Power of the Lost

by Cebelius

  Stepping in close to him again, she said, "After all, I must be close if I am to protect my husband."

  He quirked a brow at her and asked, "If you just turned into one of these things last night, how the hell do you know so much about them?"

  Her smile broadened and she leaned into him, her breath on his throat making him shiver as she said, "I can read, remember? Volai was trying to get a doppel when she contracted me. I am essentially a failed summon; just an orb of phantasmagoric goo pulled from the pits and given a semblance of thought. There are only a handful of magi alive at any given time with the power required to draw a genuine doppel into Celestine, and if you think I was manipulative ... heh. A real doppel makes me look like a model of integrity. There is an entire volume on us in your pack which you can read at your leisure."

  She tilted her head, staring up at him, and her smile got a bit wistful. "You know, this is the first time I've really ever seen you. You're no young Tom Cruise, but you pass for ruggedly handsome. The broken nose and scar give your face character."

  His tone was dry as he said, "Gee, thanks."

  She winked, leaned in, and kissed him. He kissed her back, but only for a moment. The kissing stopped and the panic started when she fused with his face.

  His eyes widened as her lips and his simply blended together, followed a second later by his nose. Her eyes came ever closer until they were the only thing he could see, then they touched, and after that he couldn't see anything at all.

  Terry fell to his knees as the indescribable sensation of absorbing an entire body's worth of mass all at once coursed through him. It felt as though his flesh were being pushed aside, as though his bones and body were being stretched. It wasn't painful, which surprised him in retrospect. It felt like rearranging the contents of a closet in order to cram in more stuff.

  From the perspective of the closet.

  When it was done, he opened his eyes and blinked, rolling them in their sockets. He looked down at himself, but felt no different. A set of clothes lay on the ground in front of him, and Prada had already extruded herself from his waist and now sat atop his tunic as her usual red sash.

  "Okay, that was really weird," he said. "Can I get a warning next time?"

  "Since you asked so nicely," Prada said, her words once more fizzing up through her substance. "I just felt the first time should be a surprise. New experiences are the spice of life."

  "That was, interesting," Asturial said.

  Throughout the conversation she'd been watching from a few feet away, now she stood and stepped forward. Terry's expression hardened, but he gamely said, "Good morning, Asturial."

  "Good morning," she said, then hesitated. Her gaze faltered under his hard stare, and she glanced away and said nothing more.

  He turned away from her in time to see Laina walk up, and he pitched his voice so as to command attention as he said, "I would very much appreciate it if all present would bear witness."

  He felt their attention, but kept his eyes on Laina.

  She deserves this. She perhaps more than anyone.

  Yuri interrupted his train of thought though as he said, "Damn. Boss, I hate to say this, but whatever you want to do right now should probably wait."

  Terry glanced back, brow furrowing, to see the tiger man pointing back down the road.

  Glancing in that direction, he saw the morning sun, forested mountains to his right, and plains to his left ... and something new.

  Taking up the air-space over where he guessed Florence to be, Terry saw a giant floating mountain.

  8

  The Hunt Begins

  Stheno watched in satisfaction as the mammoths were assembled. Upon the back of each was a sizable howdah, and zone elite were being loaded. A far cry from typical zone fodder, the elite retained their minds and were ferocious warriors. No Locutor was needed to control them, they were one and all fanatics in the cause of the Dust Lord.

  My lord. MY master.

  Her green-scaled hair hissed as she allowed herself a small smile. She adjusted her bracers absently, and then touched the death mask she was compelled to wear whenever she left the glacier. It would not do — after all — to slay her own army. The mask was derived from one of the death dryads, a perfect replication of her face in wood so dark as to be black in any but the brightest light. It had no actual openings, but adhered to her through an act of will.

  She hated the thing, and never wore it when alone with her master ... but she had been compelled to wear it constantly since Thomas left seclusion. There had been much to do.

  The orgy had been fantastic, the largest held in many centuries. A delicious ocean of flesh, scales, fur, and chiton. She had taken pleasure from many of her favored bond-mates, and twice from her lord Thomas. As he had promised, she had been both his first, and his last.

  Now Thomas stood not twenty feet away, issuing commands to a semi-circle of black dryads. Each of them was covered in a heavy coat of bark, for outside of the orgies Thomas insisted they go fully clothed. Their gleaming yellow eyes shown with a sickly luminescence as one, and then another nodded to orders Stheno neither heard nor cared to hear. Unlike them, she would not be left behind.

  Thomas himself was now a far cry from the pallid, quaking man she had led from his self-imposed exile within the heart of the glacier. Dusky skin gleamed in the pale radiance of the mage lights hovering over the shoulders of each dryad, for dawn never came to the Seat of Devotion. He was a wiry man, but little beyond his face could be seen because he wore robes of ancient design, undyed and simple, bound at the waist by braided rope.

  Just above the rope belt, Thomas wore his two urumi coiled about his waist, with the hilts available in a cross-draw configuration. The urumi were strange weapons that he had commissioned a few hundred years after his arrival, and which he had taken great pains and many self-inflicted injuries to master. Each weapon had five flexible metal blades — each about five feet long — and Thomas wielded them like flails. Even blind, his strange, many-bladed swords brought death and ruin to any who faced him in close combat, and Stheno had seen him cut down multiple assailants in seconds with just a few graceful movements that seemed to require no strength at all.

  He had thick sandals upon his feet, but wore nothing upon his head. His hair was thick, black, and roughly cut to end at the nape of his neck. His expression was calm, almost inhumanly patient.

  No. Truly the man has inhuman patience.

  The thought made her scowl. She would love to see him a little less patient in certain matters.

  Ice and dust swirled in the courtyard in which the armies of the Dust Lord were gathering, and several magical motes of light hung around the marshaling space. The light from the sun itself was a faint, distant thing, but adequate for most of the creatures that dwelt in the Twilight Zone.

  No, the mage lights were for Thomas' benefit. Though he could not see or even sense the light, the magic in them was something he felt intimately. He could sense and interpret magic in the same way a bird soared with the drafts in the sky. With so much magic around him, Thomas walked with feet more sure than any sighted man.

  Muscles faded with disuse had been restored, and a face gaunt from willful deprivation was made hale again by the power granted a template through sex. The Dust Lord had countless bonds to draw upon, and the sight of his radiance now, as he stood in full glory before her, made Stheno's heart and loins ache to have him again.

  That thought in turn deepened her scowl, and she turned her attention back to the mammoths. Thomas disliked physical intimacy. Only when convinced that it was the only way to accomplish his holy mission had he taken up the practice of coitus with more than one woman, and having done so, took them only often enough to renew the power he was channeling into the dust storm that was the principle expression of his might.

  He rotated diligently through the women at his beck at the rate of one a week. Stheno had been bereft for decades before this ... Terrence, gave her the leverage she neede
d to convince her lord to take up arms.

  Countless times she had sought to seduce her lord, countless times he had kissed her brow and sent her away with words of love. She knew he was genuine, but words were not enough. Not when there was so much more to be had. Yet she was immortal, and Thomas was not the only one on Celestine with inhuman patience. These opportunities, be they all too seldom, were not to be overlooked.

  Perhaps this time he will finally give up this foolish venture, she thought. Perhaps he will feel the sun on his face and the grass under his feet and yearn to be a man once more, rather than the simple tool of an unseen God.

  She glanced around, absently counting even though she already knew the numbers.

  Twenty mammoths. Each held nine zone elite, and a single bonded female. None of Thomas' bonded Powers would be accompanying them. Even though she had inflated the risk as much as she dared, he would not risk any of them. None would be permitted to leave the Seat, at least, none that he actively controlled.

  Still, this is more than enough to put down one rogue template and the tiny harem he has managed to assemble.

  Smirking, she turned to behold the four behemoths waiting patiently at the front. The things always reminded her of ticks with stumpy legs, but each was an amalgam of a template and his harem, fused into a singular being to grant the template immortality, and of course to draw their sacred power into the ever-expanding dust storm.

  A shame this latest did not take the portal here, she mused. He would have been a fine convert for Thomas. By all accounts, he is tremendously strong-willed, and has the loyalty of my sister. It would have been a great coup, and I would see Euryale again, perhaps even reconcile. A pity. Perhaps he might even have been the first to become something greater than a behemoth. Thomas has often said he lamented the lack of willpower in those few templates who survived the conversion.

  Such men were invariably driven insane, if not by the world itself, than certainly by their transformation.

  "My eyes. Are you prepared for what comes next?"

  His voice ...

  Stheno shivered. Thomas had an indomitable will and over the centuries had accumulated unrivaled power. But what drew her to him more than anything else was the knowledge that she had been his choice. This man, so mighty in his own right, had given up his eyes for her and chosen her as his consort despite the curse that lay upon her. Thomas defied Athena's will to love Stheno, and had never wavered in his devotion. Though he remained annoyingly devoted to his god as well, she kept her resentment in check. She had long since come to realize that it was his religious fanaticism that made it possible for him to love her despite all that might come between them.

  No one could ever compare to my lord. Not even Zeus himself.

  A part of her hoped this Terry Mack would prove resourceful and difficult to catch, if only to prolong what she acknowledged was likely to be a very short trip.

  "Yes, Master. I am prepared. Our oracles have located both death seeds. One has been lost to the Everdark, but the other is on the move, close to Florence. The portals will open nearby. It is very likely that both the template and the seed can be captured at once."

  She turned to face him and — emboldened with the promise of future success — dared to kiss him swiftly before backing away and bowing slightly as she said, "Let us deal death to all who would thwart my lord's will."

  Behind her, a crackling roar began, as the behemoths worked their magic and the portals opened.

  A centaur with a black hide approached and knelt on her front legs. Her skin was so black that it blended seamlessly with her coat, and her upper body was clad in a black-enameled breastplate. Her silver hair was loose and floated behind her in a cloud as though she were underwater, and her eyes glowed silver. She carried a similarly blackened kite-shield, but no weapon of her own. She needed none, and the shield was to protect her master. She had a saddle, and Stheno guided Thomas' hands, even though she knew he did not need her help.

  He was ever-gracious, and allowed her to help him mount. As she did this, the centaur pulled her floating hair down and secured it to a strap on her armor, there for the purpose.

  Isthil was no mere centaur. Her bond with Thomas had made her something more. Isthil was a Nightmare, perhaps the mightiest to ever live, and she would take care to keep the Dust Lord from true danger.

  Stheno's snakes hissed in satisfaction as Thomas rode his bond through one of the portals.

  Behind her a small army of zone beasts began to march. Five hundred strong and led by their locutors, they followed close on the heels of the war mammoths carrying the zone elite. She waited until the last mammoth was through, then spread her wings and launched herself through one of the gates with a glorious scream of anticipation.

  9

  Thy Will Be Done

  "What the hell is that?" Terry asked, all thoughts of what he'd planned forgotten as he shouldered his pack.

  "That, is just what it looks like. A floating island. It is the biggest I have ever seen," Yuri said.

  "How many have you seen?" Terry shot back, glancing at the tiger man, who showed his teeth in a rather feral grin and said, "Pack up. We need to be on the road and moving. I doubt it will do us much good, but we should at least try to escape this. We have no chance out here in the fields, but further along the road there may be a valley or canyon we might hide in."

  Terry and the others packed the wagon and got it rolling in under ten minutes. Shy once again rode on one of the horses, with Terry and Euryale in the back of the wagon and Laina up front with Marcus. Mila and Yuri rode, and Asturial ran. She seemed to have no trouble keeping pace.

  He wondered briefly how it was that yesterday she'd had what amounted to a broken spine — given that's what the tail essentially was — yet here she was trucking along, the appendage in question whipping in counter-point to her stride. A moment's thought reminded him that she had made that body, and if she had made it, she could probably fix it.

  Which means leaving her injuries in place the other day was deliberate posturing for sympathy.

  He scowled, but let it go. He already knew everything he felt he needed to about Asturial's character. Having it confirmed for him shouldn't be an issue.

  They'd made it no more than a mile before Euryale shouted to be heard over the rumbling wheels, "I see a lot of specks flying toward us."

  "How many is 'a lot'?" Laina shouted, leaning around the edge of the wagon to look back.

  "A swarm," Euryale said flatly. "Ross sold us out."

  "Ross didn't sell us out," Terry said absently, watching the growing cloud of dark dots coming toward them from the direction of the floating mountain. "He never promised to conceal us, only to delay releasing the news that we'd gone as long as he could. Someone's dangling a mountain over his head, and if they asked him where I went, I can't fault him for telling them. Hell, even if he did keep us secret, it doesn't take a genius to send people along the only road out of town."

  "Well, whoever it is has eyes, Master. Give me permission to remove my mask, go up front, and don't look back."

  Terry thought about it, then shook his head. "No. We may know what they want, but we don't know how they plan to get it."

  "If they wanted to be diplomatic, they'd have sent an emissary, not a horde, Master," Euryale said dryly. "You are being soft. Again. Once they surround us, I will not be able to curse them without risking the rest of you."

  Thunder rumbled to Terry's left, and he whipped his head around in time to see four huge blazing portals framed with vivid bolts of emerald lightning open and begin spewing out what looked like woolly mammoths.

  Terry's eyes widened and he yelled, "Marcus, look left!"

  "See 'em!" he yelled over the crack of the reigns. "Hi'yah!"

  Euryale gazed out with him at the encroaching horde of fliers, and at what was now obviously an army of zone beasts. The mammoths had giant baskets on their backs bristling with fighters, and more were pouring through the gates on foot
and breaking into a charge as they sought to run the wagon down.

  How in the hell did they know we were here?

  The shocks were doing a decent job, and the road was good, but the wagon's rumbling was still enough to warrant keeping his jaw clenched. He gripped one of the ribs holding the tarp in place and stood, watching two armies converging on him. One from the sky, the other from the ground.

  "Now can I take my mask off?" Euryale asked with deceptive sweetness. "Pretty please?"

  He hesitated to answer, because when he did speak, he knew what he'd say. He just didn't want to say it. He couldn't imagine saying, "Yes, you can kill a whole lot of people who will have no way to fight back."

  He couldn't do it, not yet. He already had too many deaths on his conscience to just turn Euryale loose without a more compelling reason than being chased. "Maybe we'll outpace them," he said. "We have the road, and we're moving fast. Only one of those guys out there has a horse, see him?"

  "Oh no," she breathed, then screamed, "Marcus?! Go faster! That's Thomas! It's the Dust Lord! GO FASTER!"

  "Wait, that's him? How the hell would you know?" Terry asked, squinting. All he could make out from the distance was a dusky-skinned man in white riding a black centaur. The fact that Terry didn't bat an eye at the centaur just went to show how surreal his life had gotten lately.

  "I've seen him before, but he's not the real problem," Euryale said, her snakes hissing discordantly all around her. "If he's here, so is my sister. She'll kill you all, and I won't be able to stop her ... there! See? She flies. She will catch us!"

  Euryale whirled, sunk her brazen claws into Terry's tunic, and jerked him around to face her. "Master, PLEASE! Take the mask. Please, please take the mask! I'm begging you!"