The Long Reach of Night: The Voidal, Vol. 2 by Adrian Cole

Author:Adrian Cole [Cole, Adrian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: heroic fantasy, the voidal, high fantasy, sword and sorcery, fantasy adventure
Publisher: Ingram Distribution
Published: 2012-09-04T22:00:00+00:00

PART SIX: THE BURNING ICE, THE FREEZING FIRE

While Elfloq went his way, separated from his master by times and distances that are little more than a blink or a blur in the maelstrom that is the omniverse, the Voidal’s destiny was again mapped out for him by the Dark Gods.

How the gods enjoy emotional turmoil, especially in those with whom they shape the fates of worlds! The weapons of Zargovyl, of Thunderhammer and a thousand other engineers are as nothing to love, anger, guilt, greed.

What follows is yet a further illustration of this.

—SALECCO, himself the plaything of cruel emotions

Under the scarlet eye of Azadris, the Bloodworld, the cooler orb of Alendar spins like a solitary ruby, refracting the fires of its blazing parent. Men once bloomed in Alendar’s tropical heat, spreading across this fertile world, raising their cities and towers in salute to the god that they made of Azadris. Those who turned aside from the divine face of the Bloodworld were sought out and put to a horrible death, or else given into the pitiless servitude of the Sangueen, the Crimson Priests, whose power was both omnipotent and omnipresent on Alendar. By their conjurations and necromancies, these Crimson Priests learned of the Bloodwights that thrived upon Azadris, demons that were merely the scions of the awesome deities of the Bloodworld. The Crimson Priests thought it in their interests to summon certain of these Bloodwights down to Alendar that the people could serve the Priests better. There were those among these Sangueen, ambitious men, who sought more, blasphemously desiring control and mastery of the demon spawn. It was through the machinations of these avaricious Sangueen rebels that the debacle on Alendar began.

Many Bloodwights were conjured to Alendar, some as intermediaries between Priests and gods, but those more vaulting Sangueen made slaves of their demons by the use of forbidden, powerful sorceries. Yet the renegade Sangueen were not alone in their desires for there were Bloodwights who schemed on no less great a scale. Foremost of these was Androzael, a demon whose true powers were kept shadowed from his aspiring masters. Androzael came to Alendar as a servant, but it was through his cunning and treachery that the fall of men truly began.

It was Androzael who sowed the seeds of conquest among the demons of Alendar. Now that they had been prized free of the Bloodworld’s chains and their potent overlords there, they found it easier to revolt against mortals, for the Sangueen were far fewer in number than the Bloodwights and far less flexible in their movements. The Sangueen could cross the astral realms only at the expense of great effort and magic, whereas the Bloodwights travelled the astral realm at will. Androzael exhorted his fellow demons to join him in the overthrow of the Sangueen, and the conquest had begun.

Terrible conflicts ensued across the world of Alendar as the Bloodwights unleashed their realised potential. Cities fell like rotting trees and the very earth heaved in turmoil. Androzael enslaved as

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