CHAPTER 28: THE MEETING
Whoever it was wore some kind of flaky ghostly armour. It had strange feathery mould-pale-green pieces of bird-like material under the shoulder pads. They were male- that was for sure. He had bony raised pieces of metal joining each part of the armour together. That too was pale, but of a silver colouring and it had a slight tinge of aurous gold in it. There were also bits of dirty brown-stained bandage-type pieces of cloth wrapped around his skin underneath the armour plates of the arms, middle and, as far as Athena could tell, his ankles too. His chest was broad, but not fat, he was in good shape. His white glowing hands were bony and clutched into them was a matching sword. The hilt was wrapped with the same tinged cloth as his arms and at the end of the hilt was what looked like a ball joint from a bone, which made her believe the whole thing may be made of bone as well. As for the blade, it glittered a haunting silvery-grey and protruded violently from the hilt like a poised snake. His head was of the palest complexion and he had icy-cold high cheek bones and a defined neck. He had no hair, but up the side of his face a shadowy black tattoo type mark spiralled up to his mid-forehead from his neck. It was curled and spiked and twisted like the unforeseen in the creeping darkness. In the emotionless sockets were pale frosty grey eyes full of nothing but bitterness and evil. His nose was bony like most of his other facial features. Draped over all of this was a dark navy-black cloak that was ever so slightly frayed at the edges and ripped in certain places. The cloak had a hood but the inhuman like man had already taken it down to reveal his eager face.
Suddenly Athena realised who it was: Diávolos, it had to be. There was no mistaking the deathly longing hunger in his voice that only Diávolos would have for her.
“You” breathed Athena. Slowly, he began to descend the steps.
“Me” he repeated
“How did you find me here?”
“I did not find you” Athena was confused for a moment “You found me” he finished
“The sword, Hades, it was him! You’re working with him!” declared Athena, he laughed crisply.
“No, but I know he wanted it and when the Soulless told me about what happened in the underworld, well I knew you’d go looking for the portal key and of course even fools know that, that takes you to the Secret Sword.”
“How did you know we’d find it, huh?”
“I got the Soulless to keep watch over you, make sure you found your way through the rooms, they made sure everything was in reach. Then when you came out and landed by the Sacred River you thought the sword would just magically appear beneath you. Ha fools! It’d never be that easy. During the thunderstorm when you were safely tucked out of the way I sent the Soulless to retrieve it, so when they found it they brought it to me. I then turned it into a portal to here, the Náo ruins, and got them to place it in view. So in good time, the sword would bring you to me. And here we are.”
“Why are you telling me this?” she demanded through the mist of the cloud and rain.
“Because now you can die. Now I can kill you.”
“Why do you want to? I haven’t hurt you; it’s you who hurt me! It’s you who hurt my dad!” she could feel her temper rising like a storm “It’s you who killed him!”
“Because you’re the supposed ‘hero’ fool girl; you threaten my power and my plans”
“What plans?”
“Well mortals, like you, are meaningless and purposeless. I need a world ruled by supreme Gods, a world in which the people cannot turn on their masters or rebel. For, as long as they can be united, they cannot fear. I need fear; it makes the world go round.”
