Fallen Star

by Ivan Kal

  “To give you what I promised. Power.”

  Ashara shook her head violently. “You are evil! You conquer worlds.”

  Khalio sighed. “You know only one side of the story, little mortal. How do you know for certain that I am evil? Because your friend said as much? Not even he understands the truth. He knows only that which he has seen and heard, not all that there is.”

  “What reason could you possibly have to conquer worlds? To kill innocents?” Ashara asked.

  “What reason, you ask? Isn’t that what all nations do? Your own Amaranthine had fought wars against other kingdoms, had killed many in order to expand and become the power it is today. I only do it on a larger scale. But you want a reason beyond such simple truths? You want the real truth? Yet you could not understand it, as you know nothing of the things that used to be.”

  Ashara didn’t know what to say, but the worry that she had made a terrible choice grew inside of her.

  “Let me show you why I am doing this, and then you may judge for yourself.” Khalio raised his hand toward her head. Ashara tried to move out of the way, but she found that she couldn’t. Khalio put his palm against her forehead and her world exploded in light.

  She was no longer inside of the room. Instead, she was among the stars.

  Long ago, Ashara heard a voice coming in from everywhere all around her, there was a grand civilization that spanned the stars, a civilization made up out of many different races. She saw worlds, round objects hanging out in front of her turning around slowly. Then she was down on the ground walking among them, and she saw truly massive cities filled with light and magic. There were people of races that she had never seen before, as well as flying objects that carried people around.

  All of existence was connected; no world was alone. She saw massive gates glowing with magic and people moving through them from one world to another. She realized that these were what Vin had described as the World Gates.

  And at the center of that existence was the greatest bastion of civilization: Eos. Ashara was suddenly on another world, and this one made all others pale in comparison. Its towers were so high that they pierced the sky, and the majestic white buildings where everywhere so much so that one couldn’t even see the ground.

  This was the gods’ seat of power, a place from where we guided mortals on ten thousand worlds. A place where our Mother, the Lifebringer, the one who raised us up and made us gods, ruled from. She taught us how to guide mortals, how to make their lives better. With our guidance, the mortals prospered. We made wonders together, created worlds where all lived happily, without needing to hide who they are. Ashara saw the people in the streets of these grand cities; saw children running around, laughing; saw two women walk and kiss in the light of everyone around them with no fear. She remembered having to hide who she was, and seeing a world that was so free made her feel longing.

  But something happened—a cataclysm of unknown origin and immense power. Ashara saw the seat of the gods from far above. Red lines appeared all over the world and then it cracked, fire spewing from its heart. Ashara watched in horror as all the wonder she had seen was consumed until there was nothing left.

  The consequences of that event spread wide, to every world that our Mother had influenced. She saw World Gates burning, shattering, and taking massive swaths of land with them. She saw ten thousand worlds burn.

  We, the gods, tried to help, but we were just as lost as the mortals. We had just lost our Mother, and every mortal world had been hit hard with the cataclysm’s aftereffects. The World Gates did more than just connect worlds, they regulated power between them, kept the worlds safe for mortals. Climates changed, oceans rose, famine struck. Some worlds collapsed; they could no longer support themselves, as they had relied on resources of other worlds. War, sickness, and hunger spread across the worlds like wildfire.

  The other gods and I helped where we could, but without the Lifebringer, we fell apart as well. We bickered amongst ourselves, each thinking that they knew the best way to help. Some even decided not to help at all. We broke apart, some banding together in what they called pantheons, others deciding to go at it alone. Even with as many as there were of us, we couldn’t help every world. And so, the gods picked and chose which worlds to help—saving some, but letting others burn. The Sundering broke the connection between the worlds and reduced the glory of what we had built to nothing.

  Even though our Mother was gone, we still followed her rules. We could aid mortals through limited means, but not interfere directly. To do more was to risk our becoming tyrants and cause a war in the heavens. And so, as the worlds slowly recovered, as generations passed, most mortals forgot what used to be.

  But I have not.

  This is what I am trying to do, what I am trying to rebuild: worlds connected through World Gates, a united civilization that care not about race or anything other than unity and progress. But I could not interfere myself—to do so would be to risk the wrath of my brothers and sisters, and I am alone. It is the mortals who need to rebuild; I can only guide them. But that guidance comes with a price.

  Mortals are shortsighted. They are greedy, possessive. The Arashan are my people, on a mission to unite all the worlds that had once been one. Yes, they have had to spill a lot of blood, as the worlds rarely wish to accept change. Their leaders do not want to give up power. And so they conquer, but of the worlds that have been conquered, they have prospered.

  Ashara saw new worlds now, with people whose skin was tinted red, living in great cities, and there she saw peace and prosperity.

  This is what the Arashan’s mission is: to rejoin what had once been one and then was torn asunder.

  A moment later the sights turned to mist, and she felt herself falling only to find herself inside her own body, staring at the god.

  She couldn’t explain what she was feeling, the things she had seen, that existed before… She felt a tear roll down her eye for what was lost.

  “I’ve seen inside your head, Ashara,” Khalio said, his expression now kind. “You think that I have chosen you because of Vin?”

  Ashara nodded her head. She couldn’t bring herself to speak.

  “In a way, you are right. I have watched Kai Zhao Vin—he is an interesting mortal. But by watching him, I saw you.” Khalio pointed at her. “You who had no power, who were wronged, yet didn’t want to bow down. You who survived losing your family as result of your own actions. I saw that you were brave and strong, that you only lacked power. This is why I made you this offer. You asked me what that power would cost you… I only want you to use it to bring about what once was.”

  Ashara blinked her eyes. The things the god said about her… She had never been chosen, looked at as if she was someone special. She thought back on what Vin told her of the Arashan, and she could see what Khalio was saying. She could see how his opinion was colored by his own experiences. The Arashan had taken his world, but she could see how the war could’ve started. Vin’s people, from what he told her, valued the spirit arts above all else. They looked down on anyone without power. He told her that he cared for her, but she could see the pity in his eyes. She was only a weak, ordinary person to him, and a world where the strong look down on the weak couldn’t have been the paradise that Vin described. And her own world… She hated some of it. Hated how there were slavers, how the rest of the world condemned the practice yet was willing to turn their eyes as long is it wasn’t happening in their own nations, even though their people were taken as well. The powerful cared only about themselves. Khalio was a god, he was above such things.

  And the two people who Ashara had loved the most, Vin and Kyarra, were the same. Kyarra had gained her crown simply because she had the power to. She had no knowledge of how to be a good ruler.

  Why hadn’t they come for me? She had asked herself that question a hundred times while she was in the hold of the slave ship. She had made excuses for them, but in the end it was simple. They didn’t care—they were happier
without her. They had abandoned her.

  Her nails bit into her skin as she tightened her fist. She looked up at the god who had promised her power. The things that the god had shown her, she knew that they were not a lie. If the Arashan were in fact trying to create what she had seen, then she understood that sometimes the ends justified the means. No country had been built without bloodshed, and she understood that to unite many worlds it would take far more of it. Khalio was right: mortals were greedy and power-hungry, she herself included. But if she could gain power to use for good, even if she had to spill blood, then she would do it. To bring about the worlds like the ones she had seen.

  She looked at the crystal holding Vin’s body. “How… I don’t understand how you will give me his power,” Ashara said at last.

  “I will transfer your soul to his body, giving you all the power that he once possessed,” Khalio said.

  Ashara remembered all the stories Vin had used to tell her about his power, how he had enough to be able to level mountains. She wanted to have that kind of power, but she wasn’t sure if she wanted to live the rest of her life inside of a man’s body.

  “Don’t worry,” Khalio said. “I can use your body to make slight changes to his, can make it a woman’s body. Unless you would like it to stay as it is?”

  Ashara felt relief at that, but she did give his question a consideration. She thought for a long minute about becoming a man, at least in body. But she had no desire for that.

  “No, I think that I would like to stay a woman,” Ashara answered his question.

  Khalio nodded. “Are you ready?”

  Ashara took a deep breath, then gave her answer.

  * * * *

  Khalio looked down on the sleeping mortal. She was lying down on a slab of stone, with the spirit artist’s body next to her, and he couldn’t wait to start. He needed see how a soul connected to the body of a spirit artist in order to figure out what he needed to do in order to copy the technique. He had already learned as much as he could by studying the body itself, and there was little he could see without diving deeper and that required more power and expertise. The truth was that he wanted to see how a soul that didn’t follow the Path of the spirit artists reacted when it was put inside a body more advanced. He didn’t want to craft a body for himself only to have his soul reject it—or worse, have the body damage his soul.

  Khalio knew that the Path that these spirit artist followed was the same as what his Mother had done. She was only far more along this Path. He remembered the power she demonstrated at the end.

  He could’ve put any random soul inside the body and then monitored it closely, but that would’ve been no fun. Why do that when he could meddle with his brother’s plans some more? Khalio had been foiling and subverting Sao Ban’s attempts to guide events for a while now, and he couldn’t wait for the moment when Sao Ban realized that it wasn’t his own ineptitude that had caused it, but rather Khalio himself. Turning and using a key piece of Sao Ban’s plans brought him great joy.

  And in the end he hadn’t lied to Ashara. He did want to unite the worlds, to recreate what was lost long ago. If there was one thing that he regretted it was that his actions contributed to the Sundering. But he would make it all right.

  Khalio concentrated on what he wanted to do. Taking a soul out of a body wasn’t really hard for him; Mother had taught them all how to master their own souls, and leaving a body was required for that. She only failed to teach them how to strengthen them, how to gain more power. Even now, after she had been dead for so long, he still felt rage at that. She had kept them all weak, all so that she could rule over them, afraid that they would eclipse her.

  He shook his head and banished those thoughts. He had to concentrate. He reached down and took Ashara’s soul out of its vessel, his anima enveloping her true self in it. He made care to keep the section of the soul that governed memories intact, as he didn’t want her to lose herself. Souls couldn’t form new memories outside of their bodies—they required flesh for that. Once a memory was imprinted in the brain, it was slowly etched onto a soul. It was why the gods rarely left their vessels for long, as it made it hard to think when you couldn’t remember anything new that happened, but there were a few ways around that problem.

  As he finished securing the soul, he put it aside. To his vessel’s eyes there was nothing there, as a soul couldn’t be seen ordinarily, but to his mind Ashara was a person-sized glowing form roughly in the shape of a human. She had a brightness to her that Khalio rarely saw in souls.

  He turned back to the bodies. Changing genders was something that Mother had taught them how to do with spells, as well as through other means—it had been common for people long ago to wish to change the bodies they were born with, to alter them into many different shapes, forms, or genders. Khalio, however, had a problem: he was not sure that he could replicate what the spirit artist’s body did to strengthen itself, not without a lot more research. So instead, he did the next best thing.

  Spells exploded out of him, entering both bodies. On the spirit artist’s body he altered the physical shape, using the woman as a guideline. Kai Zhao Vin had been taller, and Khalio couldn’t really trim the body down without creating a slew of other issues, so he just shaped the body in her image. He couldn’t be perfect, but he figured that the woman wouldn’t mind; Kai Zhao Vin was an attractive man, and so surely a few of his features wouldn’t matter.

  He borrowed material from the woman’s body where he needed, taking organs that her new body needed and replaced the old ones with her female ones, altering blood and tissue to match that of the new body. The organs wouldn’t be as strengthened as those that were already a part of the spirit artist, of course, as Khalio couldn’t yet replicate the process through magic; but as he was building the new body, he did see a few interesting things that he made a mental note about to check up on later. He had been forced to alter the bones slightly, but he tried to redistribute the weight in a way that would make the new body have all the appearance of a woman without really altering its mass too much.

  It took him several hours, and by the time he had finished the woman’s old body had been left in pieces as he used what he needed to make the alterations. In the end, he was satisfied. He hadn’t touched anything about the man’s spirit, his core and ki pathways. As he watched, those seemed to adjust to the new shape of the body on their own. He still didn’t know enough about the spirit in order to make any changes there. The pieces he added weren’t up to par with the rest of the body, so he laid enchantments into them to make the flesh stronger, to be a closer match with the rest. He could make things of similar strength to what the spirit artist achieved naturally.

  After he was finished, he turned to the remains of the other bodies and dissolved it into dust. It was no longer needed. For the final touches, he changed the hair and eye color to the same ones that Ashara used to have in her old body.

  Then came what was most important.

  He took her soul and gently laid it inside the new vessel. Slowly, he watched as the soul latched itself to the new body, and its spirit flared. It was looking for something, and he saw seven strange points on the vessel attempt to bore into the soul. But something wasn’t right; three of the points managed to make some kind of conduit that attached to the soul, but the others weren’t able to. He wondered what that was about, but he again didn’t have enough knowledge to make even a guess. He waited and watched, seeing that the body had acclimated to the new soul, that the memory part of the soul that had been laid over the physical mind was already attempting to match the memories of the body with those of the soul. Once it didn’t, it would overwrite them with what the soul remembered, as always happened.

  Khalio didn’t want that to happen, as he needed Ashara to follow Kai Zhao Vin’s path. He laid in spells into her soul, preventing that from happening and putting a veil between the two systems of memories. He didn’t want her to adopt any of Kai Zhao Vin’s ideals, just his recollections
. He made it so they would seep in slowly and wouldn’t be as clear as her own, and he removed any emotions, leaving only blank images.

  Finally he finished and stepped back, exhausted. He looked at the woman lying on the stone and smiled. She was one of his best works. He had learned much from the process of attaching a soul to a spirit artist body, had taken another step closer to what his Mother used to be.

  Eventually he would figure out her secrets entirely, and then his power would match hers.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  KYARRA

  Present

  Kyarra walked along the battlement of her newly finished wall, Master Jeressi keeping pace next to her. She knew that Vin thought her foolish for not acting on his warnings, but he didn’t really understand this world. He had never seen war here, where massive armies fought using magic and great weapons of war. His world was small, and no matter the stories he told her, she couldn’t really believe that the Arashan could just invade and conquer this world, even with Lashian help.

  Her first life’s reasons for doing everything aligned with what Vin was saying, yet according to the Council, magic that could predict the future did not exist. There were people long ago who claimed it was possible, but no modern mage had ever managed to prove it. Kyarra had some evidence to believe that it was true, but the Council’s investigation had been right. Everything that Vardun had done could’ve just been the result of a person who was smart enough to plan for everything, and his vision could have just been a way for him to try and convince people that there was a threat. Perhaps the Arashan came here before; perhaps Vardun encountered them and knew that they would return.

  Still, she had sent a message, a report detailing Vin’s descriptions of the Lashian construction efforts of the gate, as well as his fight with a fragment-bearer. The Council might not believe that someone without a fragment could stand against someone who bore one, but if Vin was right, soon enough they would hear rumors of the fight. They would then request to make their own investigation of the battle, as they did every time a fragment-bearer used their power since the cataclysm that created the Shattered Isles. Perhaps that would then lead them to the Arashan, and prove to them that what she had been saying had been true all along.