But they didn’t stop—they didn’t so much as pause at seeing one of their own die.
Chains came over his arm and when he tried to pull them off balance again they were ready.
“No,” Malkier screamed.
Terror had him, he lashed out wildly as more and more chains came at him. Had they simply been launched at him with no care for getting into one another’s way, perhaps this would have gone differently, but this army, they moved as though they had been practicing for this moment for months. Every attempt he made to thwart them was one they expected. He realized with horror, that some were making themselves targets on purpose, were getting him to lash out for them just to maneuver him. Some weren’t even there at all. His hands going through them as he tried to strike at holograms.
More chains, more claustrophobic.
“No!” his voice echoed throughout the decimated city.
He felt a chain take him around the neck from behind. It tightened as all the men pulled once more from different directions and limbs. His back left the ground, arching—bending against his will until he couldn’t move, wasn’t strong enough to budge a single limb.
The noose around his armored neck, the chains clinking past one another as they tightened. The pull from that chain, stronger than all the rest. Slowly craning his head, he saw Jonathan, the big man, and the woman holding tight to Doomsday.
The self-proclaimed god—had been reduced to a fly caught in a web of chains.
They had held him as men approached carrying something.
There was a degree of choreography, of mastered movements of those who wielded the chains. They steered his limbs like sailors who knew how to maneuver the sails of a ship.
The thing they carried. He could see it from the edges of his vision just before it was placed underneath him. He wasn’t to be caged—
It was a simple thing. Two long thick logs of Borealis steel crisscrossed to make a point of strain for each limb. Brings the Rain’s men lifted it beneath him until it met his back in the air. They tighten his arms first. Then torso, then his legs. Then every chain that remained was tied to him. They took no chance he could wiggle himself to freedom.
When it was over, they backed away. Not a single man was needed to hold him any longer. The chains were secured around every limb indefinitely. He quieted, as they moved him. Finally realizing where it was that they were taking him.
They stopped outside the conduit. The female of the bonded pair, she walked toward him. He stopped struggling against his chains, not wanting to give her the satisfaction as she looked up at him.
“Hey,” the woman said. “Be proud. You’re the first Borealis in history to ever get his ass kicked by a footnote.”
She winked at him before walking away.
The meaning of her words took a while for him to understand. And even when he did, he wasn’t sure he believed.
Some time later, Brings the Rain was walking on his own, though his injuries remained apparent. His approach was slow as a result.
“Remove your helmet,” he said, when he was close enough.
Malkier looked down at him, making a show of laughing as he did so.
“Your only way home is inside me. I’m immortal, I don’t have to kill you to kill you. I just need to be patient.”
“Yeah,” Jonathan sighed. “So here is how this is going to go. You’re gonna take the helmet off, or I am gonna hold your head to the edge of the conduit and see how steady my hands are.”
The Borealis, unable to move more than his eyes, looked between Jonathan and the conduit and slumped.
“Humans,” he said, defeat seeming to come easier and easier to him now.
He had some control of the armor from within, just as the humans did, so a moment later, the locking mechanism that held the helmet to the armor around his neck turned on its own. The helmet now sitting loosely on him, Jonathan pulled it from his head.
“What now, Brings the Rain?”
“There is something that I need you to hear,” Jonathan took a long breath. “I am sorry for your son. I will never forgive you for my father, for Rylee. But what happened to Dams the . . .”
“You will not speak his name,” Malkier said.
Jonathan was silent as he took a slow breath. Angry as Malkier was, it took a moment to realize he didn’t see the vindictiveness in Brings the Rain he had expected. The man was calm, his disconsolate eyes looking back at him.
“What I did, I did to survive. It wasn’t revenge. I didn’t know, and your brother didn’t either. I have never seen Heyer as troubled as he looked when I told him. I know, your brother grieved for you.”
Malkier heard the words, but when Jonathan finished speaking, he didn’t reply. Unable to turn his head to look away, he shut his eyes.
He didn’t open them again until he heard Jonathan pick up the chain attached to his cross, and he saw that he was being dragged toward the conduit.
“What are you doing. Are you going to kill my people?”
“No,” Jonathan said. “I’m going to close the gates—permanently. The Ferox will be on their own. I won’t take any more lives than I need to.”
“You’re still killing them,” Malkier said. “You’re just ensuring it takes decades.”
Jonathan took a long breath. “Maybe . . . maybe not.”
“If you kill me, they will believe they failed their gods.” The truth of his own words sending a pang through him, not at his death but his people’s. “They will think they were found unworthy. Abandoned, again.”
Jonathan slowed for a moment, he looked back at Malkier, helpless above him. “I’m not the one who told them that story.”
Malkier was at a loss, anguish and fear quickly sapping his resolve.
“Humanity will surely see you as their savior,” he said, letting bitterness tinge his word. “You must be looking forward to that.”
“They won’t,” Jonathan said.
Malkier stared at Brings the Rain as they drew closer to the conduit. Just as they began to descend the slope that ringed it, he spoke. “There is no reason for us to lie to one another. There is no shame in seeking the praise of your people.”
“We had very different goals today, Malkier,” Jonathan said.
The man turned away from him, his shoulders slumping. Malkier stared at his back in consternation as Brings the Rain resumed pulling him along, his posture not that of a hero or victor—just resigned. When Jonathan glanced back and their eyes met again, he shook his head and sighed.
“I’m about to be rid of any compelling reason to ever share this hell with any of them.”
“You . . . you aren’t going to tell them?” Malkier asked.
Jonathan paused just before he stepped across the conduit’s threshold. “Even if mankind believed this story, we did this . . . so that no one else would have to.”
He knew he’d reached the Feroxian Plane when he found himself standing at the center of a massive black platform surrounded by tall obsidian. He felt the change in heat on his armor as he looked up at a red and black sky.
Jonathan dropped the chain at his feet as he turned slowly to take in the scale of it all. The pit held the water like a basin, turning the platform he stood on into an island at the center. As his eyes rose up the sides of the walls—he saw them. Thousands of white eyes standing on the cliff tops and crowded on the ramp near the water’s edge.
He’d accepted that walking through the conduit could mean death, he’d been prepared for the possibility. The fact that not a single Ferox had returned after the flood waters poured through had made it a safe bet that they had pulled back. Still, no man crosses behind enemy lines, stands under the gaze of an entire army without feeling the weight of it. Jonathan controlled what he could and hid what he couldn’t. This was too important to show anything but strength.
The message had to be delivered.
He could not address them. They wouldn’t understand his words. But he didn’t have to speak to make su
re they heard him.
He took a few long breaths. Staring back at them until he was certain they knew who he was from the energy pouring out of his eyes.
He looked back until the time felt right, then picked up the chain again. He pulled in the slack hand over hand, until finally their prophet, helplessly restrained on his cross, came through the conduit. His own armor made his identity known to all of them no matter how far away.
The horde of onlookers reacted to the sight of their defeated leader. The sounds, the guttural noises, were those Jonathan associated with shock, but perhaps it was despair—such things were too nuanced for him to know for certain. Some fell to their knees along the cliff’s edge. A few of the bravest tried to leap from the cliffs and take the platform. They found the distance too far. Not a one came close, and those who tried plunged into the water to sink beneath the surface.
Powerless, they watched Jonathan drag their prophet to the edge of the platform. With no option remaining to Malkier, the Borealis’s voice was quieter than normal. His words seemed hesitant as he forced his head as far to the side as he could, only able to see Jonathan at the very edge of his vision.
“You’ve won. Spare me now, and I will leave Earth to you.”
He supposed the Borealis had to say the words. To try, but they both knew that no emptier promise had ever been made. He could see that Malkier—at least for the moment—believed the sincerity of his words.
“You may be the oldest being in existence. Have you ever asked an enemy for mercy?” Jonathan asked.
Malkier stared for a while, and finally looked away without giving an answer, the cross began to lean out over the water.
“No,” Malkier said. “I have never begged for mercy.”
Jonathan nodded.
“I want you to turn off the cloak that keeps me from sensing the stone within you,” Jonathan said.
“Why . . .” Malkier asked.
“I don’t speak Feroxian, the translation only works when the cloak is offline.” Jonathan said.
Malkier shivered uncomfortably. “You . . . you wish me to speak to them?”
“I promised a friend that I would try,” Jonathan said.
Malkier shook his head. “I . . . I won’t do it.”
Jonathan sighed, and slowly leaned the post over the water once more—
Further this time, to the brink of just how far he could push without losing hold.
Finally, Malkier, gave in. “Stop.”
A moment later, Jonathan felt the stone’s presence in his mind, and slowly eased the cross back to safety.
“Alright,” Jonathan said, “Now, this your chance to help them.”
“How?”
“You’re going to die, Malkier. You know I can’t let you live. As you said, the Ferox will face tomorrow thinking they failed their creators. That they’re cursed to extinction. So, die as their prophet, or give them the truth. It’s your choice.”
Malkier was quiet for a long time. Then he glanced at him. Jonathan held his eye and watched as something happened. The Alpha began to blink, seemed confused. He strained again against his chains as though he had only just discovered them. His eyes grew wild, and he roared, the words growled in the guttural language of the Ferox, but they translated in Jonathan’s mind.
What is this? Why am I chained?
In those few seconds, Jonathan recognized the voice, and he knew—
Instead of facing his people, instead of telling them the truth, instead of accepting death—Malkier had given Ends the Storm his body back. Just in time to die. Of all the ways Jonathan had thought this might go, he . . . hadn’t thought of that.
Jonathan looked up at Ends the Storm and felt pity. “I’m sorry, Ends the Storm, but I have to get home.”
With as little ceremony, Jonathan pushed the cross over into the water and let go. There was a splash, and the alpha disappeared beneath the surface. The chain eventually going taut in Jonathan’s hand. For a while, he could feel Ends the Storm’s panic and struggles tugging. The chain pulling left and right to no avail as the Ferox’s strength slowly faded away.
Some distance below where Jonathan stood, Cede’s voice spoke inside the chamber, a phenomenon that Burns the Flame had yet to grow comfortable with. Malkier had tried to explain the nature of the voice, but the best Burns the Flame had come to understanding the entity that lived in these caves was that she was some tool of the gods.
“Heyer,” Cede said. “Your brother’s device is no longer active.”
She watched as this Red Ferox who claimed to be of the prophet’s race hung his head. He seemed uncertain if he was surprised by what the tunnel voice had said.
“Then I am now the only remaining Borealis in existence,” he said.
“Per the existing hierarchy, you are now eligible for command of this vessel,” Cede said. “Would you like to take command?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Is there anything I can do to assist you.”
“Please, provide access to the armory,” Heyer said.
The platform where the Borealis had been sitting formed a line down its center. To Burns the Flame, the stone turned to liquid, and a moment later parted from a line at its center, spreading open to allow a single pedestal to rise out from within. Cede’s armory was functionally the same as Heyer’s on Earth, the only difference was the size. Malkier only required a repository for a single device.
As the pedestal rose, a trillion shape manifested within the cupped depression on its highest surface—a black stone with three metallic bars across its surface. The bars were alive at first, brightly lit. But the light seemed to fade away until nothing but a shiny metal glyph remained.
“Implant dormant,” Cede said. “Initiating contingency plans per protocols set by previous comm—”
“Cancel all contingencies, Cede,” Heyer said.
“Previous commander required an encryption key.”
“Override on my authority, previous commander has been deemed psychologically unfit.”
“Confirmed, contingency plans canceled.”
The Red Alpha was quiet for a moment, almost as though he didn’t believe the tunnel’s words.
“Such a simple thing,” he said.
Heyer slowly stepped up to the platform, somewhat reluctantly he reached out and freed the stone from where it had manifested.
“What is this?” Burns the Flame asked.
“Your prophet. Your god. Malkier,” Heyer said. “This is the truth. What was put inside Ends the Storm that allowed his body to be taken.”
He stared down at the stone in his palm for some time, and Burns the Flame wondered at it. “Ends the Storm? Is he free of the prophet’s control now?”
Heyer swallowed. “He is dead, but yes, he is free.”
“Malkier said, that if he were ever to fall, I was to come here with another,” Burns the Flame said. “That Cede would take care of the rest.”
Heyer nodded but didn’t take his eyes from the stone.
“We suspected he would arrange something of that nature,” Heyer said.
They were quiet for a long while, but finally, Heyer gently closed his palm on the stone. He spoke, but in a language she could not understand. Then, he tightened his hand until the stone crushed violently in his palm.
He took a long breath before letting the pieces fall to the floor.
“What did you say just now?” she asked.
Heyer opened his eyes, and for a moment he seemed unsure of the words. Finally, he spoke in her tongue. “Fear is the heart alone, brother.”
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND TWELVE
THE CONDUIT HAD closed shortly after he returned to The Never. His men knew—for the most part—what would follow.
As the case of stones was brought out, Rylee and Jonathan stayed behind, to see every man made it home. They were the last to break their stones.
“I still haven’t figured out how you kicked me out of The Never,” Rylee said.
Jonathan shrugged. “I wasn’t sure, but I knew it might work. I took two stones from the cloaked assassins. Put one in the box and one on you. I knew everyone else was going to disappear for about twenty minutes. I mean, even if they weren’t carrying the stones with them, that many gateway stones breaking all at once, it didn’t matter. When the energy wave hit, I figured you would be like everyone else, as long as one of your stones was outside the box . . .”
“But if you put a stone in my pocket it was more likely to take me with them,” Rylee said.
“Was worth a shot,” he admitted.
“I’m angry, Jonathan,” Rylee said. “I’d kick your ass right now but after what Malkier did I’d feel like I’d be beating up my great grandpa.”
He smiled. “Well, I’ll be tip top in a moment.”
“You had no right to do that,” Rylee said.
He looked at her sadly for a moment. “Neither did you.”
“Oh, hell no,” Rylee said. “Not the same thing.”
“You died, Rylee,” Jonathan said.
Rylee gasped. “This again. How rud—”
He kissed her, and despite herself she let him get away with changing the subject. When it ended, she was less in the mood for banter. “You know, when we leave. When this stupid device turns off. I don’t know who you’re gonna be talking to.”
“I think . . .” he said. “If you’re serious about kicking my ass you might have to kick it as is.”
“Well, that sucks,” Rylee said. “But it’s okay, if it’s her.”
“I don’t want to lose either of you,” Jonathan said.
She sighed. “I know. I do. But, I think we both know that I’m . . . I’m not really Rylee. Just a copy. Leah . . . she’s more real than I am.”
He began to shake his head, but she put a hand over his mouth before he could speak. “Don’t argue with me. I know you can never say it whether you believe or not.”
He looked down at a pile of rubble and nodded sadly.
“I know you’re in a lot of pain,” Rylee said. “But would you stay here with me for a while? Until I’m ready to go?”
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