Covenants: Anodize (Hymn of the Multiverse Book 9)

by Terra Whiteman

My heart leapt into my throat. Fueled by pure instinct, I took a step forward, ever-conditioned to fight rather than flee. I managed to head off the intrinsic desire for violence, lamenting my Vel’Haru impulses in lieu of the aptitude necessary to execute them. Standing by felt worse than death.

  A heavy gust of wind startled my senses, propelling me forward and sweeping away Nibli’s effluvia, offering a brief glimpse at the skirmish in front of the abode. The wraith stood several paces from the pit, having grown a set of long, black spikes across their armor. One arm was protracted upward, elongated four times to that of its other, the taloned hand having morphed into a spike as well.

  Above Nibli a creature, equally as ghoulish, levitated. Tall and twig-like, it had four arms, each moving with a separate intention, somewhat reminiscent of sign-language. Upon its head was some sort of crown, though I couldn’t discern any further details.

  A group of black, wriggling vines(?) shot from the ground around Nibli, agleam with teeth-like thorns. Another effluvium cloud enveloped the scene once more, leaving me to question the wraith’s fate. The ensuing sounds of a god-tier scuffle made me confident they were still alive.

  The horse-creature prompted me of its existence when it suddenly expended a very un-horse-like screech that made me cover my ears with an excruciated wince. It also made me realize there was something behind me, half-concealed by the nearest cairn.

  … A little girl with ash brown hair, wearing white face-paint and a black, gold embroidered robe.

  All I could do was stare, feeling my head slowly tilt under the weight of my mounting confusion.

  It appeared the girl had been attempting stealth, but her plan was blundered by the horse. Nibli’s familiar surprisingly took several steps forward, placing itself between me and the girl. It bared a row of razor-sharp teeth with a wolf-like snarl, and I swiftly concluded that my initial perception of Nara was gravely mistaken.

  The little girl shuffled out from behind the cairn, her coal-smudged eyes ablaze with conviction.

  “You stole Ande’s totem.”

  I had no idea what she meant, therefore said nothing.

  She pointed at me in what I suspected was an attempt at unabashed bravery, but all I could envision was a child playing dress up. “My name is Camede Second, Acolyte of Suzerain. I will avenge the murder of Ande First.”

  There was a lot to dissect from that declaration, but before I could even begin, Nara reared up on its hind legs and emitted an ear-shattering scream. White-hot streaks of plasma flitted around both the cairn and girl, a subsequent, massive flash rendering me completely blind.

  I admitted to myself that there was no place for me anywhere near Nara and Camede, and with singed retinas, I clumsily darted for the now-smoldering cairn. Difficult as it was to stomach, I’d have to place my trust in the wraith and their pet completely.

  Oh, to feel so insignificant again.

  IX

  NIBLI

  THIS FOUR-ARMED, WINGLESS BIRD CREATURE PROVED MUCH MORE challenging than the last waystation contender. It was also leagues more annoying.

  It didn’t have wings but somehow kept airborne, weaving between every lunge and sweep I threw. Each of my attacks were returned in full with black, serrated appendages that burst through the ground around my feet, lashing at my armor and limbs with the tenacity and bite of a one thousand-thong whip. I was barely fast enough to maneuver away; the one time I faltered, a thong caught my leg before my spines could sever their grip. It left a deep gash in my exoskeleton and, judging by the pain, I expected to wear this wound for a while.

  “Whose totem are you?” demanded the bird-creature, an angry sneer marring their lips. At some point I must have gotten them good, as a gaping laceration ran from their jaw to lower neck. It leaked that oily, black fluid I’d seen from Laith’s dead augur. Was this an augur, too? It didn’t look the same.

  The question was posed as a distraction. Not a second later, another wave of thongs exploded up from the ground.

  I shifted away and attempted a foresighted maneuver, stabbing my weaponized arm at the air just left of where the creature was set to drift. It pierced the space between their shoulder and ribcage. Not a mortal wound, but enough to knock them out of the sky.

  I kept the creature skewered for as long as I could, allowing my effluvia to taste the causal pain. With a grimace I retracted my arm and they hit the ground at my feet. I spat on them, the acrid flavor so visceral that my reaction was involuntary.

  Edible, barely.

  I’d feel sick before receiving any nourishment.

  Shame.

  The creature, whose unpalatable essence showed similarities to whatever Nara and Laith’s augur were, floundered on the ground, holding the puncture wound as black fluid gushed out between its fingers. I found the longer they stewed in their injury, the better they tasted. Two of the four arms continued to flail, sharp thongs from the ground answering their silent call, but there were fewer in number and my spines did away with them quickly.

  The source of the creature’s power was in their hands, it seemed. Only two of the four were moving—the second on the right laying limp; the left still clutching at its hemorrhaging wound—and I deduced that pairs were required. Since I’d decided to eat them after all, I remedied this obstacle by hacking off three of their four arms at the elbows.

  Now the creature screamed as their oily blood expanded in a pool beneath them. It was music to my ears, and my effluvium smoldered over their writhing form. I was half tempted to sever their legs to add seasoning to the meal, but feared they’d die too quickly then. Instead I lapped up all the terror of their impending death, savoring it until I was well beyond drunk.

  “Camede!” they were screeching, pitifully calling for help right up until the end, even as their eyes started to cloud over, flesh tightening and tearing across bone. “Camede, Camede!”

  I barely heard them and stumbled to stay upright.

  Overindulgence was never smart, but I’d been so hungry for so long, and leeching from Leid felt… wrong. I wouldn’t do it, if I didn’t have to.

  When I sobered up, the creature was just an ashen husk, hardly reminiscent of their former self, save for the crown atop their head. I ripped it away, disturbing the fragile body. They crumbled into a pile of dust thereafter.

  The crown was made of thin, braided metal wires, having been woven into their scalp. My inspection was cut short when I remembered Leid, and spun toward the ensuing chaos near the cairn. Nara had sprayed the field with sparks, an electrified, candescent rain plaguing the air as an after-effect. Nara reared again and again, crushing its small, screaming victim asunder. The victim was a little girl, like the little boy I’d eaten at the last waystation.

  Pillar number two.

  And to think I wasn’t even trying to carry out the sorceress’s demands.

  Leid was trying to stop Nara from killing the pillar, throwing herself against my pet to no avail. This scene was mildly amusing, but I didn’t want Nara killing the girl, either. I didn’t have enough room for dessert just yet.

  I approached the mayhem, sighing.

  “Tell it to stop!” Leid shouted, dangling from Nara’s neck. It didn’t even bother with her and continued to stomp, throwing the scholar around like loose jewelry. The child’s legs were already smashed to bits, her hands and neck scorched by Nara’s volts. Her screams had died, and she now lay limply against the assault. I felt life in her still, which verified what I already knew.

  “She isn’t really a child,” I said. “And you definitely shouldn’t try to save her.”

  Leid fell to the ground with a snarl. “Don’t mistake me for a bleeding heart. I need her kept alive for questioning.”

  “Oh.” I placed my hand soothingly on Nara’s rump. Almost instantly, it grew calm, snorting and growling for a moment more. Then, it stooped its neck and grazed at the pulverized crystal chunks that’d been the pillar’s legs.

  “Is she dead?” asked Leid, kneeling beside
her.

  “No,” I said, plainly.

  Leid’s eyes trailed to the child’s ruined legs, watching Nara munch them down. “She turns to stone, too.”

  I waited for that quiet statement to go somewhere, but it was all she said. “I doubt her injuries will stop her from trying to kill us when she wakes up.”

  “She didn’t seem very skilled at that, even at full health,” Leid murmured, tapping her chin. “Is there a better way to disarm her?”

  Dis-arm. Hmm. “After you’re done with your questions, can I eat her?”

  “And why should you require my consent?”

  Leid looked up at me, and I down at her, and there was something where our eyes met. “I don’t, just trying to be polite.”

  She gave me an acerbic smile. “You’re the most courteous, soul-sucking monster I’ve ever met.”

  I was fairly certain that wasn’t a compliment.

  *

  “You promised me a story,” said Leid, swallowing the last of her tea, scowling in disgust.

  Although this region’s wayfarer was dead, his cauldron had been left bubbling over the hearth. It smelled sourer than Laith’s tea, thicker too, but I attributed that to the pot being left unattended

  for so long. We had formed a temporary communion on the circular stools, carved around the fire. The causticity of Leid’s frown was muted by the soothing, blue glow of the flames cast against her face. Her eyes were remarkable, and if I studied them too long I fell mesmerized by the churning chrome and amaranthine storm.

  Thus, I carefully kept our eye-contact brief. “And a story you shall get. Do you feel any different now?”

  “As opposed to what?” asked Leid, looking into the contents of the empty cup I’d found thrown on the ground. “My tongue is tingling. Does that count?”

  “I don’t know. The sorceress fed me a similar tea at her hearth, and I haven’t been the same since.” I shrugged. “Maybe this tea has spoiled.”

  “Well, thank you for potentially serving me spoiled tea,” said Leid. She paused, looking into the fire. “I feel energized, though. Maybe I was hungry.”

  I started. “You don’t know when you’re hungry? Hungry is a significant portion of how I spend my life.”

  “That’s unfortunate, I’m sorry,” said Leid, and her expression showed she meant it. “But tell me more about the sorceress and the other hearth you just mentioned.”

  And so, I did. I told her of my escape from headquarters, the discovery of the fate of the staff, the boy who’d tried to kill me, and the sorceress who’d forced me into being her indentured shill. Leid seemed particularly interested when I spoke of the sorceress and her story of the six pillars who’d destroyed the gates.

  “Why did the sorceress choose you?” asked Leid. “From the sound of it, she seems fully capable of eliminating the pillars herself.”

  “I asked the same question and received a cryptic response. She was forced to kill her augur, because the boy had ‘broken’ it.” Leid tilted her head. “I don’t know what that means,” I said, before she could ask. “But she hinted to the fact that the facility had recreated the pillars, and that I was a recreated augur.”

  Leid frowned, ponderous. “What’s an augur?”

  “Not entirely sure. That’s one,” I said, pointing to the hanging monstrosity on the deactivated gate. “It seems they’re kept by wayfarers, though I don’t know the purpose for them.”

  “The girl said that you’d stolen Ande’s totem,” said Leid.

  I hesitated. “Are you expecting me to know what that means?”

  “The girl calls herself Camede Second. I’m assuming Ande was the boy at the sorceress’s waystation.” Her eyes flicked to Nara, grazing casually behind us.

  I followed her stare. “Ah, yes. The boy said Nara was his. I didn’t steal it, though. It just… sort of followed me after I killed him.” Then, for some reason, I felt it necessary to add, “Nara eats the statues of the dead.”

  “Nara eats everything.”

  “So is Nara a totem?” I wondered aloud.

  “I guess so. The monster you fought was Camede’s totem.”

  “They bleed black oil, like the augurs.”

  “Are augurs and totems the same, you think?” asked Leid.

  Before I could respond, Camede Second exploded awake. At first, she screamed in horror at the discovery of her missing arms and legs. Then, her horror turned to rage as she flopped around on the ground next to us, spitting curses and other things I couldn’t understand. Leid had unwittingly answered her own question when she’d asked me how to disarm Camede. So, I’d promptly dis-armed the pillar. Heh.

  “Maybe you should ask her,” I suggested to Leid over the girl’s shrill calls for our death. “Be done with her soon. She’s irritating, and I’ve made some room.”

  Leid glared at me with such disgust that I could actually feel it. And, admittedly, it tasted good. She tossed the tea cup aside and crouched in front of Camede, narrowing her eyes. With a look like that, she needn’t any weapon.

  The pillar met her stare and her screams came to a halt. Her flushed, tear-stained face fell from furious to eerily calm. There was a moment of silence, stretching awkwardly long, until the girl said:

  “You don’t belong in here.”

  Leid smiled, knowingly. “That’s right, I don’t. And neither do you.”

  “I do belong here. I am Suzerain’s acolyte, and this is his domain.”

  “Who is Suzerain?”

  The girl giggled, saying nothing, only raising her eyes to the sky. Leid and I followed her gaze, finding our own resting on the one-eyed monstrosity, hovering on the horizon.

  “I see,” Leid murmured, her stare lingering upward. “What is Suzerain?”

  “I just told you. This is his domain.”

  “If this is his domain and you are his acolyte, why doesn’t he help you?” Leid had made the question sound innocuous; her tone soft, almost caring. I could feel the hurt stir within the pillar as fresh tears glazed her eyes. The question was meant to sting, and it did. “He is looking right at us, isn’t he? Here you are, maimed, among people who are going to kill you. Why is Suzerain doing nothing?”

  “He can’t!” Camede cried, the tears now falling freely. She played a very good child role; I’d give her that. “Not until the ritual is complete. But he can see you; he knows you, and what you’ve done to Ande. What you’ll do to me. Sefedre will complete the ritual and then he will,” she paused, her sorrow vanishing in an instant, replaced by a menacing sneer made even uglier with all the burns and dried blood soiling her face, “shred your essence into scraps so thin, no one will be able to put your resonance back together, God Killer.”

  Leid recoiled, aghast.

  “God killer,” Camede snarled again, having completely abandoned the child act. “You pretend to be so righteous, but want everything to burn.”

  Leid stared at her, silent.

  “God killer! God killer!” Camede fell into a fit, flailing her stumps, screaming ‘God killer’ over and over again. I had no idea what that meant, but it seemed to really bruise Leid. She stood with a slow exhale, turning to look up at Suzerain.

  “I’m done,” she said, walking away from the hearth. “Eat her. Slowly, if you’d prefer.”

  I watched Leid’s departure, surprised by her sudden shift in disposition. “Don’t mind if I do.”

  *

  SEFEDRE SIX DOUBLED OVER, CLUTCHING HER STOMACH in agony. She’d just felt Camede’s death like it was her own; like someone had cut her open and shoved a handful of nails inside, bloating her up until there was no room left to even breathe.

  Her panic unwittingly manifested this, and she then retched oily blood that wasn’t her own. She watched it splash against the ground and soil the train of her robe, her throat raw and acrid from such a violent assault.

  The northernmost totem, Camede’s totem, flashed brightly and then its pneuma faded.

  Sefedre screamed at nothing and eve
rything. She fell to her knees and smashed both fists against the circle’s center. The pain this caused her hands dulled the one in her heart. She took the next few minutes to sit and gasp for breath, staring at Camede’s deactivated totem, her motivation all but dying right then and there.

  “It seems my augur is stronger than yours,” came a voice from behind her.

  Sefedre turned her head to look.

  Several paces from the circle’s boundary, stood the Shadow Witch. Sefedre wondered how long she’d been there—long enough to see her vomit? Long enough to watch her collapse, soaking in the putrid products of her grief?

  On impulse, Sefedre started to rise with the intention of making the witch pay for everything she’d done. But then she remembered she couldn’t leave the circle. Breaking the circle broke the ritual, and Sefedre hadn’t neither the strength nor time to start again. The witch knew it, too. That was why she had the nerve to stand there, baiting Sefedre like this.

  “Your augur is dead,” she spat. “The wraith isn’t yours at all.”

  “Oh, but you’re wrong.” She gave Sefedre a pearly smile, eyes gleaming with fierce resolve. “Only three left until the wraith comes for you. Reconsider what you’re trying to do, Six. It’s not too late to walk away. Save the rest of your family from having to die for nothing.”

  “Fall on a pike, Laith.”

  “Six, you really need to start thinking.” The witch fixed a hostile stare on Suzerain’s ever-watchful eye above them. “There is no need to bow to anyone but yourself.”

  Sefedre said nothing, already having resumed her place, knelt in the circle with her back to Laith. All the witch could do was offer words. She knew Sefedre couldn’t leave the circle, but wouldn’t dare to step inside of it.

  “Trying to control this place is like trying to control the tide. You cannot. The last time he was raised it destroyed the other domains—”

  “I want the other domains destroyed,” snapped Sefedre. “You don’t know what’s been done to us, outside. You couldn’t even begin to know of the suffering those other ‘domains’ caused us. The longer they stand, the more suffering there’ll be. There needn’t be any other place than here.”