alone. Brother has abandoned you to me – and yet I am called cruel.

Byron writhed on the ground, overcome. Suddenly the delusion of resisting this force was laid bare to him. His plan, his meager “power” – under the psychic thumb of the Unmaker’s foul will it all seemed so hopeless. So futile.

The Unmaker cocked Its shadowy head to the right, evoking a sense of false pity.

Poor, poor Byron. I respect your feeble-minded bravery. You have come to meet me. Where Brother and the Fallen One have fled, you embrace Doom.

Byron could barely think. It was all he could do to remain conscious. His stomach churned from the agony in his skull, and it felt to him that he floated in a pool of boiling oil. Behind his prostrate form, the portal continued to blink and pulse, now arcing small strands of white power into the ground, as if struggling to function.

The Unmaker had eyes only for Its prey. Its head rose upon the deadly straightness of Its graceful neck, and though It remained featureless, the hateful grimace It wore could be felt like a blazing wind.

A pathetic end, to a pathetic creature. I had wished for more.

A slit of searing light cut across the Unmaker’s face roughly where a mouth would be. Slowly, the slit expanded, and opened, until within was revealed the white hot furnace of a fiery kiln. Byron forced himself to look up and struggled to stand, to roll over, to do anything.

When Its mouth was open wide, the Unmaker leveled Its gaze at Byron, who braced himself for the end.

Goodbye now, By —

A titanic discharge of pure, white light exploded from the stuttering portal. Where Byron’s arrival had briefly scattered the Unmaker’s faces, this eruption of power sent the horrific specters flying for miles in every direction. The Unmaker Itself, an instant away from incinerating Byron into ash, stumbled backward with a pained scream, the fiery pit of Its mouth snapping shut and both Its hands raising up to cover Its face.

For Byron the light felt like a warm, cleansing wave. It coursed through and over his mind, washing away the remnants of the Unmaker’s will, and filling Byron with renewed vigor. He watched, still on the ground, as the portal spewed forth a seemingly endless stream of energy, clapping like a thousand peals of thunder. The power rose high into the air, right up to the unnatural storm clouds which capped the bloody sky.

Slowly the pure white energy amassed, coalescing first into a gargantuan sphere, like humongous ball lightning. For miles in every direction, the sky and the dust and the ocean were lit bright as a hundred suns. The Unmaker’s twisters faltered and dissipated as the Unmaker Itself staggered further back. As the sphere of power took form, a hole was pierced in the foul cloud cover. The Unmaker’s unnatural storm was dispelled, blown to the distant horizon in a wide circle, revealing the starred arc of the Milky Way and the bright fullness of the moon.

As Byron and the Unmaker gaped in amazement, the sphere of power first elongated into a cylinder, taller than the tallest skyscraper. Then it began to differentiate, separating first into two thick tendrils of white lightning. Then splitting into four, and finally into eight.

On the ground beside Byron, the portal went dead, just as the unbelievable power in the sky assumed its final, immense form. Eight tentacles of pure energy swarmed through the air, criss-crossing the night sky. Slowly the power exuding from them diminished and manifested into a solid, opaque form, awash in heaping globs of encephalopodic slime and taking on a decidedly purple cast in the bright moonlight.

God-like, Korbius’s towering single eye blinked massively as he released a gurgling roar so loud that it shook the very ground. Still stunned by the sudden assault of light, the Unmaker lost balance and fell.

Korbius, as tall and wide as a giant mountain, held himself aloft on two tentacles, straddling the remains of Ocracoke island as if it were little more than a pebble – one tentacle resting on the floor of the ocean and the other on the floor of the harbor, both hundreds of feet below the water line.

Korbius raised two tentacles high over his central mass – so high that their tips reached to the bottom edge of the Stratosphere. Byron composed himself and began glowing white, floating up off the ground and away from where the impact would soon be, placing a protective sheen of gravity between himself and what he anticipated would be a hell of a lot of shrapnel, just as Tilda had taught him.

Korbius’s dual tentacled blow flew down from the heavens like two celestial missiles. Right before they reached the ground, Byron saw the Unmaker’s featureless face looking up at him with a look he intuitively recognized as unbridled surprise.

From high in the air, glowing bright white, Byron couldn’t help but smirk. He gave the Unmaker a small shrug, just as Korbius’s two colossal tentacles slammed into the ground with an impact so terrific it kicked up a plume of dust half a mile high and sliced a twenty-foot deep channel straight across Ocracoke’s sandy mass, into which the ocean exploded with frothing menace.

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