Edge of Destiny

by J. Robert King

  “How’s it coming?” asked the apprentice.

  Eir wished she hadn’t moved. Her previous expression had been perfect—focused and slightly proud, willful and determined. Now the lines had shifted to dubious and frustrated. “Well,” Eir replied, “could you try to get the old look back?”

  “What old look?”

  “The look that you are smarter than everyone else and that they will be shocked when they realize it.” Suddenly, the look was back, and Eir shifted to a smaller chisel to capture it.

  Nearby, Snaff idly sized up a floor-to-ceiling drake in alabaster. “It’s good to be immortalized, my dear. Most apprentices don’t make it, you know.” He turned toward Eir. “Maybe you didn’t realize that, but they’re always handling caustic substances, building precarious mechanisms. . . . Unless they’re clever, they just don’t make it.”

  “And Zojja, here, is clever?” Eir asked as she finished the little snarl beneath Zojja’s right nostril.

  “She’s here,” Snaff pointed out.

  Eir stepped back from her sculpture. “Yes. I suppose she is. In both ways. The likeness is complete. Come see.”

  The two asura walked toward the sculpture with the numb air of people who cannot believe what they see. Though the statue was five times the actual height of Zojja, it was dead-on. Eir had captured not only the young asura’s expression but also her personality.

  Zojja’s look of wonder slowly soured. “Why did you have to make me look so big?”

  “It’s five times actual height,” Eir replied.

  “Four times would have been enough,” Zojja snapped. “It’s fine. Fine.”

  “It’s perfect,” said Snaff. “Thank you very much! It was certainly worth the coin.” He turned to his apprentice and said, “All right, now. Let’s take this back with us.”

  Zojja scooted to the opposite side of the stone bust. She and her master set their fingers beneath the carving. “One, two, three!”

  The two asura struggled, trying to lift the five-hundred-pound block, but not moving it an inch.

  Eir stood above them, arms folded.

  Snaff looked up at her and tittered nervously. “I wish I had more coin to pay you to carry this.”

  Eir smiled. “You have more coin. You were about to pay me in silver before I asked for gold.”

  Snaff blushed around a tight-lipped smile. “Oh, all right—”

  “Never mind,” interrupted Eir, stepping between the two asura and wrapping her arms around the huge statue and hoisting it off the ground. “Where do you want it?”

  Snaff crooked a finger in her direction and said, “Follow me.”

  Garm looked up wonderingly at his alpha. She had never followed anyone. If ever she followed anyone, it would be a creature taller and more powerful and more clever than she, not some tiny thing. But Eir did follow him. Massive bust in hand, Eir followed, as did Zojja. Garm joined in, if only to see what this asura was up to.

  They paraded out of the courtyard and into the lane. “Hey, everybody,” called Snaff into the shops, “look at the new sculpture. Isn’t it a masterpiece?”

  “Where do you want it?” Eir repeated as she struggled to carry the bust.

  “Just up here, my lady,” Snaff said.

  They passed into a plaza filled with market tents and tables loaded with fruits, scarves, iron implements, and goods of every other type. In the center of this trading den stood an ancient gate of gray stone, carved with strange runes. Just now, the arched gate flickered and, in that flicker, gave a vision of another marketplace in a port city.

  “Not going to Lion’s Arch today,” Snaff said to the gate attendant, another asura. Slipping him a coin, Snaff said, “Rata Sum, if you please.”

  The attendant crouched beside an array of powerstones, and a stone in his hand sent sparks leaping into the other crystals. The flickering scene in the arch changed to a rocky desert, a mountain lake, a golden meadow. At last, it showed a brief glimpse of what looked like three massive pyramids.

  “Thanks,” Snaff said, straightening up and stepping through the portal.

  Eir shrugged and followed, carrying her huge load. Garm came at her heels.

  Passing through the portal was like plunging into a hot bath. The cold air was ripped away from their skins, replaced by stinging, sticky heat. Instead of wintry skies, there was a blazing sun. Instead of permafrost, there were cut stones and giant leaves. The group stood on a platform that jutted from the side of a huge pyramid.

  Eir staggered to a stop and looked around. “Whoa.”

  They stood in what seemed to be a plaza between three gigantic pyramids, except that, instead of a plaza, a chasm descended to unseeable depths. Above that chasm, giant stonework cubes seemed suspended on thin air. The lines of massive architecture were softened by palm trees planted in huge rectangular pots and pyramidal lanterns floating over the stone balustrades.

  “Floating?” Eir gulped.

  Snaff smiled. “Nice, eh?”

  “How?”

  Zojja piped up, “Even a genius-in-training knows that. It’s all held aloft by powerstone fields arrayed using the dodecaic equation of the Eternal Alchemy.”

  “Dough-decay-what?”

  “The twelvefold equation. It’s the most obvious expression of universal balance in base twelve.”

  “Base twelve?”

  Zojja turned to Snaff and muttered, “She must still count on her fingers.”

  He nodded discreetly. “It’s the temptation of having ten.”

  Eir hadn’t understood a word. But she did understand that this was a magical place, with purplish plasma flaring up from columns here and there, and lightning sparking along arched bridges, and powerstones glowing everywhere.

  “Isn’t that bust getting heavy?” Snaff asked.

  “Yes. . . . If we could just get to the spot.”

  “Of course! Of course!” Snaff strode out in front, his three-toed feet scampering along at a pace that was just a lumbering stroll for Eir. He led the group down a series of stairs, ever deeper into the city. Massive walls of stone rose all around them. “I live in the old city—down below.”

  “Of course you do.”

  As they walked along one pyramid, an asura krewe swarmed the slanted side, hauling a huge dandelion puff up the incline. One asura shouted, “Nice statue, Master Snaff! A little idol worship, is it?”

  Snaff laughed easily. “I appreciate my apprentice. I don’t idolize her. Good luck with your test flight! Just let us pass before you launch.”

  Eir murmured, “Test flight?”

  “Test crash, more likely. Master Klab’s been working for two years on that puffball—made of milkweed dander and butterfly scales and a whole lot of hastily cobbled spells. Won’t fly, I assure you. But the fellow knows how to glad-hand. He never lacks for a krewe or investors.”

  “On three!” came a shout from above. “One . . . two . . .”

  “Let’s run,” Snaff advised, and he and Zojja did, which still amounted to only a fast walk for Eir and Garm.

  “Three!”

  A loud series of pops sounded on the stone slope, sending a blast wave of air across the dandelion puffball. Hundreds of silken sacks inflated, and the thing lifted off the stone slope. The puffball broke free, rising into the air like a floating balloon. At its center, Master Klab hooted excitedly in his harness.

  “Heigh-ho, Master Snaff! Running from true genius, are we? Whenever there’s something clever going on, you’re always heading in the opposite direction!”

  The little gray master was looking slightly green as he stopped to stare upward at the flying puffball. He muttered, “I’ll never hear the end of it.”

  Just then, the puffball rose above the city, where a breeze dragged it suddenly away.

  Master Klab shouted to his krewe, “Bring the skyhooks! The skyhooks!”

  Eir sniffed, “Maybe you just did hear the end of it.”

  “You’re a good lass.”

  Eir huffed. �
��Um, can we get on with setting this thing down?”

  “Ah, yes, that. Well—see that small ziggurat down there?” Snaff pointed toward the bowels of the city, at what looked like a temple missing its top. “Home, sweet home!”

  They descended a series of switchback stairs and at last arrived at Snaff’s ziggurat.

  He piped happily, “Now it’s just up the side, down some stairs, and we’ll be in my laboratory.”

  “Good,” Eir said with relief.

  Except that the stairs were made for asuran feet. Eir struggled up them to reach the peak of the temple—or what used to be the peak. The top had apparently been blown off by a violent blast, with a single staircase descending into the heart of the ziggurat.

  Panting, Eir paused at the brink of the crater and said, “An experiment gone awry?”

  Snaff pursed his lips. “No. Why do you ask?”

  “I mean, the crater.”

  He shrugged. “It’s called a skylight. Saves on candles. Come along!” He scuttled down the stairs into the darkness, with Zojja close behind.

  Even Garm pushed past Eir, apparently to make certain this wasn’t a trap. He loped down into the shadows, plunging into a cool chamber with ornately carved walls, tiled floors, and trapezoidal stone tables arrayed across them. Much of the light in the space came through the “skylight,” though some also came from magic lanterns that hung from great chains and sent a bluish glow down over everything. Light also leaked from great vials and beakers and tubes on the tabletops, and from strange mechanical contraptions all around.

  “Oh, much cooler!” sighed Eir as she reached the floor. “Where should I put this?”

  “Here,” said Snaff, standing beside a table where one of the contraptions sprawled. “What an exciting day!”

  Eir ambled over to the table and eased the heavy block down.

  “No. Lay it down. . . . Yes. On its back. Right, but shove it up against this mechanism here. . . . Excellent!” he proclaimed, dragging a great red stone from his pocket and setting it on the forehead of the statue.

  The stone sank into the forehead, embedding itself and pulsing to life.

  “Wonderful! Wonderful!” Snaff cried.

  Metal loops rose from the magical creation that lay there, clamping down on the shoulders of the bust and forming a collar. The machine groaned, pitched forward, and sat up—a towering golem with the head of Zojja.

  THE ENEMY OF MY ENEMY

  The moment before the axe-rifles fired, Logan Thackeray swept his hand out in a fan. A blue aura bled from his fingertips into the air, solidifying it in a curved wall before the scouts.

  “Fire!” the charr centurion roared.

  The axe-rifles boomed and vomited smoke and lead. But the shots struck the ethereal membrane and sank into it and were eaten away. Bullets showered rust to the ground.

  The leader of the charr stared, his jaw dropping. “You’re full of surprises!”

  “I’m Logan Thackeray. I protect those who are mine.”

  “I’m Rytlock Brimstone,” the charr shot back. “I kill those who aren’t.”

  “I recognize your blade. Did you say Rurik Brimstone?”

  “Rytlock,” the charr snarled.

  Logan shrugged. “I just figured since you stole Prince Rurik’s sword, you probably also stole his name.”

  Rytlock lashed the air with the burning blade. “The sword’s mine now.”

  “After this fight,” Logan said, whirling his war hammer in a figure eight, “Sohothin will once again be in the hands of a human.”

  “During this fight,” Rytlock spat, “Sohothin will once again be in the guts of a human.” He looked back at the charr around him. “Turn those damned rifles around and chop them to pieces!”

  Rytlock charged, ramming his sword toward Logan’s stomach.

  The man spun aside, his war hammer pounding the fiery blade. Sparks flew, and the sword clanged down to one side. Logan stepped in to kick his opponent’s leg, and Rytlock staggered back in surprise and pain. The man meanwhile advanced, swinging his war hammer in a thundering arc overhead.

  This time, Rytlock deflected the blow, leaned in, and planted a massive fist in the man’s stomach. Logan flew back and crashed to the ground. He staggered up to one knee.

  “You fight like a charr”—Rytlock laughed blackly—“though you fly like a grawl.”

  “Grawl don’t fly.”

  “They do when you punch them!” Rytlock stomped toward the man and swung another massive blow.

  Logan tried to dodge, but the flaming sword followed him. Growling, he jabbed his hammer out desperately. Sohothin engulfed the weapon, fire mantling the hammerhead.

  Logan ripped his hammer free, but it sloughed a skin of red-hot metal.

  The charr cackled. “Nice sword, eh?”

  “Legendary.”

  “And you’ll never wield it.”

  Again the roaring attack, again the argument of metal and fire, and again Logan stepped back, his hammer smoldering and his chest heaving.

  Rytlock was a cat playing with prey. “At least you’re doing better than your friends.”

  Logan glanced to one side where Wescott, Perkins, and Fielding fought back-to-back, surrounded by four charr. On the other side, Everlee, Dawson, Tippett, and Castor fought a similarly desperate battle against five charr.

  “Is that how you fight?” Logan growled at the legionnaire. “Four on three? Five on four?”

  Rytlock shrugged. “We fight to win. Foreign concept to you humans, I know.”

  Fury flooded through Logan, and he spun. His war hammer vaulted overhead and moaned down toward Rytlock’s head. The charr rolled aside, the hammer cracking across his claws. He clambered to his feet and charged, Sohothin’s fires roaring. The flaming blade struck a blue aura that Logan had painted in the air to cover his retreat.

  Rytlock ripped his sword free of the barrier and said, “You’re so good at retreating.”

  Despite his words, Logan took another step back, staring in horror—not at the sword, but at what it showed lurking behind the charr.

  Two monstrous faces loomed out of the night. Their eyes were the size of fists; their mouths were gathered like sacks; their armored figures towered like cliff faces.

  “Ogres,” Logan stammered as he staggered back.

  “What?” Rytlock roared, turning.

  “Ogres!” Logan shouted.

  A massive boot pounded the ground behind Rytlock, who whirled aside just before a spiked club crashed down beside him. The spikes impaled another charr and rooted him to the ground. The ogre flexed its sinewy arm, trying to yank the club free.

  Recovering from shock, Logan charged the ogre, running up its huge club and arm and onto its shoulder. With a mighty swing, he buried his hammer in the brow of the beast. Moaning, the ogre dropped to its knees and rolled ponderously forward. Logan leaped to the ground.

  “How about that?” Logan crowed.

  “Turn around!” Rytlock snarled.

  Logan spun to see a pair of hyenas soaring toward him out of the darkness.

  His hammer rose and fell, and beside it, Sohothin danced, and the hyenas dropped before the man and the charr.

  “Pets,” hissed Rytlock. “Ogres always travel with them.”

  “I know all about ogres!” Logan snapped, clubbing another hyena.

  But Rytlock wasn’t listening, his sword slicing through an ogre’s leg. Its club had been swinging toward Logan, but as the beast crumpled, the club flew free and crashed into the wall of the canyon. Rytlock leaped onto the breast of the fallen ogre and buried his blade in its heart.

  “How about that?” Rytlock exulted.

  Logan rose and hurled his hammer toward Rytlock. “What the—” Rytlock ducked, and the weapon spun by overhead and smashed into the face of another ogre. It staggered dizzily, shaking its head to clear it. Rytlock leaped up and struck the ogre’s head from its shoulders.

  Between them, Logan and Rytlock had felled three ogres and th
ree hyenas, but five more of the beasts and ten more of their pets battled the other scouts and charr.

  One ogre kicked its way through the crowd, hurling Tippett against the rock wall and stomping a charr warrior to mush. Another ogre tackled a charr, breaking its back. A third swung a club with Wescott impaled on it.

  Logan ducked beneath the club, fetched his hammer, and smashed it into the beast’s hip. A wet crack told of a broken pelvis, and the creature slumped to one side. Another blow from the hammer destroyed its spine.

  Rytlock, meanwhile, dragged his burning blade across the hamstrings of another ogre. As it dropped, he plunged the sword into its skull and fried its brain.

  Two charr chopped at a third ogre like woodsmen working a great bole. It was an agonizing end, but the ogre made its opponents pay for it. Its flailing hands clutched their heads and pulped them.

  The last of the defenders, Logan and Rytlock retreated back-to-back within a circle of hyenas. The snarling creatures darted in, snapping at the legs of the warriors. They responded with hammer and sword. Bashed and burning, hyenas yelped and withdrew.

  And now it was down to one human, one charr, and two ogres.

  One of the ogres was young and broad; the other was old and narrow. The young one demanded, “Why have you invaded my lands?”

  Rytlock hitched a thumb at Logan. “He invaded. I just followed.”

  The old ogre growled, “You attacked Chiefling Ygor, son of Chief Kronon.”

  “I want no trouble,” protested Logan. “My quarrel is with the charr.”

  “Your excuses mean nothing,” the chiefling said. “The sentence is death.”

  “Chiefling Ygor has spoken!” pronounced the old ogre.

  With that, the ogres charged, their massive morning stars descending like meteors.

  Logan and Rytlock rolled away as the weapons impaled the ground.

  “Get back here,” the old ogre growled. He swung a wild shot after Logan.

  Logan tried to leap over the blow, but it caught his boot and flipped him over. Desperate to bring him down, the old ogre lunged sideways and bashed Logan with his elbow. Logan barked with pain, staggering out of reach.