Part 21:  Final Battle

    Michael backed up reflexively.  He didn't recognize the man standing in front of him, but a queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach made him suspect.
    "You...." the man growled.  If Michael had any doubts at all, they were now gone - the body may have been someone else's, but the voice was none other than that of Stinnett himself.
    Michael's hand clenched around the stones as the demon continued talking.
    "So, that's what the old man was up to." A sneer crossed his face.  "You will be interested to know, warrior, that your priest is dead.  I crushed his throat with my very hands."  Though Michael couldn't bring himself to believe it, his face still betrayed a shock.  "Ha!" Stinnett spat. "And you will also be glad to know that the very last thing he did was not to resist me....  Instead, he used whatever powers he had to call you here." A mean spirited snicker escaped the man.  "I tell you this, of course, so you can reflect upon it in your final dying moments."
    "No." Michael said, his eyes riveted on his opponent.  Slowly, he brought up the hand which held the stones.
    For one moment, the body which hosted Stinnett recoiled and its eyes widened.  Then its expression was neutral once more.



    Stinnett quickly manages to steady himself.  The stones!  The very stones that the knight had taken from him are now here for the taking.  Dabiri was a fool!  Smiling, the demon steps forward.
    Michael opens his palm, closing his eyes to summon the power within.  Stinnett leaps forward, bracing himself to attempt to resist the power that was sure to erupt.
    And nothing happened.
    Stinnett's momentum carried him forward into Morhaime.  Swiftly, the demon turned and took the stones from his open palm.

    Michael fell to the ground, not because he hadn't braced himself for the hit, but because he had never expected the hit to come at all.  The stones hadn't reacted!  He felt physically ill as he tried to climb to his feet.  Stinnett had the stones - Michael didn't even need to check his palm to know this.  The demon was still standing in the doorway, holding them in his hand and staring at them in awe.  Michael had failed.
    Stinnett's gaze met his.  "You're a fool, Morhaime.  You would have been better off had you died with the rest of your garrison.  Instead, you must now suffer."
    Michael tried to draw his sword, even though he knew it would be useless to do so.  The power within it was far eclipsed by the stones his adversary was carrying.  Still, he had to try.  The demon caught the movement, however, and a moment later Michael was thrown across the room, brutally striking one wall before slumping to the ground.
    "It's rather clear to me now what has happened."  Stinnett said, his eyes afire.  "These stones do so much more for me than they would for you, as I embrace their power.  You merely feared it.  Yet you still used it, and so you were used for the purposes of these gems.  I have my memory now - I can remember every universe I crushed, every petty hero like you whose life I extinguished, and every resistance to my power done away with.  I remember to the beginning, when one of these very stones lifted me beyond the status of mere demon, and made me what I am now.  Ever since that day, I had searched for them, even if I did not know it.  They have also sought me out - using whoever possessed them to try to come to me.  So you see, Michael, your use of the stones to try to destroy me was folly, as it was they who were using you.   They have finally achieved their goal.  And with them, I shall achieve mine."
    The demon had advanced halfway across the room.  Now, he turned his back on the warrior, and faced the door.  "I have awaited this for a long, long time."
    It seemed suddenly as though there was a cacophony of music filling the air, and the walls of the room had begun to glow with a holy light.  A young woman walked in, carrying a sword that seemed to be the source of everything, that seemed to drive away the shadows in the room.  Michael recognized her immediately - she was Eve, and she was also the Goddess.  The warrior felt as though he were about to cry.  He had failed.  He had known it was folly to attempt to use the stones to defeat Stinnett, he had simply been prideful, and believed that he could control them.  And now they were doomed.  He didn't care about his own death so much - he felt as though he were living on borrowed time ever since his garrison had been slaughtered - but the deaths of all the others - Dabiri, the apprentices, and Eve who stood before him now - weighed heavily on him.  He had failed.
    "Stinnett, why do you resist me so?  Why do you hate this world with such venom?" Eve said.  Her voice echoed throughout the room, as though she were speaking from all places at once.
    Stinnett snarled, an almost animal sound.  "Because they populate it!  The humans!  Those vile, weak, stupid humans!  Every time I have destroyed your world, in the hopes that you would have enough sense to make something better, and every time you have not done so!"
    "Humans are mirrors, Stinnett - they are part of the Whole, just as you and I are.  Once humans awaken, the Whole can be remade."
    "Don't you see?"  Stinnett raged.  "They'll never awaken!  They will never figure out what is happening!  They're sheep!  They bumble around blindly, stumbling across one another, and they call it a life!  Such creatures are beyond hope."
    Eve regarded the demon placidly.  "They need time, Stinnett.  Something you have taken from them."
    Stinnett spoke through clenched teeth.  "They have no right to it!  You were mistaken to think they could remake the Whole.  I will now put right what you made wrong, 'Goddess'.  I will no longer strive for something so futile as the Whole.  I will create nothingness, and it shall be eternal."  With that, the demon raised his hand up, and the stones sprang to life.
    Instantly, the harmonious song that had filled the room fell into discord.  The pure light that permeated every surface slowly began to turn a sickly brown.  And Eve cried out, taking a step back.  Dabiri had been right, Michael reflected.  With the power of the stones, there was nothing - not even the Goddess - that could stop Stinnett.


    She reeled back, feeling the power of the Stones beginning to dampen her senses.  She had tried to talk to him, but he simply would not listen.  Slowly, she began rallying her power.  Eve, who was normally a passive viewer in all of this, was suddenly back in charge of her own body.  And then she was not.  The Goddess' powers were tremendous, but the stones were slowly draining them.  She did not regret their existence - they were part of the Whole as well.  It seemed that her powers were not enough - the light which always surrounded her was dimming.  She called out to the one who had alerted her, the one that had told her that this could possibly happen.  The only human to ever carry over... Her mind send the words that she had to communicate.  One desperate plea.

    "Help me...."  Michael looked up at the inert form of Larrana Claire - Dabiri's goddess.  Had she spoken?  His mind was whirling - the Goddess needed help, or everything would come to an end.  He had thought himself powerless, but if she had called out for help using Larrana then there might be something he could do.  Slowly, he got to his feet and drew his sword - the sword that he had used ever since the battle at Ethanac, the sword that the clerics had blessed with Laranna's power, the sword that had been proof against Stinnett's physical forms in the past.  It lay in his hand now, inert.  He closed his eyes, trying to draw the power out of it, desperately searching for the energy he knew it contained.
    A feral yell building in his throat, he leapt forward at Stinnett, even as the light and music were fading around him, even as he was struggling to pull the latent power from the sword.  The demon turned too late.  The power that had been placed into the blade sprang to life, coaxed by the warrior's will and amplified by what remained of the Goddess' power.  Michael's sword sliced downward, striking Stinnett's hand and cutting through it easily.  Stinnett screamed - a scream of pain, terror, and inescapable loss - as the sword came into contact with the stones.


    Michael finds himself standing in Dabiri's temple as he has uncountable times in the past.  Seated before him is Larrana Claire.  Smiling, she invites him to sit down.

    "This is no dream."  She says, meeting his eyes.  "You're here."
    "What do you mean?  This has to be a dream, Dabiri's temple burned down!"  Michael objected, even as he sat down across from the woman.
    "Well, perhaps I was slightly mistaken.  What I meant to say is that you're not dreaming.  You're here, with me now."
    "What happened?"  Michael said, confused by the explanation and hoping for a better one.
    "This is where I exist.  Not my body, understand, but my spirit.  And now yours resides here as well."
    "I'm dead?"
    Larrana laughed.  "No more than I am, though I am sure that's not saying very much.  No, your body is alive somewhere, and probably in the same condition as mine.  Stinnett, however, is destroyed.  You chose your target wisely - the power in the sword is no match for the stones, after all, it's just a bit of my power.  But it was designed to undo Stinnett.  The demon was channeling the power of those evil relics, and when your sword collided with his hand, all that power started going back into the stones... the backlash of power, colliding with the sword - it tore the castle apart.  Stinnett's spirit could not escape in time to escape it."
    "What about Eve... the Goddess?"  Michael was unsure exactly what had happened.
    Larrana shook her head.  "I don't know.  I was the one who first contacted the Goddess, long ago in a former universe when I saw that Stinnett might one day pose a greater threat than he did then.  That link has always been there, but it seems to be gone now."
    Michael took this news somberly.  Finally, he spoke again.  "Eve said something about the Whole... she argued with Stinnett about it.  What was she talking about?"
    Larrana sighed.  "I don't know.  She never told me the whole story, but I've managed to piece it together.  Apparently, before everything was created, the universe existed as one being.  Somehow, it splintered apart - into the Goddess, humans, the Stones, and the demons.  It seems as though the Goddess was trying to remake the Whole."  She smiled.  "I don't know if she would have succeeded though.  However, I can hope."
    Michael smiled with her.  "I think you might be right.  There might be hope yet."



 
    Cleric Gene Havens walked diligently along the path, glancing over at the woman at his side.  "Are you okay?" he inquired kindly.
    "I'm fine." She replied.  She was the revered Priestess Angene, after all.  She could show no weakness, especially in front of an inferior like Havens.  She shook her head to clear it of such thoughts - Havens didn't deserve that kind of treatment.  Silently, she walked alongside him as they crested the hill.
    Cleric Havens stopped in his tracks as the ruins came into view.  "P - priestess Angene?"
    Angene stopped with him, looking at the ruins without changing her expression.  It was always a surprise to the new ones, she reflected.  She felt a bit of it herself, looking over the fallen castle.  The faded power of their Goddess still lingered, as well as the taint of the Evil one.  The ruins themselves were far from ordinary - the fallen castle at the center looked plain, but the rubble that had been thrown by the explosion was the exception.  Every rock was the exact same size, smooth, and slightly reflective.  And all of them were arranged in a pattern, the center of which was the center of the castle, where the legendary battle had taken place.
    Havens spoke up again.  "It's... amazing!"
    "You know the story?" Angene inquired, already knowing that he did.  But she had a point to drive home.
    Havens nodded.  "Yes - the Knight and the Sorceress defeated the Evil one, just as he was going to bring our Goddess to bay."
    "And that was the result" Angene pointed to the ruins.  "A living memorial to their efforts.  They have gone on to another place, but they remind us what we exist for.  The teachings of Dabiri can tell us only so much - it is monuments like this that can help us proceed."
    Havens was agreeing with her.  "It's too bad that they're gone."
    "They died for a purpose.  And remember, they have gone to a better place, just as one day we shall.  And perhaps we shall affect enough people in the next generation so that more shall go to the better place.  And they in turn shall effect more.  This is why we exist, after all."
    "Yes."  Havens knew this already, but it all seemed new to him in light of the ruins.
    "Come, it is getting late, and we must return to the temple."  Angene advised.
    Cleric Havens moved slowly, as though waking from a dream.  "Okay, just a moment."
    Angene smiled, and started to walk back to the temple as Cleric Havens stared at the ruins.
    "Amazing." he whispered again to himself.  He made an internal vow to himself that he would be more like the Knight.  Slowly, he turned around and followed the priestess home.

The End

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