The Burning Grove

by Skyler Grant

  Still, Urania was the foremost practitioner of Void magic the galaxy had ever seen and he’d learned under her. While he’d never match her skill, he still had a solid grasp on what he needed to do.

  Tendrils of Void split, one into two, into four, into eight until eventually thousands were extending around the structure. A massive construct of glistening black and purple power that darted and teased at the runes like a thousand striking snakes.

  With each strike the runes lost a little power, no single one enough to overload the defensive construct and yet too many for it to recover.

  When the first rune faded it was like a dam cracking, just the first stage before the flood. The second faded seconds later and then under the continuing onslaught the entire mass of them flared one last time and faded.

  Banok released the Void, his breath coming in a thick and heavy fog that frosted the air. The door was covered in patches of ice, at least until he obliterated it with a blast of flame that left nothing behind but molten metal pooling upon the ground.

  Banok stepped through.

  The interior of the small structure was lined with monitors, controls, and in the center of the room a glass elevator.

  Not so small a structure after all then, but the doorway to what lurked beneath the compound.

  There was a quiet chime and the elevator door opened.

  An invitation, then. One Banok wasn’t about to refuse.

  42

  Banok stepped into the elevator and the door hissed behind him. It began to move, descending deep into the earth. Although Banok couldn’t be sure exactly what to expect he thought he might be going into another lab complex, but instead the elevator let him out into the middle of what seemed to be a well-appointed living room.

  A comfortable couch and chair, a massive video screen and a cooler for drinks. The walls were adorned with posters and statuettes from popular action-oriented shows.

  A balding man who looked to be in his early forties and wearing a lab coat was seated in the chair. He offered an awkward wave.

  “Uh, hi. I’m sure you’re probably planning to kill me or torture me, or all kinds of unpleasantness. Beer first? Soda? I have a better selection than you’d think given how rarely I have company,” the man said with a weak smile.

  Did the man hope to poison him? That wasn’t much of a concern with his power over life magic.

  “Beer,” Banok said.

  The man got up and moved to the cooler, rustling around inside for a moment before pulling out two bottles. The red and purple labels on them was distinctive, an expensive and highly regarded brew called Findaso.

  Banok was passed a bottle and took a swig. Not poisoned, so far as he could tell, and really good stuff.

  “I kind of expected you’d be surrounded by murderous beasts who’d attack me,” Banok said.

  “I am. You got past them,” the man said with another of those awkward gestures and a smile. “I’m the Biologist, by the way. People usually call me Bio. I know, it’s not really a name. We don’t do those.”

  “You should start. Bio is a stupid name,” Banok said. “But I suppose it doesn’t matter at this point.”

  “Because of the whole murdering and torturing bit? I’m uh ... not wrong about that, am I? Because it is totally okay if I am,” Bio said.

  “You aren’t wrong. I understand you are one of the heads of the organization that tried to wipe out the druids, twice.”

  Bio sat back down in the chair and Banok took a seat on the couch.

  “Yes, that happened. We had our reasons, but I don’t suppose you’re very interested in those,” Bio said.

  “The reasons why people keep trying to kill me? Keenly interested.”

  “It’s magic, you see? Elves, Dwarves, every race that came before humanity has had it and used it, and had it turn repeatedly against them. One terrible threat after another rising to imperil everything,” Bio said.

  “You wanted to prevent another Lady of the Void,” Banok said.

  “Yes. Exactly that, she is a very human problem that we created. Magic that isn’t controlled is magic that will eventually go bad,” Bio said, and his shoulders slumped. “But that isn’t going to help my case for staying alive.”

  “No, not really. I don’t even necessarily disagree, but you killed my people. You made that choice and I am the consequence,” Banok said.

  Bio took a deep breath. “Can I ask what you are going to do with what I’ve created here? The vats should have blown by now but didn’t.”

  “The Orcs seem to consider this how they breed now. I’ll turn the technology over to them. I wanted to ask, the drug that’s used to control them. It wasn’t originally meant for that was it?” Banok asked.

  Bio looked down at the floor. “No. For me, this was always about putting right what the Lady of the Void did wrong. The Orcs were a simple species that had been turned to murder. I wanted to give them a choice.”

  Banok believed him. With his awareness of the lifeforce in someone he could closely monitor their bodies, get a pretty good idea if they were lying. Bio seemed to be telling the truth.

  “Then I’d say you screwed up as bad or worse than she did,” Banok said.

  Bio flashed a sad smile and he shook his head. “No, I don’t think I did. Not if they’re invading this facility. Not if they are taking things into their own hands. Is it strange that I am proud of them for taking the acts that will lead to my death?”

  Not so strange at all. Bio was in a way a father to these Orcs. He had helped to give them creativity and the ability to think. It was that very creativity that had led to this act of rebellion.

  “What happened?” Banok asked.

  “Queen—I guess you could call her the first among equals of us. To her everything is about control.”

  The first among equals. That made Queen the number one on Banok’s list.

  “I’ve made changes to the Orcs. Adjustments that remove their need for the drugs. Can your process be adjusted to duplicate those changes?” Banok asked.

  “With samples and time. It isn’t … easy. I’m well-named, I’m a brilliant biologist and all of this took me over a decade of my life to get right even with unlimited funding. We don’t clone one Orc, I’m creating a genetically varied supply asexually, and any change like the one you describe has to apply across many variations,” Bio said.

  Banok actually understood, a bit. It was just like why he hadn’t been able to apply the cure that worked for Ogdek universally to all the Orcs but rather had to do so one at a time. Each biology was unique, the requirements a little different. What he had done after the fact of their creation with magic, required to be done here with biology.

  Bio was staring at him. “You’re thinking of letting me live.”

  “Perhaps. I don’t think you’re the one so obsessed with controlling magic that you felt my Order needed to die. I just don’t know if I can trust you,” Banok said.

  “I’m Gavin,” Gavin said with another of those weak smiles.

  A name wasn’t much of a start, but it was something.

  43

  The battle was done on the surface by the time Banok and Gavin made their way back up. They’d suffered losses, quite a bit in some cases. Of the five hundred goblins that had come down to the surface only thirty would be leaving. Banok understood most of them had blown themselves up. It was a level of attrition that didn’t seem to trouble them and Banok was assured they’d be back to full strength within a few days.

  They’d lost eighty-four of the healers and two-hundred and eighteen Orcs.

  Roughly half of the young Orcs in training had turned on the others after realizing the invaders were also Orcs, and of those one hundred and five had survived.

  Of the soldiers in defense eighty had surrendered when it was clear that the day was lost.

  They’d managed to save the growth vats entirely, but the armory proved to have explosives set to detonate and its contents had been lost.

&nb
sp; Banok called a war council so that they could decide on their next steps.

  “You shouldn’t leave him alive. I thought you of all people would understand how vengeance works,” Cleo said, with a pointed look towards Gavin.

  That was good. Get this out of the way to start.

  “I hadn’t planned on it, but in a way I think he is like the Orcs. Another trigger someone pulled,” Banok said.

  “He is one of those in charge. There is a difference and you know it.”

  Gavin simply looked terrified and stayed silent, it wasn’t a bad survival approach.

  “He is also going to be the best hope of spreading what I did for Ogdek and the others to all future Orc generations,” Banok said.

  Cleo asked Ogdek, “Speaking of which. Your people? He turned them on each other? Made them kill each other and marched the survivors on? You can’t be okay with this?”

  Ogdek shrugged. “Lord Banok wants him to live, he lives. I don’t remember him myself, but those that do? They say he was decent when he didn’t have to be.”

  Cleo made a frustrated sound. “Fine. If you all want to leave a potential spy in our midst we’ll have to deal with it.”

  “I disabled all the communications equipment. Whoever was watching isn’t watching anymore. This world is silent now,” Nyx said.

  “Were they watching?” Banok asked Gavin.

  “No. It isn’t like you seem to think. Oh, Queen’s people are watched constantly, but I was a member of the council. Think of us as different organs of the body. The brain is aware if the heart stops, but you aren’t aware of every beat. We were given wide latitude,” Gavin said.

  “What is going to happen now that this world is offline? That the heart has stopped?” Vanwyn asked.

  “Nothing, probably. The Orcs were already being phased out. They were probably going to kill me themselves before too long,” Gavin said, glancing between them. “The unstoppable soldiers proved stoppable.”

  “Barely,” Ogdek grunted.

  Banok agreed, the Orcs had proved themselves formidable in every encounter. Taking out the station had required blowing up a sun. If that’s what it took to stop you, then you were doing pretty well.

  “What is going to replace them?” Banok asked.

  Gavin said, “Different organs, remember? I did what I was good at, biology. I never set out to make unstoppable soldiers, although it was a lot of why I think I was recruited.”

  “What can you tell us about them?” Vanwyn asked.

  “Very little, less than you’d probably think. Each member of the council is a specialist or unique in some way. All human, all concerned with the future of humanity, and particularly the threat magic poses to it.”

  “He’s hiding things,” Cleo said with her eyes narrowed.

  “I’m not. I can tell you the names they go by. Our leader, Queen. Banker, Socialite, Scientist, Soldier, Gambler,” Gavin said. “There used to be others. Soldier has been replaced twice since I became a member, and we had a Seeker once, a Philosopher, and an Architect.”

  That fit with what Ogdek had told them.

  “What I’m taking away from all this is that most of you on the council aren’t actually all that dangerous. You might be made to feel important, but you aren’t really calling the shots,” Banok said.

  “I’d say that is unfair, but I really don’t want murder and torture,” Gavin said.

  “I’m good with just the murder,” Cleo said.

  “So who are we going to kill, boss? You got any targets in mind?” Ogdek asked.

  “Tell me about process. When you had to decide on something, how did you do it?” Banok asked Gavin.

  “We’d gather somewhere. We’d all be fed into drones. Queen sets them up, blank people. Different body every time picked at random.”

  “We’ve met one,” Banok said.

  Gavin was surprised. “Why? What happened?”

  “Recruitment. Get aboard or face the consequences,” Banok said.

  “You might have met Queen herself then, or Socialite. They do most of the recruiting. Queen sort of sets the direction usually and Socialite makes sure everyone moves the way she wants.”

  “And I’m guessing Banker provides the resources. Soldier orders the troops,” Cleo said.

  “Pretty much,” Gavin said.

  “What about Gambler?” Banok asked.

  “Deep space exploration. It’s because of Gambler that we have as many worlds to operate on as we do—planets that are out of the way.”

  Probably how the Orcs had originally been discovered as well, after Urania had been defeated.

  “Do you know where we can find the others?” Banok asked Ogdek.

  “Give me some time to reach out to the Orcs still working with him and I can find us Soldier. I can try on the others,” Ogdek said.

  “We robbed a bank filled with their stolen funds. I think we know who Banker must be. We have their records too, and I think we can put together a lot. The question isn’t who can we find, but who do you want to kill?” Cleo asked.

  An explorer wasn’t a threat to the Druid Order, nor was an accountant. Queen was obviously in charge and had to go, and Socialite seemed like the second in command. Soldier might have been following orders, but was too dangerous to live.

  Still, they needed more than just to take out this organization. They’d recruited Gavin for free, but an army marched on money and they didn’t have enough of it.

  “Find me the Banker,” Banok said.

  44

  “Tell me how going on vacation furthers our schemes of murder and mayhem?” Banok asked.

  It was hard to object too much. The beachfront lodge Cleo had rented for them was beyond extravagant in luxury. A private white sand beach, and pool if one decided not to brave the ocean. A massive bed that would allow them to get as creative as they wanted in the bedroom.

  Delilah had already taken to sunning herself near the pool in which Jia was happily splashing away.

  Cleo was about as casual as she came, in a tee-shirt and shorts.

  “I wouldn’t call it a vacation. We’re almost certainly being spied upon. The entire point is that we’re being spied upon,” Cleo said.

  They were seated at a table near the pool, each with an over-sized drink.

  “With our plans of deal-making then,” Banok said.

  Cleo gestured upwards. Apart from a brilliant yellow sun, the sky was dominated by a bluish-grey planet.

  “That is the headquarters of Vestal Banking—I mean the entire thing. A manufactured world, all Vestal banking,” Cleo said.

  That was impressive, and a little alarming.

  “The bank we stole our fortune from belonged to the Caspi Conglomerate. The two are connected?” Banok asked.

  Cleo shook her head. “Not even the tiniest bit. The Caspi Conglomerate are thugs. Born thugs, and still thugs, for all that they are very rich thugs. Vestal banking is beyond respectable. Major backer of the currencies of no less than four of the great human kingdoms.”

  Banok had never heard of them, but then he didn’t move in the most respectable circles.

  “You’re going to have to give me more than that,” Banok said.

  “The funds we stole were almost certainly financing the Orc project, along with several others, but the ones behind that money were too smart to pay it out of their own till. I’ll be honest with you, us being here is almost completely a guess,” Cleo said.

  “Well, that is reassuring.”

  Cleo lifted a shoulder in a shrug before taking a long sip from her glass. “Fruity. Try yours yet? If I’m wrong, we get a week’s vacation and come back at it stronger. If I’m right, we’re sitting somewhere the Banker can certainly see us.”

  “And send death squads?” Banok asked, tasting his drink. Ugh, fruity was right. He pushed it aside.

  “I hope not. I have plans if they do, but I really hope not. See, this is my thought. I know a thing or two about old money having been born to them.
New money loves spending it, old money hates that,” Cleo said.

  “You don’t think the Banker is a willing pocketbook?”

  Cleo again shrugged, snagging the drink Banok had pushed aside. “I’m not sure. I don’t even know who they are. What I do know is that it’s hard to push around anyone with the funds they have. Money means options.”

  “So this is all one big longshot?”

  Cleo looked over at him and offered a faint smile. “You know it. We are only here at all because of the sheer lack of evidence implicating Vestal. I think someone cleaned house a little too thoroughly.”

  “Everybody else had dealing with the thugs?” Banok asked.

  “People always need something done fast and dirty. You know that. I also thought it was a good idea to take this time out. I’m … troubled,” Cleo said.

  That wasn’t like Cleo.

  “Why?”

  “Part of it is you. You’ve changed since we came back from the Fade.”

  Of course he had. For Banok it had been over eighty years. It was a long time, but he still felt like himself and he thought he’d been settling back into his old life pretty well.

  “I’m a better spellcaster,” Banok said.

  “It isn’t that. You’ve never been what I’d call particularly goal-driven. You react, you don’t plot. At least, you didn’t used to. The old you would have killed Gavin.”

  Perhaps he would have. It was a strange blend of forces at work inside of Banok. On the one hand there was Astra and the passions that she created, they burned so brightly. Now there was Urania too, and they shared a connection. In a way he was like the Orcs struggling between two extremes. One a fire that would consume everything, the other cold unstoppable will.

  “And you’d have preferred it, if I had killed him. Is your own need for vengeance that great?” Banok asked.

  Cleo downed one of the drinks. “They stole my home, they kidnapped my family. Oh, the grief I am going to bring will be something to behold. But no, I don’t worry that you let him live. I worry about what it means. For the first time, Banok, I’m worried about who you’re becoming.”