And so I have arranged for the Council to cut all direct links to the Earth because I want to save my people. I have arranged to give you the best education I could in defeating the coming invaders.
Even so, my gambit has failed. You have learned nothing from the monster I have created; neither have I.
And now we cannot even ask the astral plane for help.
Akllana’chikni’pai had appeared before the Council only twice before—once as an advisor on promoting the primary race on the planet of Shu-hashu to contributor status, and once to celebrate a victory of her progenitor’s. It had unnerved her both times.
This was worse.
The room itself had not changed. It was circular and made of white stone that had been polished to glossy perfection. Around the room were white thrones with high, arched backs; smooth pillars; and tall, arched windows opening onto the White City, far below them. The sky outside was white, except at the tops of the arches, where it was the faintest blue. White towers rose around them, some with long, delicate silver flags flapping in the slight breeze. The floor was polished and inset with a silvery pool of astral material.
Akllana’chikni’pai had chosen to appear in the same form she had used on Earth, that of a human female made of flame. The polished stone floor reflected her flames, turning her edges softer and paler, as though she were a ghost. The Council members, in keeping with tradition, had given themselves identical forms, shimmering balls of light. The lights flickered at each other, exchanging messages. Had she been human, she might have considered herself in the halls of the gods.
Their stares bore down on her with an almost physical weight.
Akllana’chikni’pai knelt before them and laid her swords on the floor in front of her in an asymmetrical crossed shape that reflected her favorite guard position.
On either side, white braziers burned with silver incense. They reminded her of her temple in the mountains but not in a pleasant way. It made her want to bow lower, to kowtow to the Council and do whatever they willed. It was the Council’s way of ensuring those who came before it told only the truth and agreed to what the Council wanted.
A breeze swept through the room, blowing incense smoke into her face. She lowered her head even farther.
A dull, monotonous voice echoed through the room, its direction untraceable. “Your report elucidated much, but we wish to know more.”
“Yes, Progenitor.” The Council had always been addressed as such, whether the members included one’s personal progenitor or not.
“We wish you to explain the behavior of your companion, Terkun’shuks’pai.”
“I cannot, Progenitor.”
The room flashed from a dozen directions all at once. Akllana’chikni’pai kept her face down, seeing only her reflection.
The same voice echoed around the room. It might have been the same Council member, or it might have been another. “Your companion seems to have arranged events in accordance with some plan to remove the Earth’s access to the astral plane.”
“Yes, Progenitor.”
“Why, child? Do you understand him? Has he said anything to you to explain his actions? Even a false explanation might reveal some of his mind.”
A lump rose in her throat. The white incense smoke was making her want to tell the Council members everything Terkun’shuks’pai had said to her. She bit her tongue, tasting black smoke that drowned out the incense for the moment. “My only guess is that he hates them, Progenitor.” The weight of the stares across her back made her place a hand on the floor. “He hates them with a passion that dwarfs my own.”
“But he has always been so cold and passionless. How could one such as Terkun’shuks’pai hate? He loves his research and hates nothing.”
She said nothing for a moment, breathing in the scent of strong smoke. “He blames the humans for his progenitor’s madness.”
“You have heard him say this?”
“No, Progenitor. It is only a guess.”
The room flashed with light. Again, she bit her tongue and inhaled the smoke, trying to clear her head. The girl must have poisoned her soul. Perhaps that was why she was able, now, to betray them, the ones who had raised her, the ones who had nurtured her—
Don’t let them seduce you, Akllana’chikni’pai told herself. It’s just incense. It doesn’t make them right.
She nurtured the thread of dark energy in the secret places of her soul. The lights steadied, and she prepared herself for more questions.
More lies.
“Child… we must know. Do you think he is right?”
She swallowed the last of the black smoke in her mouth.
“The danger is real, Progenitor. If Earth is allowed access to the astral plane, the consequences would be terrible.”
“How terrible?”
“Enough to destroy the White City, Progenitor.”
The flashes around the room were blinding.
“Terkun’shuks’pai forced me to confront a painful truth, Progenitors,” Akllana’chikni’pai said. “Every species on Earth, from the lowliest one-celled organism to potential primary species, is disposed to a state of extreme competition. They rarely achieve any kind of symbiosis with the other species around them and only do so to better compete against the remaining species. This makes them extremely attractive to negative energy, so much so that they have torn a hole in the universe.”
If anything, the light in the room increased. From outside the tower, it must seem as though lightning had struck within.
“A rift!” A voice cried—not the great monotone that filled the room, but a single council member’s voice. “We must destroy the planet immediately!”
Another Council member said, “We must destroy all life on Earth, that is. The planet itself might still be saved and reseeded—” The voice stopped abruptly, as though the speaker had only just realized it was speaking aloud.
The lights continued to flicker for a few more moments and then abruptly stopped.
The Council’s great voice said, “You reported he is in the process of destroying all life on the planet.”
“He has created a monster that is consuming all life on the planet.”
“But won’t this monster itself be a danger?”
“I do not know, Progenitor. He says that when it has finished destroying the native life, it will consume itself, having no real intelligence and no other way to obtain food.”
The voice grunted, an uncharacteristically ugly sound.
“If I may add a few words,” Akllana’chikni’pai said.
“You may speak.”
“Every drop of astral energy sent here by the Earth, in my opinion, is a drop of poison. It is, and always has been, tainted by negative energy. In addition, I do not trust Terkun’shuks’pai. We must protect ourselves from him. I hope the Council cuts the Earth off from the astral plane and, meanwhile, travels there using other means to seal the hole—this rift, as you say—to assess the damage he has done and to find out what else he is up to.”
“This could all be part of his plan,” the Council member said.
“It may be,” she admitted. “Nevertheless, I see it as the more favorable risk.”
The incense intensified, swirling into her face until she could barely see the floor, and she coughed. Lights flashed back and forth across the council chamber as its members argued.
“Child, you will return to Earth to lead our armies. You will defeat and capture Terkun’shuks’pai and return with him as a slave while our troops eradicate the danger from the planet and reseed it.”
Akllana’chikni’pai bowed her head lower. “Yes, Progenitor. I will lead your armies against Terkun’shuks’pai.”
Pax stared into the distance, watching the sun pull up over the horizon of the pach
a’s valley. Somehow, while Terry had been sharing his story, he’d taken over enough of Pax’s mind that the whole valley had been recreated without Pax really noticing it.
Fucking Terry.
After a moment he put his hand in front of his face, blocking the light.
He blinked. The sunlight. It was getting brighter. Too bright. Even for a pacha. It felt like it was flooding him with energy—which couldn’t be happening.
Except it was. “What have you done?”
Terry kept kneeling on the ground, like he was waiting for a sword stroke to the back of his neck.
Pax shook Terry’s shoulder through his robes. “Terry. The sun. It’s getting brighter. What have you done?”
“There is one other thing I have done,” said Terry.
The sun grew brighter… brighter…
And then something stopped.
What it was, Pax didn’t have a clue. It was like a buzzing noise he’d been hearing all his life, like the sound of an oxygen machine, something he’d heard so constantly his brain filtered it out because it would have driven him bugfuck insane to hear it all the time.
“What did you do, Terry?”
Now that the noise had stopped, a burning, hot feeling was in Pax’s chest. Not unpleasant. Just weird. He put his hand over his chest. It felt warm to the touch.
Terry raised his head, slowly.
“It worked. Despite everything that went wrong. All the unexpected elements that intruded. All that manipulation and evil and hate and destruction and murder. It worked.”
“What worked, Terry?”
Terry turned his bald, sweating head toward Pax. Terry’s skin was loose and sagging off the sides of his face, dark under his eyes. He looked like a cancer victim on the downhill slide.
“The Council has cut Earth off from the astral plane. There is no longer a direct route to this world.”
Pax’s throat ached. He didn’t want to know. He had to. “How?”
“I used Akllana’chikni’pai. I spoke to her, before the last time she saw you. I told her as much of the truth as there was time to give her, and then I sent her to the Council.”
“What did you tell her?”
“Much of what I told you.” Terry looked down at his fists, balled up in the fabric of his robe. “You will probably never see her again.”
The warm heat in Pax’s chest turned into an ache. Damn it. He didn’t need to feel anything now. He didn’t need to have to think about her now. She was a one-night stand. A stupid crush. He didn’t have time to—
Pax took the old man’s hand off his arm. “How I feel doesn’t matter. First up. The monster. Tell me the monster was all a test and really you have that all under control. Because I could really use to not have that on my plate right now.”
Terry swayed. “I do not have the monster under control.”
It came without thought. Pax lashed out at Terry, backhanding him across the face. The old man’s face twisted under Pax’s hand. He barely felt it. “You asshole.”
Terry’s hands swung up to cover his face, but they were spider-thin and hid nothing. His cheek reddened, and his face turned back toward Pax, mouth open and a trail of spit on his opposite cheek.
“I suppose I deserved that,” Terry said in a thin voice. A red splotch bloomed on Terry’s wrinkled, sagging cheek. It would have been a hell of a bruise, had they been in physical form.
“I don’t want to be responsible for saving the universe!” Pax yelled. “I don’t want to be trained to fight powerful monsters that will destroy all life on the planet! I don’t want to do this!”
Terry’s eyes were black pits, like they held all of Scarlett’s negative energy and then some. “Then what is it you will do with your time? Lie in bed, dying?”
“Those aren’t my only choices.”
“They are. Because if you do not help save this universe, you can do nothing else except die.”
Pax turned away. The super-bright, nuclear-level sunlight in the pacha was tossing more energy at him than he could handle. No, that wasn’t true. He was handling it. He was absorbing it, everything that touched him, with no more difficulty than a slowly building warmth in his chest. It was easier to handle the energy.
Terry smiled. “You feel it, don’t you?”
“Feel what?”
“I could not have you stop my monster, Pax. Not before it was mature and ready to take on the invaders. So I crippled you.”
“What?!”
“Have you not noticed how much less powerful you are than me or even Akllana’chikni’pai, whose power was reined in by the girl’s negative energy? I held you back because I knew that, given full access to your astral self, you would have been too powerful too soon and would have stopped my monster.”
Pax frowned. “And now?”
“Now, when you return to the physical realm, you will have the full use of your power. And to ensure you are more powerful than any other, I set off a solar flare when we began talking. Your body has absorbed the extra energy.”
“And if you use it to send the monster to the rift, it will no longer attack the Earth. It may even be enough to fight off the dark beings who live on the other side and help save our universe.”
“Asshole,” said Pax. “Asshole, asshole, ASSHOLE! How many people died so your monster could grow up! How many did I have to have Scarlett kill?! And why does it just have to be me? Why aren’t you going to help? It’s your fucking monster!”
Terry looked ancient now. Covered with wrinkles, stooped forward, his bald head speckled with brown spots, his eyebrows completely white.
Fuck, he’s dying, thought Pax. And even though right now he hated Terry more than anything in the world, the thought send panic through Pax. “You don’t get to die on me, Terry. Not now. You have to stay and fix what you screwed up.”
The old man shrugged. He might have been very slightly smiling. Terry looked up, toward the tops of the trees around them, at the blue sky. He watched a couple of birds glide between the trees. “I am not a good person, Pax. I am not a good progeny or a good citizen or even a good mentor. I served a purpose. When I discovered that my purpose was evil, I tried to repair what I had done…”
“Is it evil to create the necessary tools? More importantly, is it enough?” Terry looked around the forest.
It wasn’t a Zen garden anymore. It smelled musty, like rotten, wet leaves instead of just pine sap and a fresh breeze. The tea hut was nowhere to be seen.
“I have something the invaders want, Pax. If they capture me, it will be a very dark time. So I must abandon you now, before too many of them arrive.”
“What the fuck do you mean?” Pax demanded.
But Terry turned away and began limping down a narrow dirt path that hadn’t been there a second ago. Pax watched, unable to move, as Terry stepped to the entrance of a black cave partially hidden by boulders and weeds. He looked even older and smaller than before, practically a walking skeleton. His knuckles and forehead and teeth looked like they were about to burst through his paper-like skin.
Terry stopped and looked back. “In case we do not see each other again, good-bye. It has been, as you say, good to know you.” He limped into the cave and disappeared as soon as he hit the darkness.
The sky turned lighter blue and then white. Slowly, the trees and the rocks and the ground faded out until there was just Pax in an empty pacha.
Fuck, thought Pax. Now what?
He was free to do whatever he wanted. Ditch the Earth, anything. Humanity could go fuck itself. Death could go fuck itself.
Except something out there was ready to destroy the universe.
If Terry was right. If he wasn’t lying again like he’d been lying all along.
Pax stepped out of the pacha and
opened his eyes to the outside world. His body, still lying on the ground, was thrumming with astral energy. Now he knew why he’d been so weak compared to Scarlett. But no more.
Pax sat up.
The sun was still too fucking bright, even here in reality. Pax couldn’t even imagine the solar flare Terry must have sparked. The world would be lucky if any working satellites were left. At least the brightness was fading. The naked island shimmered with heat waves off the black rock.
Terry’s and Scarlett’s bodies were gone.
Pax wondered at that but didn’t have time to do more. The monster was still struggling against the hamster ball and was still trying to escape.
Pax hefted it into the air. It was easy. Probably a billion spores were left running around—the ones it’d spat into the ocean, for example—but at the moment, he really just wanted to get this fucking thing out of his hair.
The monster had curled up in a self-protecting ball. Pax floated the giant ball over to his hand and balanced it just over his shoulder, as if it were nothing more than a beach ball.
And then he heaved it.
It sailed into the sky—then beyond.
Hope there’re no satellites in the way, he thought. Then he grinned. Fuck it; they’re fried anyway.
Pax bent his knees and jumped after the monster.
Chapter 18
Scarlett carefully balanced Ms. Jance’s head on top of her neck and then let go. Scarlett half expected it to fall off with a thump, but no, it stuck there, and white astral gunk oozed out of the seam between the two parts.
Ms. Jance opened and closed her mouth several times, and a weird whistling noise came out.
“You don’t have her head lined up,” Mrs. Black said, sounding exactly like Scarlett’s teachers. Gawd, it was like being back in school.
I Am Titanium (Pax Black Book 1) Page 29
