by David Dickie
There was a sense of expectation from Dulaguk. Grim didn’t know exactly how to react, but it seemed like he needed to say something. He tried to remember his conversation with Fayyaad. “I can feel her in my mind. Her power, it’s mine. I’m a god.”
Dulaguk laughed. “So, human. Tell me where the attack is coming from. Be a god.”
Grim wanted to grab Oracle and port so badly he could taste it. Instead, he said, “I will draw you a map, just let me hold her a little longer,” but as he was saying it, he reached inside the other hidden pocket in his belt with his other hand and grabbed the torque wrench, hoping his body was hiding the fact that he didn’t have a hand near Oracle’s hilt any more. His hands knew how to pick the lock without a lot of direction from his mind, and he let them go to work, the slightest tension from the torque wrench to push the cylinder a little out of alignment, the rake pick gently pushing on the first key pin. He felt it drop into place.
“What are you doing?” called Dulaguk, suspicion in his voice.
Grim felt the second key pin snap into place. “She’s so beautiful, so powerful,” he said.
“Turn around, human. Turn around now.” The third key pin popped.
“Just a few seconds more, please,” called Grim.
Dulaguk started to say something in ohulhug to the honor guard with the crossbow. While he was in mid-sentence, Grim felt the fourth key pin snap into place. He had a moment to tell the gods of the dice in no uncertain terms that they completely owed him for all the crap they had thrown his way. Then the two plates that held Oracle tight fell apart, and he grabbed the hilt. The pain from the amulet turned into pure agony, where it touched burning like it was a red-hot coal. Grim pulled Oracle out of the cage and held it aloft as he spun. He called out, “The person who kills the one with the crossbow gets to hold her.”
There was a brittle moment in time when everyone stood completely still. Then the crossbowman, who was lined up to shoot Grim, glanced at the humans. It was a mistake. With sudden shrieks, all six lunged at him. The ohulhug managed to get his crossbow around fast enough to shoot one in the shoulder, the bolt going all the way through with the point protruding from the woman’s back. She didn’t even seem to notice. The ohulhug went down screaming. Grim could see the humans were clawing at him, biting him, frenzied and savage, like wounded animals.
Dulaguk pointed at Grim and told the other ohulhug, “Kill him.” Then he turned to the humans and raised his hands. A bolt of flame as bright as the sun shot from a point in front of his arms and tore into the mass of bodies on top of the ohulhug with the crossbow. There were screams of pain, pain and death, but the ones who survived the blast did not stop.
The other ohulhug was drawing his sword as it charged toward Grim, and Oracle was a heavy saber, much heavier than anything Grim was used to. With no practice and with the leftover damage from the beating and the exhaustion that magical healing always brought on, Grim was out of position. Additionally, it was getting harder and harder to ignore the amulet, which felt like it was burning a hole directly into his chest. His opponent was a low ohulhug, but that didn’t mean he was a bad swordsman; the sword was out of its sheath and flashing toward Grim before he was ready for it. And then Grim’s arm made a sweeping motion of its own volition, Oracle cutting a fine circle through the air, and the ohulhug’s blade was suddenly in two pieces. As Grim side stepped, he realized the ohulhug was cut just as cleanly, Oracle having sliced through its armor like it wasn’t there, a red line across the ohulhug’s stomach that was suddenly spilling blood and organs onto the floor.
“What… was… that?” Grim asked the amulet in his mind.
A soft contralto voice answered. “It was me. I’m yours. We can do amazing things together.”
Dulaguk had put another blast of flame into the squirming bodies on the ground, apparently not worrying too much about hitting his own man. There wasn’t much discernible as human or ohulhug left in the blackened pile. Dulaguk turned to Grim.
Grim brandished Oracle and stepped a little closer. “You can feel her, can’t you? You want her. You’ve been dreaming about holding her, haven’t you? Well, come and get her, if you’ve got the guts.”
Grim wasn’t sure if it was anger or desire burning in Dulaguk’s eyes, but he leaped for Grim, weaponless, and with the same smooth motion Grim had used with the first ohulhug, Oracle swept through the air and Dulaguk suddenly had no hands, both arms severed at the wrists. He staggered back, staring at the stumps, and Grim took two steps forward and slashed again, down and across, and Dulaguk’s body split into two pieces, blood exploding out in all directions.
Grim stopped. The amulet was an agony worse than having a red-hot poker driven through his chest. Grim was sure that the smell of burned meat wasn’t just coming from the pile of bodies Dulaguk had fried with his spell either. He could see wisps of smoke coming out of his shirt, and the patch over the amulet was turning black. The key to the manacle on his arm was hanging off a hook on the wall. He grabbed it and unlocked the restraint, freeing himself.
“You’re mine,” he thought to the sword. “You have to do what I tell you.”
“More, I can do things you don’t even know you want. I can make desires and fulfill them in an endless loop, and you will feel every one of them, a victor in all things. You have some buffer between us. Let me through, I will heal you, I will make you stronger than ten of your kind, a great leader. They will worship you, they will fall on their knees before you. You just need to let me in.”
“You have to do what I tell you,” said Grim again. “Tell me how to destroy this ship.”
“If I do, will you let me in? I can feel your pain. I can turn that to pleasure that is just as strong, if you…”
“How do I destroy the ship? Tell me now!” interrupted Grim.
“There… there is a powder room nearby. If you set it off, the blast should destroy the ship.” The voice was colder, and Grim sensed a struggle, sensed that she did not want to tell him. “If you let me in, I can show you…”
“Give me verbal directions,” said Grim. He was already jerking open the door. Outside, four low ohulhug stood, weapons ready, clearly having heard the noise of the battle but unsure what to do. Grim waded into them, cut down the first and second cleanly, slashed at the third while it stumbled back and landed enough of a blow that he didn’t think it would be getting up again. The fourth one swung back at Grim, a cut which Grim partially dodged, but he felt a blow on his left side. He was sure it hurt like hell, but the amulet was already short-circuiting his pain channels, a frothy agony that wasn’t just in his chest any more—it was bubbling through his entire body. Oracle swung his arm, or his arm swung Oracle, it was hard to say which, and the fourth ohulhug’s head wasn’t attached to its body any more.
“Which way?” screamed Grim, screamed because he couldn’t talk, the pain was so intense he had to let it out somehow.
“Straight ahead, down one level, the door on the right,” said Oracle.
Grim ran. There was an opening in the floor with stairs down. Grim tried to take them too fast, missed a step and went crashing into the deck below. He didn’t know how, but he kept his grip on the sword, looked around, ran forward to a door just in front of him. Inside were barrels. “What do I do?” screamed Grim.
“Break open a barrel. Light the contents on fire. It will be sufficient to set off the rest of the barrels in a chain reaction.”
Grim stepped in, brought Oracle down as hard as he could on one of the barrels. It split open, pouring out a dark powder. Grim backed away, out of the room, and looked up and down the corridor. The passageway was lit by glow disks. There was no fire, nothing he could use to start one. But he smelled smoke, so there had to be something…
Which is when he realized the smoke was coming from his shirt. He grabbed a bunch of cloth around his chest area, and with a ripping sound, it tore away. The edges were smoldering, little sparks of red but no open flame. It would have to do. He threw it o
n the black powder and waited. Nothing happened. Then suddenly there was a flash, the sound of thunder, and he was blown across the hallway into the far wall. This time, he did drop Oracle, and he sat there for a second, dazed. But he could see the red of open flames inside the room, with sudden flares that started slow but began flashing faster and faster.
He leapt for Oracle, grabbed her handle, and ported just as the air around him turned into a brilliant white blaze of heat and pain.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Grim was sitting on the bank of a river with Aurora. They were taking small pebbles and tossing them into the water lazily. It was a beautiful summer day, a clear blue sky, a gentle wind, the song of birds in the air. Grim couldn’t quite remember how he’d gotten to this idyllic spot, but he felt like it had been a long journey. He was a little sad that he didn’t know the route, because he’d like to be able to visit from time to time.
With a small frown, Grim held a hand to his chest. No amulet rested there. His shirt was thin silk, comfortable and soft. Aurora was in a dress, something that looked like stone-washed cotton, white on top but with trails of flowers sewn in that started at the waist and broadened as they went down, until the hem was a wild riot of colors and shapes. She was more beautiful than he remembered, not so much because of any particular physical attribute, but because she seemed relaxed and at peace with herself. She gave him a slow, sly grin and said, “Buy me a drink. You might get lucky.”
Grim laughed. “No bar. Next time you’re in town, look me up. Or am I dead?” Because memories were suddenly intruding on the tranquility of this place, and he remembered that Aurora was dead, and that he had been in something of a bad spot himself.
“Dead? No. Close enough for a visit. There’s a term for it. Antarabhāva.”
Grim blinked. “Which is what, exactly?”
Aurora grinned. “Sitting here talking to a dead person.”
“That, or imagining I’m sitting here talking to a dead person.”
Aurora looked back at the river, still smiling. “Certainly a possibility. It’s peaceful here. I’m going to miss this place.”
Grim threw another pebble into the water. He didn’t want her to leave. “You don’t have to go. You could stay here.” He didn’t know what he meant by that.
She shook her head. “No, I’m afraid I can’t. I had leave to stay at this waypoint for a bit in case there was an opportunity to chat with you.”
“In case?” said Grim. “I thought all this was ordained by your god.”
Aurora drew her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms around them. “No, Grim. Nothing’s ordained. And certainly not by a god. It doesn’t work that way.”
“And what way does it work?” asked Grim.
Aurora nodded toward the river. “Like that. The gods are not individuals, not sentient in the way you think of people being sentient. They have a purpose, a direction. They carry things with them sometimes, but more often than not they are just providing an environment where life can flourish. They have rules they must follow. Sometimes people can bend them, dam them, change their course. Sometimes events do the same. But they don’t plan. They just… are.”
Grim was hearing but not comprehending. “So your channel quest, that wasn’t your god setting things in motion? Leading us to this spot, this moment?”
Aurora was still looking at the river. “People learn how to build boats. Then they can use the river’s strength as their own. They learn the eddies, where the sand bars are, how to get between points effectively. The river helps them by being the river, by allowing boats to travel between those points, by providing a current that makes it easier and faster to travel.”
Grim smiled. “Unless you’re headed upriver.”
Aurora shook her head. “It’s an analogy, not to be taken too literally.”
Grim thought about what she’d said. “So you’re telling me that this was your plan? That all your god did was give you the ability to know where to be, and that you set all this in motion?”
Aurora paused for a moment. “In a manner of speaking. Our father was someone who didn’t just use a boat. He went swimming, learned not just the surface of the river, but the things beneath it, from the sun-speckled surface to the muddy bottom. It changed him. Made him part of the river. He wasn’t human after that, at least, not entirely.” Grim was silent. Aurora seemed lost in her own thoughts, speaking out loud more than to Grim. “He married and had twins, and Tyrgo and I, we both inherited some of that. Enough that we want what the river wants, more than anything else. More than our lives.”
Grim remembered Tyrgo. “Tyrgo told me some of what your god is about. Level playing fields, fair play, balance.”
Aurora nodded. “Yes. In the general context of life.” She lay down on her back, staring at the sky. “All the gods, one way or the other, are in the business of making this world habitable. Holding back chaos, providing enough order that life is possible.” She was quiet for a moment. “So I was born with the knowledge that it was my life’s work to help with that goal. I went looking for a channel quest, something big, something dramatic, something that would make a difference. Something more than the sunlit surface of the river. And underneath the surface, there were… monsters.”
“Oracle?” asked Grim.
“Among others. But, yes. Something powerful enough that it could undo the weave of law and order, could bring death and destruction on a world-wide scale. Chaos in and of itself is even less sentient than a god. It’s just raw power. Chaos given sentience is a dangerous thing.”
“So you…”
“Tyrgo and I.”
“The two of you used your god’s power to find this world-ending catastrophe waiting to happen. And a way to stop it?”
“And maybe a way to stop it. You can get to different points on the river, but you can’t make the river go someplace it refuses to go. There was no way for Kydaos, or even those with his power, to directly destroy the sword. I didn’t even know what it was, just that there was a maelstrom in the world that was growing and needed to be stopped.”
Grim frowned. “And you picked helping me because you thought that would do it? Why?”
Aurora shrugged. “Didn’t know that either. Kydaos, like all the gods, has perception beyond mortals. He is the river, knows its length and breadth and depth along every inch of its path. So you can look and see patterns, visions, whatever the river can offer up. But it’s all probabilities, not certainties.”
Grim laid down on the grass next to Aurora. “Well, I’m glad it worked out. Would have sucked if you died for nothing.”
Aurora shook her head. “I died for something important. Even if it hadn’t worked out, it was what I was born for.” She turned her head and looked at him. “I did it for me, Grim, not for you. You don’t need to blame yourself.”
Grim sat silently for a few minutes. Conflicting emotions where running through him, and it was hard to determine where one started and another ended. Finally, he said, “I’ll try. Is that what you stayed here for? To try to salve my conscience?”
Aurora looked back up at the sky. She seemed sad. “No. I would have, you know. Just for that. But only my god’s power is holding me here at the crossroads. I’m afraid your job is not done yet. There are other swords out there. It’s funny, stuck here, halfway. The things behind me are much clearer. The things in front… are murky to me. I know that, in some fashion, you are going to be pivotal in the battle to destroy them. You and others.”
Grim frowned. “You mean Morpangler? That’s going to be a tough sell. It’s in a different universe.”
Aurora glanced at him. “No. There are two more maelstroms, two more of those things loose in the world. Things that can cause great harm.”
Grim sighed. “Why has fate decided to pick me out and try to make me a hero? It’s not a title I’m looking for. It’s not something I want to be.”
Aurora said, “There are few people who truly want to be heroes, Grim. The cos
t is high, the returns low. But for the sake of the world, we need people who will step up when the need exists, and it exists here, now.”
Grim closed his eyes. “Fine. And where do I go to find this glorious destiny that awaits me?”
“The enclave. Your friends there. That will be the start of your journey.”
“Figures. You said others. Daesal and Stegar, they part of that group? Do I need to drag them into this? And if they are, is that it, or are there more people involved?”
