Read Lucian: Dark God's Homecoming for Free Online

stagnant water surrounded us, leaving only mossy, narrow raised areas for walking. The sounds of swamp life buzzed and croaked and chirped all around us.
    In answer to Evelyn’s questioning look, I could only shrug and reply, “He likes his privacy.”
    On through the swamp we marched, for what seemed like hours on end. I considered opening a series of portals in and out of lower-powered adjacent planes where time ran faster, to hurry us on our way, but I feared that such actions might somehow be detected. Better to use this straightforward route to the pocket universe Malachek had found—or constructed; he was never entirely clear on this—many years before, even if it meant a depressing trek through lands he could only have chosen for their value as deterrents to visitors.
    After far too long a time of trudging through muck, I sensed the texture of reality growing thin around us once more, and called a halt. This had to be the right place, the right node of intersection. I struggled for several moments, pushing with some effort against unexpected resistance, before rending the barrier enough for all of us to pass through. It snapped shut behind us instantly, leaving us in what appeared to be the same place we’d just evacuated. Frowning, I metaphorically tasted the energies around me. Ever so slightly different. Good. We had to be very close now. Perhaps only one more barrier lay before us. On we hiked.
    Not long after this crossing, I felt a chill in the air. The others seemed not to notice it, which troubled me. I hesitated, raising a hand to bring them to a halt, and then I moved away quickly, my every sense alert. The air fairly crackled with electricity, something that had not been the case moments earlier. A circular glow began to coalesce in the air a few dozen yards away. Whirling, I gestured for the humans to get down, to hide themselves behind a clump of brush and fallen trees, and I followed them moments later. I held a finger to my lips to forestall any questions, and then we all peeked over the top, watching to see what developed.
    The glow resolved itself into a blazing portal, and out stepped the Dark Man I’d battled earlier. Or, at least, it certainly looked like him. Black robes concealing his shape and form, face covered in a featureless mask that seemed to absorb light into its depths, he strode forward, head turning this way and that, as if searching, searching…
    Seconds later, a second portal blazed open, and a nearly identical figure stepped through. Great, I thought to myself. One was bad enough. How many can there be?
    I am no warrior god. I am not gifted with the cosmic flames of Vashtaar, or with the electrical abilities of Korvakh, nor even with Baranak’s two good fists. Concealment, however, lies well within my talents. As we crouched there in the forest, behind our meager camouflage, I raised one hand and concentrated, encouraging a general assumption among any within range that nobody lurked behind these logs; that things were perfectly normal here, thanks for asking; that there was no one back here but us chickens.
    Satisfied that I had masked our presence as best I could, I waited and watched as the two enigmatic figures in black approached one another, reaching out simultaneously to touch fingertips together. Electricity danced between them. At that moment, crimson lightning flared in the sky and struck down at them. They both lit up like red neon bulbs momentarily, then faded to dull black again. All very lovely, to be sure, but it told me nothing I didn’t already know—which was little.
    Apparently unhurt, the figures in black turned their backs on one another, and portals flared open ahead of each of them. Without further ado, each strode forward and vanished, the portals dwindling to bright points of light behind them, before vanishing entirely, as if they’d never been.
    “Who,” Cassidy was already asking me, “were they?”
    “What just happened?” Kim added.
    I