D
W ar Machine
Where my nails had sliced the air, a void opened. Rumbling whispers rushed out of it, filling the silence left by the stilled thunder. After a moment, this whispers stopped, leaving a quiet as absolute as the vacuum of space. The pressure
(more)of that emptiness threatened to crush my skull. Then, the sky unzipped.
From the flayed wound of the sky, a man stepped forward, huge, hundreds of feet tall. He was clothed in gossamer rags, riveted directly to his skin by silver bolts at shoulds and waist. On his back, cradled by his cruelly twisted arms, he carried a world of screaming souls, each engulfed by flames.
Asmodeus and Disease scrambled out of the way of his giant feet, pressing themselves close to me, but not daring to touch me. I felt fear in the gaze that Asmodeus turned on me, though I didn't see it. My eyes were on Atlas, and my face felt strangely stretched, to the point of ripping.
Atlas inclined his head toward me, small on the ground, and said in a voice like stone breaking, said "More are coming."
And more came. Falling and flying and stumbling and shrieking out of the gap between worlds, characters I'd met in my dark wonderland, and the lands of other small gods. Waves and waves of them descended, falling hard into the soft sand, but regaining their feet or claws or hooves in moments, and rushing away with wild cries to fall upon Disease's fleeing children.
Two creatures descended together, with a preternatural grace that set them gently on their feet in front of me. Their fingers were entwinged as they alighted, but they sprang apart immediately. A man and a woman, youthful but with old eyes, they both spoke at once.
"Where(less)
