Star Magi

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The Gods Return
Dwarf Planet Orcus, Sol System

Nessa stood on the grey rocky surface of Orcus, staring up into the black of space above the planet. The moon, Vanth, hung in the darkness to her right, but she wasn’t looking at that. Instead, she was staring up at a spot in the sky where there was nothing. Nothing but inky black space and pinpricks of light twinkling in the night.
It was the spot in the sky where Nessa had watched Grokar, her Void Dragon, die. Or, more accurately, get killed.
Nothing was there now, of course. That had been over seven hundred years ago, to the day. Each year, she came out here and mourned her Dragon’s death. She missed him terribly, but things had changed that day, and her mission for the Crux had becoming something entirely different.
As the ship that had killed Grokar had finished him off, she’d Ported down here to this planet in a desperate act of survival at the suggestion of Grokar. He’d sacrificed himself so that she could live; such was the bond between Dragon and Rider. They’d do anything for the other, and Grokar had died a hero.
She’d refused to take another Dragon as her steed, preferring to dedicate herself to this new mission instead, but she would never forget Grokar’s sacrifice and had taken it upon herself to hunt down Grokar’s killer.
She knew who it was, and she would soon take her revenge when this mission for the Crux had come to fruition.
Things were moving quickly over on Earth now, and there was talk of a Nomad Magus, like herself, who had come to great power and was leading a crusade of death and destruction on Earth. Her name was Yasmin. Interestingly, the Arcadian Magi Amanda-Jane Page — the killer of Grokar — was leading the resistance against Yasmin.
Nessa took a deep breath. Part of her wanted this Nomad to kill Amanda, but another side of her wanted to do it herself. She felt like she deserved that honour. She wanted to avenge Grokar. It was only right.
Turning from the void of space, Nessa walked back inside, through the airlock, and back into the complex she called home.
Nessa wandered up the stairs to her right and into her private quarters. They were extensive, but then, if she were going to live in the Sol System, in hiding, for centuries, she wanted to live in comfort. It was only proper that she had everything she needed. She moved to her right and into the small side room with its desk and all her research on Amanda. There were photos of her pinned to the wall, drawings and paintings of her she’d collected through the centuries, as well as maps showing where she lived and places she liked to visit. She was also well aware of her friends, companions, coven mates, and lovers. She knew as much as she could about her without really living with her.
Amanda’s history, for instance, had taken a turn for the bizarre recently with a certain amount of Time Travel happening to her. Amanda was probably over a thousand years old, but had only been born around twenty years ago. It was all very confusing, so Nessa didn’t think about it too much; the future was of much more concern to her.
She looked up into Amanda’s face as it stared out from one of the photos on the wall. She was young looking, mid-twenties or so, perhaps, with bright, long, burgundy-red hair and a friendly face that Nessa found sickening. She longed for the day that she could punch that face with her fist as hard as she could. She’d take a certain pleasure watching Amanda’s nose explode and her blood cover her face.
“Soon,” she whispered. “Soon, your time will come.”
As she stood there, staring into Amanda’s emerald eyes, the alert for the Portal sounded, warning her that someone was inbound from Earth.
Shaking her head to banish her murderous thoughts, Nessa walked out of the room, through her quarters, and down into the main operations chamber of the complex. The Portal on the far side of the room flared into life in her Aetheric Sight as Magical energy rolled off of it as a figure stepped through.
It was Sergio, one of her assistants, and he looked a little harried.
“Nessa, I’ve just come from New York and have word about the Archons,” he said, catching his breath between words.
Finally, she thought. Would today be the day when things finally started to move forward? The Archon’s, Earth’s ancient dark gods imprisoned deep in the spirit world for millennia, had first spoken to her the day of Grokar’s death, here on Orcus. Their Magic had reached out and contacted her with a proposal. A proposal she had taken back to the Crux, who had accepted it with glee, and given her this mission.
“Go on,” Nessa said to her assistant.
“They’re free, they’ve broken out of their prison and want to see you,” Sergio answered her.
Nessa smiled. “Excellent, then let’s waste no time; come with me,” she ordered him and strode towards the Portal. Sergio followed, looking more than a little nervous as she stepped through and appeared in a penthouse apartment at the top of a tall skyscraper in New York. They were in a back room. It was small, and there was no one else in here. There was no furniture either, just the Portal that only Magi like herself could see as a glowing silvery elliptical shape hanging in mid-air.
Wasting no time, Nessa strode from the room, making sure that Sergio was right behind her. She left the room and moved along a corridor before exiting out into the main large open-plan living area, complete with kitchen and soft furnishings. Nessa spotted a single figure standing off on the other side of the living area right away, and two thoughts passed through her mind. The first was how shocked she was with the amount of Magical power that was emanating from this figure. She’d been around other powerful Magi before and rode Dragons, but the only thing that came close to this level of power was the Crux. As she stepped out into the living area, Nessa actually faltered for a moment and had to steady herself as she felt the energy coming off this being.
The second thought only occurred to her a moment later as she looked around the room. There was only one figure in here.
But she was sure there were seven Archons, so, where were the other six?
She looked around but felt sure they were alone, so she shrugged and walked forward, appraising the figure before her with a critical eye. The shape was feminine and she had her back to Nessa. Nessa also noticed she was naked. Raising an eyebrow, Nessa continued forward, and as she grew closer, spotted several bodies on the floor, covered in blood.
She glanced back at Sergio, who was looking very nervous as he eyed the bodies and the Archon. She wondered what he’d seen this Archon do before he’d come to Orcus and delivered the message.
“Nessa,” said the Archon in a silky, velvety voice without turning around to look at her. The Archon was gazing out at the New York skyline.
She had to remember that the last time this being had been on Earth was over ten thousand years ago when things were very different. The Earth had changed considerably since then, and even though the Archon could probably see a lot of what had happened on Earth over the centuries through their Magic, seeing it with its own eyes was likely very different.
“Archon,” Nessa answered in greeting.
“This is truly an amazing city,” the Archon said.
“It is,” Nessa said, looking over at the Archon’s back and buttocks that were slick with glistening blood. She was a curvy woman with a thin waist and generous hips. Her long black hair fell over her shoulder and halfway down her back.
“We are glad we found you, Nessa,” she purred.
“Thank you,” Nessa replied, and couldn’t resist asking the main question that was burning a hole in her mind. “Um, I hope you don’t mind me asking, but… Where are the others?”
“Around,” the Archon said. “The aeons of slumber have left us weak — comparatively. We need time to rebuild our strength, and that requires sacrifice. The others are… indulging.”
“Aaah,” Nessa said with a gulp, glancing at the corpses at her feet. She knew that the Archons had drawn power from sacrifices made to them by their Nomad followers down through the centuries. She wasn’t surprised that the Archons would be looking to harvest souls — or Anima, as the Magi called them — now that they were back on Earth. Nessa could feel the intense power radiating off this Archon, and if she was this powerful now when she was apparently still weak, Nessa dreaded to think how monstrous she would be when she was fully revived.
“Our deal still stands, I take it?” the Archon asked.
“Of course,” Nessa said.
The Archon turned towards her, allowing Nessa her first look at the Archon’s face. The Archon’s ruddy skin and dark eyes pierced through to Nessa’s soul, and she knew she was an open book to this creature. There could be no secrets from it.
The Archon turned more fully, and Nessa couldn’t help but glance down at her body, if only to confirm that she at least looked entirely human, which she did.
“Good,” the Archon answered, and then cocked her blood splattered face sideways. She was a vision of both beauty and horror. There was blood all around her mouth, which had poured down over her chin, down her neck and over her breasts and body, all the way to her feet. “You like?” the Archon asked and waved her hands towards her body.
Nessa swallowed, her mind yelling at her to be careful here. It felt like she was on a knife-edge. “You are clearly a fierce and beautiful god,” she answered, wondering if she’d said the right thing.
The Archon smiled, and then looked past Nessa to Sergio, her grin taking on a seductive quality as she ran her fingertips up her thigh and body, and then over her right breast before she put one finger in her mouth and sucked the blood off it.
She then reached out with her hand, and suddenly Sergio’s body shot forward, propelled to the Archon by a flicker of powerful Magic. The Archon caught Sergio by the neck and held him up off the floor with one hand. He hung limply as if fascinated by the Archon.
“Well, little Magus, it looks like you have a job to do then, doesn’t it? Go on, run along now; go and speak to your masters. We will be waiting here for you…”
Nessa nodded and turned to go.
“I’m keeping this one, by the way,”the Archon said, making Nessa pause part way through her turn to leave.
“Very well,” Nessa answered, having already guessed that Sergio was going to be the Archon’s next meal.
“One last thing,” the Archon added. “Why here? Why New York?”
Nessa went to answer and paused. Should she lie? She guessed it was best not to, but she didn’t want to get into the whole thing. The truth was it was because of Amanda. She hated that Magus and wanted to complete this mission right under her nose as a kind of “fuck you” to her. But also because she hoped that if it were to happen here, maybe Amanda would show up and Nessa would finally get her chance to confront Amanda once and for all.
She considered telling the Archon the full story, but, instead, chose to say something much simpler. “For personal reasons…”
“Very well,” the Archon replied, and waved her hand at Nessa, urging her to leave. Nessa nodded once and made her way back through the penthouse towards the Portal, listening to the screams of Sergio the entire way until they were abruptly cut off as she passed through the Portal.
Back on Orcus, Nessa walked up to the main central table in the ops room and looked over her maps, most of which showed the locations of New York, Ultima Thule, and Sol Prime on them and their proximity to Orcus.
Satisfied that everything was in place, she turned right and made her way down into a vast hanger with a huge cavern at the back of it, deep underground within Orcus. Dwarfed by the scale of the room, her ship looked tiny within this vast space, but it wouldn’t remain empty for much longer, not when the Void Riders arrived.
Nessa jumped into her Aether Ship, Linked with the core, and powered her up. She glanced once at the stairway up to what had been her home for so long, but whatever happened, that time was coming to an end. She’d be back once more, at least, and hopefully, she would finally get her revenge. But that would be months away. She had a long journey ahead of her now. With a deep breath, she opened the main hanger doors and boosted out into space, bringing the ship’s Flux Drive online moments later to warp her away from Sol at many thousands of times the speed of light.