From Cold Ashes Risen (The War Eternal Book 3)

by Rob J. Hayes

  "I can't see anything." I raised a hand and waved it in front of my face. When an Impomancer projects themselves into the Other World, they have no body, no real form at all, just a presence. But it was different when I appeared there in my dreams. We were there, Ssserakis and I, able to interact with the world and its people, but we were also not there. In those times, I existed both in Ovaeris and Sevoari at once, and not as a formless spirit, but as a terran. It's fair to say I was out of place and stood out. I did not belong in that world. I dread to think what might have happened had I not had Ssserakis there to protect and guide me.

  Stop using your eyes and use mine.

  "You don't have eyes. Do you?"

  No. I could feel the horror's amusement. I might have laughed had it not been for the pitch black and the odd scraping noise that seemed to be growing louder by the moment.

  I blinked, and when I opened my eyes again, I found I could see through Ssserakis' unique night sight. The ancient horror was a creature of fear and cold and darkness, so it was no surprise that darkness held no secrets from it. The world around me appeared in sharp detail, but without any colour. At first, I believed that to be just another part of the location—we were deep underground—but I know better now. Ssserakis could not see colour. The ancient horror viewed the worlds only in terms of light and darkness. I think that was what hurt Ssserakis so about Ovaeris. It was not the light or brightness as the horror claimed, but rather it was the inability to comprehend colour that caused it so much pain.

  We were in a tunnel, like those I used to dig down in the Pit, but much larger. It would have taken four of me to reach the tunnel roof, and twice that many to reach from one side to the other. All along the tunnel floor were little grooves of moulded stone, as though tiny rivers regularly ran through the tunnel, carving the rock into miniature valleys. The rock walls were jagged and uneven, as though mined by dozens of different people, each with their own ideas of how wide the tunnel should be. I could see two more tunnels branching off on my left side, disappearing at an angle, at least one of them sloping downward. To my right was nothing but rock. And over it all I heard the scratching sound, still growing louder, or perhaps just more intense. There was something underneath that too, an echo that pulsed like placing your hands over your ears and listening to nothing but your own heartbeat.

  "Where are we?" My voice sounded loud and foreign down there in the tunnel. A place no terran had ever seen before. I have ever been a pioneer in my studies of Sevoari. The first to bring an Abomination across. The first to actually step foot into the Other World. The first terran to raise an army there.

  Close to home. On the border of Norvet Meruun's territory. She is closer than she should be.

  I knew the name, Ssserakis had uttered it once before. "Norvet Meruun. One of the lords of Sevoari?"

  The beating heart. The creeping doom. One of the nine, yes, but unlike any of the others. Norvet Meruun is the death of my world made manifest in putrid flesh. She worms her way through Sevoari, devouring all. Growing ever larger. I, alone, held her at bay. As much as I could.

  The mother of Abominations, Norvet Meruun. I had brought an Abomination across once, many years ago, my very first time summoning a creature from the Other World. I thought it a small thing, slug-like, and no larger than a cat. I couldn't have known the truth, no other Sourcerer had ever seen one of the monsters before. It stole the Source from my stomach as I brought it across, severing the connection between us and my hold over it. If I close my eyes, I can still taste the grey, pulsing flesh of it. Like maggoty meat, writhing and unnatural. Fucking disgusting. As soon as the creature was out of me, it began to grow. Flesh expanded and tentacles grew in every direction. It flattened a building and killed six people before the tutors of the academy brought it down. The Abomination was put on the banned list after that, a warning circulated to all corners of Ovaeris, and, as far as I am aware, it is one warning that has been heeded by everyone. Even me. The Abomination I brought across was small, perhaps still young. Norvet Meruun was anything but small.

  "What is that noise?" I asked my passenger. The scratching was a continuous thing, growing more and more persistent. I couldn't tell if it was close or far away with the echoing natures of the tunnel.

  Even Norvet Meruun has minions, Eskara. All creatures of power draw those without the wit to take their own.

  I looked around for Ssserakis. The horror usually manifested in some way when we visited Sevoari, but it remained tight inside this time. Perhaps because I had no shadow down in the dark, with no light to cast it. As I searched for the horror, I saw movement down the tunnel. A blur of grey legs and screaming mouths, frighteningly terran. Whatever the thing was, it noticed me somehow and turned my way. It was at least twice as tall as I and had a tube-like body, segmented all along its length. At the middle of each segment, long thin legs stretched up then pivoted sharply down on a joint. On each joint was a terran face, frozen in a moment of pain or fear. As the creature turned towards me and came on at a rush, I noticed it had no face itself, no real head at all. On its front-most segment there was just a mouth, an opening with huge blocky teeth jutting forwards. The monster rushed toward me, teeth gnashing, feet scratching at the stone beneath, and terran faces drooling some sort of viscous grey matter as they screamed in silence.

  While in that state, somehow both in Ovaeris and Sevoari, I could not draw on the Sources I held in my stomach. I had no magic to fight this monster, and no weapons to wield against it. In the Other World, I was as helpless as a babe.

  "Ssserakis?" The horror inside didn't answer, and the segmented monster continued to bear down on me. I took a step back, almost falling as I tripped on one of the ridges of stone that lined the floor. Then I planted my feet, faced the monster and shouted. "STOP!"

  A well-intoned command can do a lot. Some creatures, and some people, are given to following commands regardless of the source. They respect the authority, whether real or implied, and react accordingly. I had authority in my tone, an iron will and the casual expectation that my orders would be obeyed. It was not something I gained from my time in the Orran military, I had an honorary rank, but that only extended as far as the soldiers assigned to protect me, and even then, they would ignore my orders if my life was in danger. My authority came from Hardt and Tamura and all the others who followed me, expecting me to lead. The truth is, I had become accustomed to being in charge, and that became apparent in both the way I held myself, and the tone of my voice. That being said, regardless of any inherent command in my voice, I was still quite surprised when the monster slowed to a stop a mere arm's length away from crushing me.

  Up close the creature was even more hideous. It resembled a spider, or perhaps a dozen spiders stuck together. Its gnashing teeth were grinding up rock, cracking it apart, and the faces on its legs weren't just screaming, they were chewing also, mixing the rock with sticky saliva and then letting it drool over their chins in thin streams to the ground below. It towered over me, and I would be lying if I said I wasn't trembling at being so close to such a thing.

  Ssserakis laughed inside. I can feel your fear, Eskara. It tastes…

  "Just like your own!" I hissed the words through a clenched jaw, but the truth of it was plain for both of us to see. I could taste my fear as well, more of a feeling than an actual taste, really, but it carried a unique flavour. It was the same flavour of fear I felt when Ssserakis was being picked apart by the monster beyond the portal. I wondered at what that meant, that we were both so similar.

  The monster in front of me kept chewing on the rocks in its mouth, grinding them up until they were nothing but dust. Then it turned its head and gouged a section out of the nearby tunnel wall. Still it stood in front of me, as though waiting for orders.

  I stepped aside, pressing myself against the wall of the tunnel so I was out of its way. "Go." And the monster did. Without hesitation, it started forward, legs scraping across the ground, mouths chewing, screaming, and drooling
. I watched it go, segment after segment after segment. It had close to twenty, each one with two spindly legs.

  "What was that thing?" I asked once it had vanished into the gloom beyond the range of Ssserakis' night sight.

  They dig, endlessly. It is their purpose, their sustenance, and their orders. Norvet Meruun is ever growing, worming her way through the tunnels and caverns of my world, but she cannot chew through solid rock. She fills the spaces her minions leave behind. I used to hunt them. It was the easiest way to stop her expansion.

  I have since made a study of the digging monsters of the Other World, and my personal copy of the Encyclopaedia Otheria contains a whole chapter dedicated to the segmented creatures. I call them Geolids. They grow slowly, a single segment taking many years to form, and the legs even longer. Their only sustenance comes from the rock they consume, and it makes their carapace as hard as stone. For this reason, I have found it is best to go for the fleshy gaps in between segments when hunting the monsters. Waste rock is trailed behind their passage from the faces on each leg, it drips like sludge and quickly hardens to a substance even sturdier than the rock it once was. That is where all the ridges on the floor of those tunnels come from, rock paste drooled from a hundred passing Geolids. Perhaps the strangest thing about the creatures is that no two faces are ever the same. They are not, as you might assume, featureless masks. Each one is different and distinct. And the more you stare at those faces, the more of them you begin to recognise. Sevoari truly is a world of our nightmares made manifest.

  "Why did it listen to me?" I truly doubted it was my order that stopped the Geolid. After all, there was little chance it spoke the terran language.

  It didn't. It heard me in your voice. It may be one of Norvet Meruun's minions, but all creatures of Sevoari recognise my power. I am fear.

  That was a lesson I learned and took to heart. The monsters of the Other World could sense Ssserakis within me. The imps, down in the ruined Djinn city, had recognised the horror before I knew what I carried inside. They had supplicated themselves to a power they understood, to a lord they knew to serve. Command and control, without the use of an Impomancy Source. The foundation of a plan formed, whispers of power I could take for myself. There are two ways to form a kingdom from within another. The first is sedition, undermining the current regime and syphoning their power away, all while adhering to whatever laws are governing the general populace. The second is rebellion, a military force operating within the boundaries of state. I was never one for subtlety.

  That was not what I brought you here to show you, Eskara. Follow the heartbeat.

  I was lost in my own thoughts, considering possibilities and implications. That was why I didn't resist or ask why, or even where Ssserakis was directing us. Part of it was trust, I think. The ancient horror loved to cause fear, both mine and others, but I also believed it wouldn't harm me, or allow harm to come to me. We were, the two of us, linked. For my part, I admitted I didn't want any harm to befall Ssserakis. It wasn't fear for my own safety that stopped me from opening any more portals, but fear for the horror's.

  I cannot tell you how long I wandered those tunnels. Lost in my own thoughts, time passed quickly. My visits to the Other World were dreamlike, even if they were not truly dreams, time passed strangely while we were there. Sometimes it would feel like only minutes had passed and I would wake to find half the morning gone. Other times it would feel like we travelled Sevoari for hours and I would wake to find I had dozed off and barely minutes had gone by. One thing I will say I was glad of; I no longer woke screaming with every visit. I'm sure the others were even more glad of that. But I wondered what it meant for me, that the nightmares no longer scared me. In fact, I welcomed them. I looked forward to them. Sevoari was starting to feel like a second home to me, and I no longer had a first home. It is hard to admit, but at times I was more comfortable there than in my own world. Maybe that was another consequence of my growing bond with Ssserakis, that I felt the horror's pangs of homesickness. I think, perhaps, there is a different explanation. I have always been drawn to the Other World. I have always been drawn to the nightmares and the fear. I have always felt, even just a little, that I belong there amongst the monsters. But I don't. No terran belongs there.

  It was something of a surprise when I rounded a corner of the tunnel and came face to flesh with Norvet Meruun. So absorbed had I been in my own thoughts, I hadn't heard the heartbeat growing stronger, louder. I hadn't noticed the air changing, growing more humid. The low pulsing glow had gone unseen, until now. How best to describe such an entity? In the darkness of the tunnel, and with Ssserakis' colourless sight, it looked like a quivering mass of flesh. I know now that it glows with a soft red hue, like blood just beneath paper-thin skin. With each heartbeat, each pulse, the flesh crept a little further along the tunnel. Not much, and the heartbeat was slow and regular. I estimated it moved no more than a handspan every hour, but its progress is unrelenting, and it was growing down more than just the tunnel I stood in.

  "What?" I struggled to find the words as a wall of writhing flesh blocked the tunnel ahead of me. Thin, rubbery tentacles poked free of the mass, slapping against the rock walls with a sodden smack, then rubbing along the jagged ridges of it. The creature was slowly feeling its way forward.

  Norvet Meruun. The beating heart. The creeping doom. The eventual, unavoidable death of Sevoari. This is my enemy, Eskara, just as you have yours.

  A spreading tumour growing through the world, unseen beneath the surface. Or at least, unseen by any Sourcerers. Ssserakis saw it. The ancient horror had been at war with Norvet Meruun for as long as the Other World had existed. They were two creatures plucked from the nightmares of my world, given form by the Rand, and left to fight an eternal war against each other. There was a perverse symmetry in that.

  This is why I must return to my world, Eskara. You see only the smallest part of this monster. It is everywhere, worming its way through my home. It devours everything it touches and spreads forever outward.

  I remembered the Abomination I once summoned. The way it grew, absorbing things to add to its mass. It didn't care what it touched; everything was dragged into its flesh. Six people died that day, due to that monster. Absorbed by it. Into it.

  "Does it have a heart you can strike at? Kill it at the source."

  She is not a creature as you understand them to be. It is a mass with no beginning, middle, or end. All I could ever do was push her back with fear, carve bits of it off with shadow, freeze its progress. All I ever managed was to delay her, slow her down. Without me she moves unchecked.

  "What about the other lords of Sevoari?" I took a step back as the fleshy mass pulsed and grew just slightly. I still wasn't sure if I could be hurt or killed while we visited the Other World, but it was the sort of thing I didn't really like the idea of testing.

  Ssserakis laughed bitterly. Hyrenaak can do nothing from the sky but watch as the world is devoured. Even if the serpent wanted to help, it is unable to touch the ground and Norvet Meruun grows beneath the surface. Brakunus is too scared and too stupid, as all ghouls are. Kekran is unable to help. As powerful as he is, Norvet Meruun would simply consume him. Aire and Dialos are too busy bickering amongst their many selves to see any danger beyond the other. Flowne fights back as well as she is able, but even her power can barely keep her territory safe from the constant advancement of flesh. And Lodoss doesn't care. I believe he would welcome the oblivion if it would end his torment, but he is beyond death. This is why I need to return, Eskara. It is not just the abrasive nature of your world. My home is in danger.

  I stepped back again as the heartbeat pulsed and Norvet Meruun crept forward. Fleshy tentacles waved out ahead of me, as though reaching to find me. I didn't like the idea of what might happen if they did. "I will send you back, Ssserakis. Once I am done."

  You promised.

  "And you said we are stuck together until I die. Well, I refuse to die until my enemies have paid their price. The Te
rrelan Emperor must pay. The Iron Legion must pay."

  Ssserakis was silent, but I could feel the horror considering my words. On that last we agree.

  I left something unspoken, a part of the truth that I knew Ssserakis would not understand. It was not just about making the Iron Legion pay for what he had done to us. I had to save Josef. I just couldn't leave my friend to die a second time.

  Chapter 10

  I would never attempt to take anything from Josef's ordeal. Even before we separated, before I pushed him away, down in the Pit, he had his own struggles. I refused to see it back then. I couldn't see past my own misery. When drowning in pain and hardship, it becomes easy to view it only from one point. To become so insular, that you fail to realise that others are struggling in different ways with different demons. This is especially true for the young. Down in the Pit, Josef was terrified, not just for himself but also for me. We were both brutalised, beaten by petty thugs for no reason other than to break us. We were both tortured by the Overseer, only Josef's torture was often more physical than mine. One thing I must give the Overseer, the man knew how to break Josef. And he did. I'd like to say I don't blame him for that. That it wasn't his fault, and anyone would have broken. But I didn't. Not quite. Age has tempered my fury somewhat, and though I do still blame him, I have also forgiven him.

  But as I have said, his ordeal was far from over. I cannot say if his suffering at the hands of the Iron Legion was worse than my own. The things I went through made the Pit look like an easy summer nap. But Josef was kind at heart. He could be brutal and merciless when it was needed, but he was always kind. He never wanted the deaths on his hands. Maybe that is where we are so different, he and I. He was forced to take lives.

  This is one of Josef's memories.