Edge of Destiny

by J. Robert King

  Meanwhile, Chiefling Ygor traded blow for blow with Rytlock. Sparks flew as the weapons met. Sohothin glanced off the morning star to graze Ygor’s leg. The ogre roared in fury and reeled back out of range.

  The old ogre charged up protectively before Ygor and rushed Rytlock. A roundhouse swing of the morning star caught the flaming sword and wrenched it out of Rytlock’s hands. Sohothin flew through the air and crashed down to gutter at the base of the rock wall. The old ogre kicked Rytlock onto his back and towered over him, morning star poised to strike.

  “The honor of the kill goes to the lord of the hunt.”

  Ygor stomped up on the other side of Rytlock and raised his morning star. “My pleasure.” The weapon moaned in the air as it fell.

  But it never reached Rytlock, because a war hammer shattered Ygor’s hand. Shrieking, he reeled back, and the old ogre caught him.

  Rytlock scrambled toward Sohothin, but Logan ran for the sword as well.

  “Get away from my sword!” they both yelled.

  Rytlock grasped Sohothin and rolled over.

  Ygor lunged atop Rytlock, trapping him beneath his crushing weight.

  Rytlock gasped, the air driven from him. He bashed the chiefling’s shoulder, but only managed to get him to roll to one side.

  Logan meanwhile brought his hammer down on Ygor’s temple. The chiefling hissed, slumping to the ground beside the charr.

  “Wow, do you owe me,” Logan said.

  A second later, a huge claw latched around him. The old ogre, eyes cracked with rage, hoisted Logan into the air.

  Rytlock scrambled to his feet, grasped the ogre’s belt, and launched himself up to bury Sohothin in the creature’s heart. The blazing blade pierced the great muscle and boiled the ogre’s blood. His eyes went black; his claws opened.

  Logan tumbled to the ground.

  Rytlock landed beside him. “Now you owe me.”

  “We’re even,” Logan replied, steadying himself on the dead ogre. “I saved you, and you saved me.”

  “We aren’t even,” Rytlock snorted. “The life of a charr’s worth more than the life of a human.”

  Logan laughed. “Then by that logic, you owe me.”

  Rytlock spat a gobbet of blood, which spattered the ground. “Once I get my breath back, I’ll kill you.”

  “Yeah, me, too.” Logan spat a glob that sailed just past Rytlock’s mark.

  The charr glared at him.

  Logan said flatly, “I have to check on my troops.”

  “I as well!” Rytlock grumbled. “But I’ll still kill you afterward.”

  “Course.”

  They staggered out into the darkness of the canyon and checked for signs of life, but there were none.

  “We need more light,” Logan said.

  Rytlock rumbled, “We need pyres.”

  “Which means we need wood.”

  “Which means you gather wood.” Rytlock looked at the sword that flamed in his hand. “I’m the one who has the light.”

  Nodding wearily, Logan strode to the woods and gathered deadfall. He hoisted it and dumped it in a pile, his forehead dappled with sweat.

  “One more pyre,” Rytlock said. “Can’t burn charr with humans.”

  “True,” Logan replied. “That’d be disgusting.”

  “Hey!”

  Logan returned to the forest, gathered another armful of wood, and dumped it on the other side of the canyon. Rytlock stepped up to him, thrusting his sword into the pyre and igniting it. Then he went to the other pyre and did the same.

  “All right, then,” the charr said. “Let’s get to work.” He sheathed the blade.

  The two foes turned their backs on each other and went to gather their dead. Logan knelt above each of his fallen friends, speaking a prayer to Grenth and kissing their foreheads. Rytlock meanwhile knelt above his comrades and sang an ancient war song of the Blood Legion. He cradled the head of each warrior just as the primus of their fahrar had first cradled them—“First breath to last . . .”

  The man and the charr hoisted the fallen and carried them to the pyres and bedded them in flame.

  Soon, twin fires sent twin columns of soot into the sky.

  It was hard work—kneeling and whispering and lifting and hauling and burning—eleven humans and ten charr. And when the work was done, Logan and Rytlock staggered, bloodied and soot-blackened.

  “I suppose we have to kill each other now,” Logan said.

  “Yeah,” Rytlock replied dully.

  “You’re going to die like a dog.”

  “I’m more like a cat,” Rytlock pointed out.

  Logan shook his head. “You can’t die like a cat. They have nine lives.”

  Rytlock spread clawed arms. “That’s what it’s going to take!”

  A new voice—a woman’s voice—broke in and said, “You two have the strangest conversations.”

  GOLEMANCY

  Garm yelped—a strange sound from a dire wolf—and his claws skittered on the stone floor as he ducked back from the huge golem.

  Eir also leaped back, her mallet before her.

  “Oh, nothing to fear,” Snaff assured. He patted the golem’s metalwork ankle. The leg was articulated with arrays of aura pumps and servos. “She’s harmless.” Snaff frowned. “Well, not exactly harmless. She could kill us with one swat if she wanted to . . . but she doesn’t want to.”

  “How do you know?” Eir asked.

  “Because she doesn’t want anything,” Snaff explained. “Oh, let me show you!”

  He scrambled up onto the stone table where the golem sat, clambered onto her leg, and climbed the metal piping that crisscrossed her barrel-shaped torso. Reaching the golem’s face—Zojja’s face at five times the height—he waved his hand in front of the stone eyes. “See? Nobody’s home.”

  Garm trotted in a wide circle around the golem, watching it warily.

  Eir had not lowered her mallet, and her other hand hovered near the chisels on her belt. “But why?”

  “Why, what?” asked Snaff, lounging happily in the metal collar of the creature.

  “Why make this thing?”

  Snaff slid down the broad torso of the creature and landed on the thing’s legs. “I just feel that every golem ought to have a good head on her shoulders—especially the eighteen-foot-tall ones. Not that the Arcane Council agrees. They’re churning out golems with no heads at all—easy to build, sure, but they’re as dumb as posts. What’s the point of that?”

  “He doesn’t do anything the normal way,” Zojja noted.

  Snaff glanced fondly at his creation. “I think I’ll call her Big Zojja.”

  Normal-size Zojja stomped her foot and stared daggers at him.

  “And she’ll have quite a ferocious look when she gets into combat.”

  “Into combat?” Eir asked.

  Snaff nodded. “She’s a war machine.”

  “War machine!”

  “Why not? Wars shouldn’t be fought with flesh and blood. Somebody might get hurt. I’m hoping to revolutionize war—make it the province of golems without people involved at all. Let them bash each other’s brains out. The nation with the best golems wins.” He gestured behind him to another stone table where a second metal warrior lay. “I’m what you call a philanthropist.”

  Eir laughed. “We pronounce it profiteer.” She slung the mallet at her waist and wandered between the tables, surveying the golems.

  “They’re a special design of mine,” Snaff said. “Cephalolithopathic.”

  Zojja broke in, “It means ‘psychic blockheads.’”

  Snaff smiled patiently. “You see, these golems are designed to be fitted with massive basalt heads, which provide resonance points that channel energy into these powerstones”—he lifted what looked like a golden laurel and pointed to the small powerstones embedded around it—“which infuse the signals through the cranium of the wearer, allowing remote experience of somatic sense and reciprocal control of motor functions.”

  “Wha
t?”

  Zojja sighed. “You can control the golem with your mind.”

  “Precisely,” Snaff said. “Very experimental. No one else is even close to doing this sort of thing. It’s difficult not to wax poetic about one’s own inventions.” He carried the golden laurel to his apprentice. “Would you be so kind, my dear? After all, it does have your head.”

  “Fine,” Zojja said, taking the golden laurel. She slid it down until the ends rested on her ears and the middle cradled her skull. The moment gold contacted skin, the powerstones began to glow.

  “It’s working!” Snaff said, clapping his hands as if he had expected it wouldn’t. He turned and pointed toward the golem’s forehead. “It’s working! You see?”

  The large powerstone in the golem’s forehead glowed with crimson light. Ripples of energy spread out across the golem’s face, somehow seeming to soften the stone. When the ripples rolled across the creature’s eye, a black iris formed, and a pupil opened, shining red light.

  “It can see!” Snaff cried.

  The golem lurched up from the table, metal feet pounding stone, and took a booming step toward Eir.

  “Look out!” she shouted, and dragged Snaff back from the gigantic foot.

  Growling, Garm retreated as well.

  But Zojja stood unmoving in the path of the golem. Well, not actually unmoving. She lifted her leg, and the golem took a thunderous step toward her. She lifted her other leg, and—

  “Look out!” Eir shouted, snatching Zojja out of the path of the golem.

  The golem’s foot boomed brutally just behind Eir.

  Zojja squirmed in Eir’s grip, her feet kicking the air as if she were a child having a tantrum.

  Behind Eir, the golem broke into a loose-limbed run.

  Eir held Zojja out at arm’s length. “What’s she doing?”

  Snaff’s voice sounded distant and sad. “She’s running away.”

  Eir turned to see the huge golem bounding up the staircase, heading for the skylight above. Every kick of Little Zojja’s legs became a step for Big Zojja—who just then vaulted out of the ziggurat.

  “Help me chase her down!” Snaff shouted, running for the stairs.

  Eir glanced from him to Little Zojja, whose feet were still flailing. “What do I do with her?”

  Snaff pointed to a small door. “Lock her in the closet until we get back!”

  Carrying Little Zojja to the closet, Eir shoved her inside and slammed and locked the door. Moments later, small fists were pounding inside the closet, and big fists outside the ziggurat.

  “Hurry! The golem’s getting away!” shouted Snaff as he ambled up the stairs.

  Eir dashed up behind him and hoisted Snaff to her shoulders and vaulted through the skylight. She emerged in hot, humid Rata Sum.

  “There she is!” Eir exclaimed, pointing upward, toward the city center.

  Big Zojja climbed the stairs with the loose-limbed excitement of a child who was running naked.

  “Can we catch up?” Snaff asked dubiously.

  “Of course,” Eir replied.

  Garm shot out past her and vaulted up the switchback stairs. His black jowls hung loose as he tore past the stony slope where Master Klab had launched his puffball. Beyond it, Garm closed in on Big Zojja. He nipped at her heels, snarling.

  The golem turned her uncanny stone head down toward him, eye beams scanning. Then she broke into a real run, leaving Garm behind.

  The great wolf slowed to a stop and stood there, panting, waiting for his master to catch up. When Eir arrived, they ran on together.

  “Some would call this an anomaly,” Snaff murmured as he bounced on the norn’s shoulders. “But to have an anomaly, you have to establish a baseline.”

  Eir glanced at the inventor. “This is your baseline?”

  “I put it down to high spirits,” Snaff said with mock cheer. “When you’re used to having legs that are two feet long and suddenly have legs that are ten feet long, well, you want to take them out for a stretch, don’t you? It’s not an anomaly.”

  Just then, gongs sounded from nearby towers. The clangor spread outward until all of Rata Sum was ringing. Asura voices joined the cacophony, resolving to a single word: “A-no-ma-ly! A-no-ma-ly.”

  Snaff snarled, “Haven’t they been listening?”

  Emergency crews poured out of the sides of the cubes, looking around in shock to see what sort of mayhem had been unleashed this time.

  Big Zojja bolted onward, cracking tiles and shattering stones on the bridges. She rushed across one of the giant stone cubes, then vanished around its edge.

  “No!” Snaff shouted.

  Eir ran up to the edge of the cube and skidded to a stop, with Garm beside her. They looked down at the jungle far below.

  Snaff squeaked, “Where is she?”

  Eir blinked. “If she fell, there should be a golem-shaped hole in the jungle.”

  “She’s up there!” Snaff shouted, pointing.

  They all looked up along the slanting edge of the giant cube. There, Big Zojja teetered, heading for the top.

  “She’ll fall to her death!” Snaff shouted. “We’ve got to get up there!”

  Eir grabbed on to the side of the cube and began to climb. Garm scrambled up alongside her.

  Snaff meanwhile wrung his hands. “I’ve murdered her. That’s what I’ve done. I’ve quite simply discombobulated my apprentice. And she was a genius! Oh, wretched man that I am!”

  “Shhh,” said Eir.

  “What?”

  “Shhh! She’s just ahead.”

  At the peak of the stony slope stood Big Zojja, with legs fully extended and arms lifted high and stony face raised.

  Snaff wailed, “The posture of an idiot! I’ve reduced Zojja to an idiot!”

  “Shhhh!” Eir reiterated.

  Snaff fell silent.

  In the hush, the asura, the norn, and the dire wolf watched breathlessly as a great white puffball drifted up over the edge of the pyramid. Wind-filled bags of silk surrounded the terrified figure of Master Klab. At the base of the puffball, a dozen or so skyhooks hung, testimony to the failure of rescue krewes.

  Big Zojja stood on the block of stone, lifted her golemic arms, snagged a few of the skyhooks, and hauled down.

  The moment that the puffball reached the top of the pyramid, Master Klab unbuckled his harness and fell at Big Zojja’s feet. “Thank you! Thank you! Where is your master? Where is your creator?”

  Snaff stepped up behind the bowing man and tapped him on the butt. “Ahem. That would be me.”

  Master Klab looked behind him and managed to sputter, “Oh, yes! My good friend Snaff.”

  “Good friend?” Snaff replied.

  “Well, friend is not so much the word. More like role model. Even idol.” Klab wore a sick smile and seemed to throw up in his mouth.

  “Really, Klab, I think you might be wise to give up larking about in the sky. A bit dangerous, don’t you think?”

  “A bit,” Master Klab allowed as he mopped the cold sweat from his forehead. “Maybe I should go back to my study of frostometrics.”

  “Yes, excellent idea. Iceboxes are more your speed.” Snaff turned toward Big Zojja. “Come along, now. Let’s head back to the laboratory for a few more adjustments.” The golem nodded and followed its master. Once they were out of earshot of Klab, Snaff began to mutter, “I’ve got to solve the problem of spacial dislocation experienced by the pilot—that and the business about flailing legs and arms and all the dangers they present. Can’t just be locking pilots into closets . . . unless they were mobile . . .”

  “What are you talking about?” Eir asked, regaining her breath.

  “Mobile closets,” Snaff muttered, grinning.

  Eir blinked. “I don’t know what that is.”

  “A cage—no, a cockpit. We’ll put it in the abdomen—you know, with a harness and all so that the driver can kick her legs and punch her arms as much as she likes and ride along in safety!”

  Eir no
dded. “You think you could make these machines controllable?”

  “Of course.”

  “Because, in wartime, a machine has to be completely in control.”

  “Yes, of course,” Snaff replied, adding innocently, “What’s this about?”

  “You have these . . . hypercephalic—”

  “Cephalolithopathic.”

  “Yes . . . these golems that people can control with their minds. And I need warriors who can fight the Dragonspawn—”

  “Your point being?”

  The norn sighed. “Here’s what I propose: I’ll carve your head, so you can have a golem just like your assistant, if you’ll agree to march these golems against the Dragonspawn as your . . . um, what do you call it?”

  “Beta test?”

  “Right.”

  The asura inventor sighed contentedly. “It’s just the sort of arrangement I had hoped for.”

  STRANGER DANGER

  Who said that?” Logan asked, silencing Rytlock with an upraised hand. “Listen.”

  Only the crackling fires spoke in the dark canyon. Neither warrior could hear anything else, let alone see beyond the pyres.

  “Wasn’t me,” Rytlock growled. “Sounded womanish.”

  “It was womanish,” said the voice.

  Rytlock and Logan drew their weapons.

  Logan stepped away from the pyres, war hammer ready in his hand. “Who is it? Show yourself!”

  “I am showing myself,” the woman replied flatly. “I’m standing right here. The problem is you’re fire-blinded. If you want to see me, step away from the light.”

  “Yeah, right,” Rytlock snarled.

  “Why don’t you step into the light?” Logan asked.

  “You want all three of us to be fire-blinded?”

  “Yes.”

  There was a sigh. Then she emerged from the veiling darkness—a petite woman with silvery hair and porcelain skin. She wore glossy travel leathers crossed with vine motifs, which clung tight to her young body. Her spike-heeled boots also looked like dark seedpods, lifting her three inches taller than she would have stood.

  “A sylvari,” groaned Rytlock. “Always trouble.”

  Logan stepped toward her. “What are you doing here?”