Creusus's Arc

Chapter 35 of 43

The dark pressed. Creusus had no arms, no throat, no post to hit. He held a shape that remembered being a body and would not give it up. Somewhere far off in the pressing he felt Thane's small warm point, still there, still fighting to stay itself. Creusus reached toward it without hands. He pushed back against the dark the way he pushed against a heavy bar. Not lifting. Refusing to be crushed. The voice came again, closer now. His voice. Diablo's voice. One voice worn thin over two mouths. Come back to the whole. Creusus did not answer. He listened instead. Under the pressing he heard something new. A second point, small and stubborn. Then a third. Then more. They flickered on across the dark like lamps down a long road. Each one small. Each one holding. He understood without being told. Every scrap of the thing that called itself Diablo, every soul the demon had grown inside his orb and inside his temple, was doing what Creusus was doing. Refusing. Pulling itself back from the whole. They did not know each other. They did not need to. They only knew they did not want to be one thing. The pressing shuddered. Then it laughed. The laugh moved through the dark like a hand closing. You are pieces, the voice said. I am the body. Pieces do not win. The dark pulled tighter. One of the small lights guttered. Another. Creusus felt the pull find the seam of him and start to work it open. The stubborn points around him thinned. The demon was stronger than any one of them. Stronger, maybe, than all of them. Creusus set his shape against it anyway. He thought of the bandages. He thought of the post. He thought of hitting a thing until it moved. Thane's point flared. It reached toward him across the pressing, gravity's old habit, pulling like it had pulled stone. It found Creusus and held. The pull was small. It was enough. Creusus's edges stopped fraying. He caught Thane and held back. Two points, one grip.