All fora purpose.
TheArchons.World domination.
Isaacgrew so furious he almost failed the cast.
Hepointed his finger down towards the fighting, waiting for a thrall to exposethemselves through the glass and pipes.A burst of raw sound would turn hisfellow students into mist and paste.If he saw Berith’s shaven head—
“Getdown!”
Zariashoved him forward.A moment later, ice crackled against the wall behind him.Isaac sprawled against the staircase, searching for the enemy.He saw twothralls crouching on the edges of the pipework beside him, their dark robesobscured in the shadow of the machine.Isaac blasted one with a direct hit ofsound, and the resulting deluge of gore struck the other mage like a grenade ofblood and bone.The thrall, unflinching from the pain, continued to cast herspell, but just as a gout of fire began to leap from her hand, a storm of bonefell from above, the flits of femurs and ribs stabbing down like a flurry ofarrows.The flames sputtered and died.The human reeled, slipping stolidly overthe edge.Isaac watched her body crash through the pipes until it resembledlittle more than a towel.
Besidehim, several masses of bones crawled along the wall, rushing to reinforce thebattle below.
“Thanks,father,” Isaac said.
One ofthe slugs grew a shell of arms, each giving a thumbs up.
“Fuckme, then,” Zaria said, helping him stand.“He knows to leave a rearguard.Watchfor ambush.”
Theycontinued down the stairway, more cautiously than before.Isaac prepared ahurricane in the palms of his hands.He kept his gaze sharp and alert.As thewind seared and screamed in his grip, as the sickly glow of a necromantic castlit up the masonry below, he realized, suddenly, that he did not feel afraid.He could feel Zaria at his back, and he knew his father was all around him, andthe feeling of their presence gave him more confidence than he could rememberfeeling in his entire life.
Itoccurred to him, all at once, how much his mind had been crippled by everythingBerith had done.All the guilt and loneliness he had ever suffered....
Moreand more, Isaac simmered with rage.
Below,the battle grew closer.The elemental students had been placed in straightlines along the winding staircase, watching Caine’s corpse-hewn monsters rushdown the curve of the obelisk wall.They made no attempt to loosetheir spells.
As thebones drew close, a sigil grew bright on a single thrall’s head, and Caine’sbeasts were flung from the stone, like crumbs brushed from a table’s edge.Theyhung suspended in the air, beginning to twist and hiss as the connections wereripped away by an invisible hand.The thrall collapsed, her body thin andwithered.Along the line of thralls, two more sigils grew bright, and Berith’sspell grew stronger, shredding Caine’s bones all the way down into theindividual fibers of ossein.
Seeingan opportunity, Isaac unleashed the hurricanes in his hand.The wind came in alash, slamming the line of mages into the wall behind them.They bounced andtumbled across the stairs, their bodies falling broken and limpinto the pipework below.Even above the screaming souls, he heard a symphony ofstriking flesh.Moments later, the necrotic force holding his father started toweaken, and the slack in power was just enough for some of the bones to breakfree, scuttling along the pipes in retreat.
A pairof glowing eyes met his from below, clearly visible through the glass andstone.He could not fail to recognize them.They were the same gentle blue ashis own.
Hadn’this uncle said they always saw eye to eye?
“Faceme!”Isaac yelled.
Berithnarrowed his gaze.
Threeof the surviving students turned rigid.As the humans drained of energy, theobelisk started to rumble, the stone walls belching with dust.The souls beganto shriek.Isaac felt the temperature drop around him, which could only signifya casting of necrotics, a swift genocide of warmth and light and life.Below,the students fell from the stairs, their robed bodies toppling like wheatbefore a scythe.
“I toldyou to leave!”his uncle shouted.
Therewas a great sound of clattering, rushing up through the glass and stone, as ifa thousand hammers were banging against a drum.Pipes rusted.Darknesssplintered the air.He saw a boiling whiteness emerge through the complexnetwork of machines, as if, inexplicably, a flood of milk was filling thetower.The sound grew into a cacophony of snapping twigs.Isaac only realizedthat Berith was launching a salvo of bone when he saw the sickly green aura ofnecrotic propulsion, rimming the tidal wave of corpses like the aurora of asky.
“Fuck!”Zaria yelled.
Shetackled him across the stairs, her heavy weight knocking the breath from hislungs.An instant later, the bones erupted through the tower, spurring thesouls to scream in mortal fear, so many arms and legs and teeth and jawsflooding through the air that, for a moment, it felt as if an entire graveyardhad been loaded into the shot of a cannon.Isaac stared over Zaria’s shoulder,wide-eyed, as the bones splintered against the surrounding machines, leechingso much necrotic energy that the impact melted pipes and boiled glass andchewed viciously through stone, puncturing the cloud of souls like a burningstorm of hail.
Screamsfilled the air.
Fear.
Terror.
Agony.
Momentslater, there came a hail of splintered bone, tumbling through the hollowcylinder of the obelisk.The geyser had reached its peak—now, it was beginningto fall.Chips of ossein rained like the smoldering embers of phosphorous,burning everything they touched, smoking and hissing with a malevolent flash ofgreen.Zaria flinched, crying out in pain.Half of a skull had landed on herback.Isaac scrambled out from beneath her, batting away the sickly bone withthe sleeve of his robe.The contact withered his garment halfway to the elbow,the material hissing into flakes of ash.
