Slowly,the colossus returned its attention to the pyramid.
Evenwithout flesh, Isaac could see the anger on its face.Its empty sockets foundthem again.It snarled, its voice booming like a thousand storms, its jawslathering with blood as it rushed in for a strike.
In puredesperation, Isaac grabbed a rusted lever, wrenchingit all the way down.
Therewas an apocalypse in the sky.The colossus roared past the pyramid, somewherebetween lunging and falling.It looked, for a moment, like all the clouds ofthe desert had been shot from a cannon.Ossein flew, the earth shuddered inpain, and Isaac fell to the floor of the pyramid, barely noticing the scrapingof the knives against the cataclysm at his feet.When he managed to regain hissenses, he saw the beast leaning against the opposite wall of the cavern, itsbody so tall that the massive escarpment only barely reached the center of itschest.It gave a trembling moan of pain.
Below,in a great furrow of concrete, one of the titan’s legs had cleanly detachedfrom the pelvis.Bones lay scattered across the ground, in much the same waythat a city might be scattered across a field—there was the cap of a knee, anda river of a thigh, and an avalanche of toes still rolling across the pavement.
Thebeast roared, trying to hobble towards them, its speed and balance now heavilycrippled.Isaac scrambled to his feet and pulled every lever he could see.Asthe reptile came, entire sections of its body began to twist and fall.Therewere lances of ribs, meteors of vertebrae, an elbow popping loose, teeth andfingers raining down like the missiles of a trebuchet.
Beforethe colossus could hop another step, much of its torso was scattered upon theearth, leaving only the barest connection of bone.Purple light faded andpopped.When Isaac forced down a particularly important lever, the beastcollapsed to its side, erupting a cloud of dust and sand.It moaned again.
Itsvoice was pleading.
Bonesscattered and heaved.
At hishands, Isaac felt the metal device begin to rumble, the ancient plates groaningwith a new surge of power.The souls were returning to their source.He lookedat the colossus, which was staring back in a heap of its own body, the socketof its eye looking cracked and worn.He became very aware, all of a sudden,that he was killing an animal, as well as a god.
“I’msorry,” Isaac said, wrenching the final lever.
All at once,the skull of the colossus popped from the top of the vertebrae, rolling forwardlike the sun would roll across the sky.Its face rested against the growingdunes of sand.It was upside down.Teeth loosed and clattered.The colossusgave one last wrenching gasp, burying its mouth in dirt and sand and bone, asif, in its final moments, it sought the comfort of the earth that caressed itscorpse for so many years.A moment later, it returned to death.
For atime, Isaac was only aware of the sun on his back, the falling sand on hisface.The death of the colossus seemed to have stilled the world.
Slowly,he realized the device at his hands was still rumbling.The vibrations weregrowing erratic.Souls erupted from the metal.He stepped back just as thewelding began to sunder and break, shaking violently on its frame.He tookanother step, and his burned leg screamed in pain, sending him collapsing tothe floor.Just when he was about to start crawling, Zaria grabbed him frombehind.
Themetal device exploded.Isaac and Zaria hit the floor, barely dodging a cloud ofshrapnel.When he looked again, the bank of devices was gone, leaving only adeep, ruptured hole in the stone, like the caldera of a volcano.A spew ofsouls erupted from the depths of the pyramid.Thousands of beings gushed fromthe earth, wreathed with spectral limbs and stretching faces, churning like thestampede of a crowd.Sunlight enveloped their forms, roiling the souls into aradiant mixture of whiffs and tufts and streams.As they rose higher, andspread further apart, the souls became thin and translucent, the limbs andfaces drifting apart into wisps and vapor, until all that remained was a faintsheen of dust, sparkling brightly in the light.
Theywere dissipating, like Berith said.Without a corporeal form....
Throughthe sound of rumbling stone and groaning metal, Isaac realized he could heartheir voices again.It sounded like a gentle, whispering sigh.
Thescreaming had finally stopped.
Thistime, for good.
It feltas if the geyser of souls erupted for hours.It was certainly less than aminute.Eventually, the flow began to lessen, the radiant plume relaxing into aminor spout, soon dividing into leaks and dribbles.Eventually, only a fewtendrils remained, like the last morning mists fading before the dawn.For amoment, Isaac thought he saw one of the souls turn its face in his direction.It was no more than a suggestion, the vaguest shape of a gaze, a smile, awhispered word of thanks, and before Isaac had truly seen the soul at all, itwas gone, spreading into the peace of the breeze.All that remained in the airwas loose sand and reddened light.
The airgrew quiet.Thin motes of dust fell from the air.
Zariahad him nestled against her chest.After a breath of relief, she ran her handsover his body, checking for injury.“Good?”
Hetried to answer.All he could give was a grunt.
“Yes orno, love.”
He felthis lungs seize in his chest.
Zariareleased one of her hands.It was dripping with blood.“Oh, fuck me.”
He wasdizzy.The world seemed to swim.
“Isaac!”
Theknives.The two still in his arm.He only now noticed that the splints hadbroken.All his falling and exertion had worsened the wounds.Blood flowed sofreely he could see it spurt with the beating of his heart.
Hecouldn’t....
