Chapter 772 – Back Onto Arda
They are a restless people, and it is that restlessness which sends their world into crisis. I hear now of these grand conspiracies which talk that they are tricking us, somehow, or these blind traktats which wax poetic about the sorry state of the Ardan mentality. These eternal theories and dissertations that propose a thousand and one ways of rehabilitation, by people who have never been to that world, who do not understand the Ardan mentality, whose only experience with the Ardans is one of fits of fancy.
These types who look at Fortia of Peace, and see a beautiful woman instead of the heartless strategist. Who see Allasaria and think her a shining beacon of light instead of a schemer that spreads her tentacles everywhere. Who grow infatuated by the idea of Love being embodied, and miss that on Arda, the first thing they used Love for was to create an ingroup to monitor and an outgroup to push against.
And likewise, the simple thing that is missed here is the Imperial Pantheon. Kassandora, embodiment of War, Malam, same for Hatred, are universal nightmares. Whilst I have never met them, I have spent more than enough time with Fortia and the White Pantheon to know that when they talk of the former as a bitter harpy and the latter as a salacious alcoholic, they are not gossiping with intention to smear. No, I firmly believe the stories are true: Malam is an alcoholic and Kassandora has never once smiled in her lifetime.
There is no mythical “Ardan Curse”, nor is some “Ardan Condition” to be solved. Talk to any of them, and you will immediately realise their idolatry of conquest. It is in their mythology and it is in their speeches. Even their most basic policies are framed as a battle: Maisara does not engage with crime, she battles it. Allasaria does not proselytize her faith, she annexes non-believers. Fortia is not a steward of Peace, she is an enforcer of it.
Anyone, anyone out here, who writes that we should visit their world once again is a fool. Anyone, anyone, who thinks that we have allies on that world is an even greater one. It is not that they are incapable of love, they love themselves very much. But their love was formed as a defensive measure in this mythical age of monsters, as was their hatred. And those two foundations formed the basis of their diplomacy. And thus, extinction became the go-to measure for solving every problem.
The Ardans do not fight themselves out of hatred. They fight each other because they consider it a matter of problem solving. In their mind, to kill someone to end a disagreement is a perfectly logical choice that not only ends the argument, it proves the winner’s case. After all, if you’re arguing for an idea that does not rally to protect you, then why should anyone rally for that idea? They say.
And anyone, who for a moment, think that the Ardans will not immediately close ranks around their own world when they realise that they have other targets to battle against is worse than a fool. They are a cretin. They should resign from the Conclave immediately.
- Part of a long thesis written by Archangel Ilahim, shortly after the Tartarian Invasion of Arda.
Allasaria hovered in the air, not a shred of movement in the entire hall of the Paradeisian Gateway. But she was sure that the activation had alert someone. If it hadn’t, then Chisovianka’s death would have. If that hadn’t, then the fact that someone must have returned to the Paradeisian Operation’s room to investigate how Allasaria was handling the situation must have. And it was no matter.
She held her breath, stilled her heart and waited for another moment, hands already outstretched at two of the hundred or so entrances to this massive chamber. They had never considered that someone would be going to escape from their world, the activation rituals had been planted on the floor right before the portal. As long as those weren’t disturbed, she would be fine.
No sound still. Not the clap of a slipper or a boot against cold marble, nor the shuffling of cloth on cloth, nor the rustle of a feather against another in a wing. No one was coming yet. She gave herself one moment and turned back around. Just as she had remembered, everything had been done correctly. In between the massive white columns, the air was already beginning to shimmer with otherworldly magics that had no explanation on Arda.
It was a point at first, a swirl. The whole process would be faster if someone on Arda was also activating the portal, but there was no way to make that a reality. The slow speed, as one portal forced another, millions of miles away, to open, would have to do. The swirl slowly expanded, it was gold and blue. Like a starshower in the day, or a thousand comets in a light-azure sky. Arda was not visible yet. Allasaria would go through it the very moment she tasted her own air.
Allasaria heard a pin drop and immediately turned around. Her white-gold dress whirling around her legs, her eyes already alight, her palms raised, the magical lamps in the room intensifying as the Goddess of Light called upon her power, ready to incinerate any who may try to stop her. No movement. Not from any of the entrances on that massive wall. This entire structure was like a beehive teetering on the edge of chaos.
Another pin drop. From the floor this time. Oh. It was the blood dripping from one of the corpses of the guards that lay here. Immediately, the lights stopped flaring and Allasaria cooled her power. No reason to maintain it. She had sliced them apart with thin, controlled beams before they could even react. At the throat and at the spine, to immobilize and silence immediately.
Any more power and she was risking burning holes in the walls of this chamber. And she would rather the angels not even know she was escaping from their world. A red alert here would overwhelm her. Against one choir, maybe she could hold. Against a dozen?
Not a chance.
Fer, Maisara and Fortia jumped off the plane, by their side, the Empire-One Air Command Station carried Kassandora as commanded this battle, whereas the Big Three themselves were just on a strategic bomber that had picked them up from Kaczaw Airport. Fer saw the massive swirl of blue-gold in that structure of black Godstone. It had not opened fully yet. Good. They would have time to dig in. The rest of the troops were already doing that.
Allasaria stood in the middle of the room, then slowly raised into the air. Her eyes were seeing movement now, or rather hallucinating it. Through every door, she caught the glimpse of a wing that wasn’t there. Or the flash of a sword. Or the fast drift of a cloak. Her heart beat as if it wanted to rip itself out of her chest. Her hands needed constant focus so that they would not shake. Her mind wandered and jumped at the feeling of air crossing against her nose.
At the very least, the portal had filled, slowly it filled, but it was beginning to fill in the edges. She couldn’t tell if it took an hour, or if it took minutes. Every instant on Paradeisius was another instant too long. It wasn’t even about the safe return to Arda. It was the very fact that every instant here was another instant that her kin at home were wasting, the Second Arc was going to come down on them and what would they do then.
What would they do even if they knew the Second Arc was coming though? Allasaria pushed that thought away. What they would do was stand, and they would die standing if they were to die. And Allasaria would not be sentenced to witnessing the erasure of her world from orbit as she could do nothing about it. She forced another slow breath through her lips. Another attempt to calm the nerves that dug through her mind like an electrified spiderweb that somehow burned as it shocked her in tune to the mad rhythm of her heart.
A moment later, her ears picked it up. No they didn’t. That was just the soft sound of the gateway still opening. The sharp smell of ozone was missing too. She risked another glance to the portal. The corners would still have to fill, why did they make these things square and not circular in the first place? Specifically to delay her like this? Was that it? The blue-gold energy were almost lethargic, still moving rapidly and refusing to settle. She wanted to pretend that it was more than half-way there but she had seen these things before. It had managed to finish maybe a third.
And then, Allasaria snapped back to massive of doors and balconies on the other side of the hall. Built for creatures that could fly, there was no a single staircase about. All uniform in the face they were a different, curling shape. Some a semi-circle, others a combination, the ones in the corners would roll towards the wall as if the whole structured pretended it was just one giant piece of stone. This time, she could hear it though. It wasn’t the shimmer of a portal. The air began to hum and shimmer and whir, and what tasted like ozone leaked in through those doorways.
There it was. The faint humming of song coming closer.
Anassa blinked into position and stared at the massive swirling portal. Kassandora had not been slow. Jets were circling in the air and transports were landing into the fields around the massive gate. Artillery guns raised their barrels, helicopters took off into the air. Supposedly, even the Strategic Missile Corp had been activated to make sure that no matter what amount of foul spawn erupted from that gateway, they would be repelled back. Of Sorcery would make sure it wouldn’t come to that though.
Allasaria raised herself into the air. This stalling action would be about manoeuvrability, she couldn’t the hymns touch her once. A flash from one window, a blast of the angelic light followed by the rush of metal. Allasaria raised her palm, held her breath, and drew upon her own power. The lamps throughout the Great Hall, which were just shapeless orbs that floated in mid-air, began to shine brighter once again. Until they would hurt to gaze at. The opposite of Irinika’s all-consuming darkness, but rather a white that seemed to hold an overflowing amount of every colour in existence.
A hand, a face, a humming sword radiating with power already drawn.
Allasaria stayed in position as her golden locks set ablaze, spilling forth with her holy radiance. From her palm erupted a beam that was a white shattering of reality in one instant, the width of a door in the next, as large as Allasaria herself after that. A blinding battering ram of the purest energy that mankind had ever seen. Made of the hopes and dreams fashioned of the hopes and dreams that night would give way to dawn, and that light shall return. She dragged her palm from left to right.
A second later, that entire section of wall had been incinerated, wiped from existence as Allasaria’s light broke it down to the atom, and then further after that. No blood, no odd feather that came down in spiralling waves, no thread of cloth or of angelic hair. Nothing. Incinerated from existence.
Allasaria raised her other palm towards her left side. More humming song. So it was as she predicted, they were sending more than she had hoped for.
Kassandora leaned back and cracked her fingers. She knew that garrisoning the old fortresses was a good idea. Kavaa was by her side, already with a jumpsuit on. If things got bad, they would parachute down. One Goddess would revoke the Right to Die, the other would invoke the Orchestra of War. What did they think they were doing, charging through their Gate into a united Empire?
Allasaria stopped in mid-air, turned and spiralled to the side as she dodged a blast of the angelic song. It was barely visible, a shimmering in the air as if the heat was too high. It penetrated through the portal, then hit the wall on the other side of the chamber. A lightning-web of cracks spiralled from floor to ceiling from that point.
And Allasaria returned her own energy right back at the half-circle of angels, their wings fluttering, the swords drawn, pointed towards the leader who aimed his blade at her. An instant was all it took, and an instant was not enough. Another song came to intercept and protect them. Her light bent and spiralled out, then spiralled back into a ball where it would remain, locked, made to forever chase itself in a circle unless someone physically tried to block it.
There were a hundred of them now, filling the room, appearing through every doorway. Their blades sent those ripples of silent sound across the room. Allasaria raised her hands and channelled as she did back in the Great War. When her and Irinika would duel and create entire regions of no-man’s land across eastern Epa. Where half the rivers and lakes that sat there currently had been carved out by the battles between Light and Darkness.
Light filled the room and burst out from Allasaria in all directions. Until every source of light in the room was as painful to look at as Arda’s Sun in the midday. She heard the cries of pain, of wings and feathers being ignited by the heat, of bodies falling to the floor and the angels crying out in their own tongues, as they tried to mount some sort of reaction.
And then something hit from the side. A silent song that burst against her left like a bomb. Her shoulder cracked, her ribs tore like paper and she was flung into the hard, curving wall of stone.
Elassa raised her hands and started to channel magic. The portal was about to open. She knew this magic, even if she couldn’t replicate it exactly. There had been attempts at study in the past, although the Paradeisians had been rather paranoid about sharing their secrets.
Allasaria slid down the wall as the room returned back to its shining light. Her injured hand felt as if it was alight, it had to be the shoulder. Her entire chest felt aflame, she grit her teeth, poured as much power as she could into her other palm, prepared to move it around the room. An invisible force slammed directly into her elbow and cracked the stone behind it. Blood burst from between her lips.
She half hovered, half slid downwards, her legs collapsing the moment they touched the ground as the entire Paradeisian army that had been sent to intercept maintained their distance. “Allasaria.” Rapheum’s voice boomed across the room. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and then gave herself a sliver of hope as she looked to the portal.
The hope crashed through immediately when she saw it had barely finished filling the Gateway, now, the energies would have to settle. “What have you done?” Rapheum asked as the Goddess of Light pushed herself straight-backed against the wall. That relieved some of the stomach tension at the very least. “Will you not speak now? Has the madness got your tongue?”
Kassandora had ended the tradition of speechmaking before and after duels. Before, because there was no reason to talk when you had already made the decision to draw a blade. After, because a fight was to kill your opponent. Allasaria wished they had a Kassandora here, so that she wouldn’t have to listen to these questions that made no difference at this point. She had tried to escape, she had to warn her world, and she failed. “If you were so intent on going back, why?”
Did he not know? Was he just an idiot? The Second Arc would hit Arda! That’s why! Because what did it matter? She tried to find in the archangel but the crowd of white cloth, white feathers and white-silver blades swallowed him. “Execute me and have it be over with then.” Allasaria yelled out.
“Is that the solution to everything? Killing? And more killing? Until you kill everyone you want to kill and start killing your own? Allasaria, I thought you were changi-“ And then, for a moment, the entire room stopped.
They had all heard it.
The rush of air.
Wind.
It was cold.
And it bit.
Ardan wind.
Arascus stood, Olephia by his side, and watched a single person leap through that portal. So it was time, the great battle for Arda. They would not have a war this time. They would repel the force coming through that gate and not let them secure even the smidge of a foothold on Arda. Behind him, the sky opened up with gold, silver slid from it.
Allasaria burst through the portal into Arda before it had even settled. She channelled everything she could to fly as fast as possible. She even closed her eyes, once she was back on Arda, she could escape. She could fly, she could hide. She could disappear into a ravine in the ground. She would reach the Empire and tell Arascus and tell him on her knees about what was coming, and she would not even care about the humiliation.
And then, as she flew, her eyes readjusted to the golden light of an Ardan Sun and she felt tears well back in them. And then, her power gave out as she realised what she was looking at. The shield of gold in the back, already brimming with the harsh, glinting reflections of Arascus’ blades. The crackling of unmaking as Olephia hummed her own song in the air, the sky twisting and tearing with red lightning as her black hair spiralled out to make a halo framing her head. The soundless scream of a legion long dead, all souls, followed by the piercing shriek of planes dropping from the sky to engage. Anassa and Elassa to the left and to the right, the latter with a storm of elements circling her, the former spreading herself across reality.
And as much as the Empire could muster in as short a time it could. Countless rifles and guns, the battlements that had long been built to guard against these gates were manned. The fortresses disconnected by walls all bore cannons. Vehicles were already arrayed between them. Sprinklings of tanks and artillery and APC around which men lay in hastily dug trenches. Allasaria felt a tear run down her face. Maybe the thought hadn’t been voiced, but she knew they would be waiting.
She plummeted towards the ground.
And they did not shoot at her.
Irinika rose out of the shadow. Kassandora had given the order, but she would have played this part anyway. There was only one who could kill Allasaria, and it was not those angels that were currently chasing the Goddess of Light as they spilled out through that cursed realm. They wanted to return to Arda? Very well. Let them taste the full might of a united world.
Allasaria didn’t know how long the entire fight lasted. She spent it shielded in the pure lightless void that was a construct of Irinika’s magic. But she heard the screams of jets flying low, she listened to the orders being given out, to the shouting from Irinika and from other Imperial Divines. To the slow drumming that were artillery barrages and the howling of winds laced with ice and fire that Elassa always channelled. The sonic booms of planes, and the slightly sharper ones she recognised from a millennia of tedium: Fortia throwing her spear. Fer’s roar in there, cursing, silence.
And a cheer. And then, when that cheer ended, Allasaria lay collapsed on the ground, breathing through the wounds. She just had to outlast them. Kavaa would heal her, if not, then a cleric. If not, then she would recover in her own time. Her vision was getting blurry. She heard chattering, she felt a touch in her hand.
The darkness retreated back into the ground. Slowly. And Allasaria looked up from her piece of grass that had not been destroyed by magic or explosion or divinity. Giants stared down at her. Arascus’ eyes pierced her as if she was not even worth killing. Irinika by side, a smug grin on her face, her black hair and dress immaculate as always. Fortia on the other, her spear out but lowered. Fer and Maisara behind them. The crackling of Elassa’s magic from the left, the shift of crimson that was Anassa’s sorcery from the right.
This wasn’t the time to let them speak first. “Do not throw me away.” Allasaria climbed to her knees. “Arascus please! Do not throw me away.” He tensed immediately as she raised her palms to him. “Look! Look at what I have done! Not now Arascus!” Arascus watched her hands.
Covered in blood.