by Alex Raizman
“Uh…yes?” Haradeth half said, half asked.
The creature clicked its beak together a few times, a sound that Haradeth took for amusement, then its form began to run like hot wax. It was somewhat like watching a Sylvani turn from a human form to their native form, but in many ways more disturbing. Haradeth looked away, unable to stomach the sight of the transformation.
When the disturbingly wet sucking sound of the Lost transforming completed, it was standing on three of its arms like a tripod, and had four more of the arms arranged haphazardly around its torso. The eye had split into four smaller eyes, each on the end of tendrils that looked in all direction. The beak was now located in the center of the tendril eyes “But do you really?” it whispered.
Before Haradeth could even attempt to answer, it began to scurry up the wall, clicking its beak in that odd parody of laughter the entire time. “Light and Shadow and all the Little Gods,” Haradeth whispered. “Are they all like that?” As if to punctuate the question, that sound started again from where the wall met ceiling and the Lost had come to rest. Haradeth didn’t look to see what amalgamation of flesh and limbs it would become this time.
Lorathor shook his head. “Some are more stable than others. Both physically and mentally.”
“And this…the Tarnished One? She’s more stable?”
“Oh, no,” Lorathor said with a grim laugh. “She’s not one of the Lost. Can you imagine trying to get aid from one of them?”
From the corner of the room, Haradeth heard rapid fire clicks. Lorathor’s smile grew thinner as the Lost laughed at their discomfort.
“I…no, I cannot.”
“Beware! Beware! The Third Moon Wanes in the Silver Coal,” the lost chanted from its hiding spot. Lorathor motioned for Haradeth to follow him.
Haradeth did his best to ignore that voice, instead focusing on Lorathor. “Then what is the Tarnished One?”
“The last of our gods,” Lorathor said, his voice grim now. “Though now I wonder what she truly is, in light of Anotira’s revelation. “I do know she’s ancient. She’s claimed to be as old as Anotira, and since no one has ever contradicted her on it…” Lorathor gave another one of those small shrugs.
He’d been doing a lot of those lately, and Haradeth just now thought to really worry about what the revelations of the past few days were doing to his friend. The Sylvani had been bitter since the revelation that his goddess was a lattice-mind that had brought his people here from another world, which Haradeth could understand. Underlying that bitterness, however, was an apathy that Haradeth found truly troubling. “I hope she has some answers for us,” Haradeth said, trying to be as reassuring as possible.
“She probably won’t,” Lorathor said. “But you wanted to waste our time, Haradeth. The sooner you realize that, the sooner we can be on our way.”
Haradeth again found himself at a loss for words. Silence settled between them as the sound of clicking laughter followed them down the hallway.
Chapter 19
It was only a few minutes after their first encounter with the Lost that Haradeth and Lorathor reached where the Tarnished One dwelled. Along the walk they’d encountered a few other of the Lost. One had simply sat with his multiple arms wrapped around himself, muttering Ancient Alohym. Another had seen them and started screaming, a scream that didn’t stop until they were out of sight. So it had gone, every encounter with the Lost something that left Haradeth wanting to weep for what happened to these people. This isn’t right.
That much, Haradeth was certain of. Whatever the natural life cycle of the Sylvani was supposed to be, it wasn’t supposed to end in madness and screams. Every one of the individuals they’d encountered – even the first one, although Haradeth had been too distracted to notice at the time – had a sickness to their aura, like an animal that had been infected with frothmouth. I wish my mother was here. She’d been able to cure even that rabid illness with a brush of her fingers. Haradeth did not yet have any talent for the healing arts, unless they were caused by parasites. Then he could command the creatures to leave the body. Beyond that…beyond that, he could do nothing for these people.
Whatever else happened, Haradeth resolved to drag his mother back here as soon as she was recovered. If she recovers a traitorous thought rose in his mind, one he squashed as quickly as he could.
Instead, he focused on the Tarnished One’s dwelling. It was built out of pieces of the dome city, torn from walls and floors and assembled into its own, smaller, dome that was a ramshackle imitation of the splendor above. A few buzzing things floated in the air around it, shining tiny spotlights. Each one was as large as Haradeth’s fingers and no more alive than the dome itself.
For that matter, he could sense no life coming from the dome. Whatever the Tarnished One was, she wasn’t alive.
Lorathor approached the door and reached into his pouch, pulling out a dagger. “O Tarnished One, She Who Guards the Tomb, Keeper of our Twilight. I bring you a gift from Outside, a gift of Iron wrought by the hands of Men.”
An apparatus folded out of the top of the dome, a multisegmented arm made of the Sylvani’s green flowing metal. At the end of the apparatus was a glass eye, like the ones built into spy glasses. Slips of metal around the edge of the apparatus dilated as it focused on the dagger, then it retreated into the dome.
“Did she-” Haradeth started to say after thirty seconds of waiting, but Lorathor shook his head.
“Just wait. It can take a bit.”
It was at least a full minute that felt like ten before a hole in the side of the dome creaked open. A brilliant light shone from those depths. A lumwell, Haradeth realized with a start. Lorathor motioned for him to enter.
The interior of the dome was easily a dozen sizes larger than the Exterior. It made Haradeth’s head hurt to look at. What he had taken for a lumwell was actually something different, a box of steel with dozens of glass lenses on it that floated in the center of the room, spinning erratically. The rest of the room was full of an assortment of knick-knacks, random scraps from the world outside. Haradeth saw a child’s doll, a treatise on the Golmiran Federation, and a shield that was dented beyond use.
Then the Tarnished One stepped from behind the box of light. “Oh! Hello!” she said, her voice bright and chipper and undeniably mechanical. The Tarnished One was a mass of woven tendrils of what looked like solid gold that had dark spots of tarnish. Haradeth assumed that’s where she got her name. She was shaped broadly like the small monkeys that dwelled in the jungle to the south, although in place of a prehensile tail she had three additional arms, each one nearly twice as long as she was. Most surprising to Haradeth was her size – she was small, barely coming up to Haradeth’s waist. “Lorathor! You brought a friend. And a present. I like your present. I’ve never seen a stabby-slicey with that shape before.”
Stabby-slicey? Haradeth thought as Lorathor presented the dagger. The Tarnished One took it and made a gentle cooing sound as she cradled it like a newborn. “I’m going to call it Murderface.”
“Why that name, O Tarnished one?” Lorathor asked.
“Because it’s been used to murder someone. In the face.” Her mechanical lips spread in a wide grin. “Can I stab you in the face?” she asked, her tone one of a child asking if she could have an extra helping of sweets.
“I would prefer if you didn’t, Tarnished One.”
“Bah,” she said, crossing her arms across. “No one ever lets me stab them.” She turned those glass eyes on Haradeth. “How about you? Can I stab you?”
Haradeth frowned. “What about a tiny stab, on the tip of my finger?” He extended the digit towards her.
Lorathor gasped in horror as The Tarnished One squealed with glee and thrust the dagger towards Haradeth’s outstretched hand. For a moment he thought he’d made a grave mistake, and that she was about to split his finger in two. Inches from his finger, the strike slowed down, until it pricked the tip and drew a tiny bead of blood. “Huzzah!” she cheered, bounc
ing up and down. “I got to stab someone!” She repeated the chant in a singsong voice a few times, before putting the tip of the dagger in her mouth. “Ooooh, your blood is tasty. This is a special blend. You’re three fourths mortal-and one quarter Alohym.”
Haradeth’s blood ran cold. “I’m…I’m not a quarter Alohym.”
“Well, of course not,” she said, giving him a conspiratorial wink. Haradeth sighed with relief, before she continued. “Genetics are never that precise. You’re technically nineteen percent Alohym.”
“That’s impossible!” Haradeth fought the urge to shout, but his voice came out sharp and hard. “I was born before the Alohym invaded.”
“No, silly.” The Tarnished One giggled, holding a hand to her mouth. “Not those imposters. They’re not real Alohym. Real Alohym were awesome. Which makes you nineteen percent awesome. That’s a better percent than most people.”
Haradeth stared at her. “You mean…my mother was half Ancient Alohym?”
The Tarnished One giggled again. “Of course, stabby man. Man who got stabbed. I stabbed you.” She grinned up at him. “I mean, where do you think your Little Gods come from?”
Haradeth gaped at her. Less than three minutes into the conversation with this murderous child made of gold and glass, and he’d already learned something about the way the universe worked. Something he’d never imagined.
“So…” Haradeth swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. “You’re claiming the Ancient Alohym bred with mortals to create the Little Gods?”
The Tarnished One sighed. “No. No no no no. Do you even listen?” She brandished the dagger at Haradeth. “Maybe I should make your ears bigger so you can hear better.”
“I’d prefer if you didn’t,” Haradeth said, taking a step back.
“Of course you would. You’d be all ‘oh no, why? My ears!? You little psycho, what did you do my ears?’ That’s what everyone says when I stab them in the ears.” The Tarnished One glared at Haradeth. “I don’t understand you fleshy things. What’s a little ear stabbing between friends?”
Haradeth just stared at her.
“Right, the Ancient Alohym bred with mortals. Thus, you got the Little Gods.”
“Wait, I’m confused,” Haradeth said, fighting the urge to clamp his hands over his ears for protection. “I thought you weren’t claiming that?”
“I’m not,” she said, crossing her arms across her chest and glowering. “I don’t claim the sky is blue, I don’t claim water is wet, I don’t claim it would take two hundred stones of pressure to splatter your skull. Those are just facts.” The Tarnished One cocked her head in thought. “, since you’re part Alohym, it would take two hundred and twenty-seven stones. I think. I guess that one is a claim.” She glowered at Haradeth harder. “And I know if I ask, you’re going to say ‘no, I don’t want my skull shattered hard enough to spray my brains across the room.’”
“That’s…true.” Haradeth took another step back and glanced at Lorathor. From the way the Sylvani was grinning, this was expected behavior. “I apologize if I made it sound like that wasn’t a fact. It just…I was under the impression that all of the Little Gods were descended from Arantimah.”
“Arantimah was just the word humans used for Alohym who stayed behind,” the Tarnished One said, rolling her eyes. Given her eyes were glass spheres in sockets, it was a rather impressive roll. “That’s like claiming that Eylohir is some kind of dark god as opposed to an appropriation of our ancient foes’ name that was repurposed and degraded into a term systemic corruption to our systems brought about by exposure to Nahrah.”
Haradeth glanced at Lorathor for clarification, thinking the Sylvani was less likely to stab him for asking than The Tarnished One. “Remember?” Lorathor prompted. “Anortia mentioned Eylohir yesterday. Said it was a name for…wait.” Lorathor’s gaze switched the Tarnished One. “It’s a name for what? And exposure to…Nahrah?”
“Oh, Lorathor.” The Tarnished One said brightly. “Maybe your ears need stabbing. Eylohir is the term for the corruption to all of the ship’s operational systems. Eylohir was also the name of your gods in ages past, which was later repurposed by the beings you now call Alohym when they decimated your home world. It seems that these beings are fond of repurposing gods and presenting themselves as such.”
Haradeth was beginning to feel like he was drowning in new information. “I hear you, oh Tarnished One,” Haradeth said carefully, “but I do not understand.”
“It’s a flaw in your brain,” The Tarnished One sighed. “I can give you a better brain, but then you’d be all ‘I exist to serve, mistress’ and ‘what is thy bidding, mistress’ and that gets no fun. They don’t even scream when I stab them.”
It was now time for both Haradeth and Lorathor to take steps back in tandem. The Tarnished One rolled her eyes again and sat on the floor. “Look. No stabbing. I’d have to stand up to stab you because you’re very tall. I suppose I could stab in you in the shins, but I already stabbed Haradeth once and stabbing Lorathor would just make you leave. Now. Shut up and let me explain.”
A beam of light erupted from the box floating in the center of the room. It crystalized into a globe, an image of the world. Haradeth gasped at the sight.
“This is your world. Most worlds in the cosmos are made of rock and metals – except for gaseous worlds, but those would blow your mind even further, so we won’t talk about them.” She waved her hand, and the image changed. It now showed the world cut in half. It appeared to be layers and layers of rock, over a central chamber nearly big enough to house a second world. “Some time before we arrived on your world, the Ancient Alohym fought a battle with some threat, an immensely powerful being. The Ancient Alohym won, but in the process, this powerful being drank all your molten stuff in the center of your world.”
The Tarnished One made a slurping noise to demonstrate, then raised a finger and pointed at the globe. “This is what should have happened.”
Before Haradeth’s eyes, the image of the world collapsed under its own weight, shards of rock shooting outwards. He felt the need to swallow again.
“As awesome as a world collapsing would have been, the Ancient Alohym weren’t okay with that. So instead, they turned their bodies into Nahrah and plunged themselves into the world.” A sudden sphere of light appeared in the center of the hollowed-out globe. “In a few places, the pressure of Nahrah was so great, it pushed through all that rock and poked out of the ground. These are what you call…”
“…Lumwells,” Haradeth finished for her, realization dawning on him. “Nahrah is light.”
“Yay you can think. That’s good. Means I don’t need to fix your brain.” the Tarnished One grinned widely at him. “Yes. Your people came to call it light. With a sun above and the world being full of light, it’s no wonder you all worshipped the abstract concepts of Light and Shadow so hard that you attracted their personifications.”
“Wait,” Haradeth started to say, but was cut out by a dagger being pressed to his throat. He hadn’t even seen her move. She was holding herself off the ground on two of her hand tails, and a third one had wrapped around Haradeth’s waist, holding him close to her.
“No. I’m not explaining that. It’ll take too long. Whimper if you understand.” Her voice was a low, rasping sound.
Haradeth couldn’t have stopped himself from whimpering if he wanted to.
The Tarnished One grinned and carefully pressed her metal lips to his forehead in something akin to a kiss before bouncing off. “Now, as I was saying,” she said. “The light in the center of the world is the result of an ancient ritual the Ancient Alohym performed to keep your world aloft, by constantly healing and replenishing it. Which is why it mutates life so badly. A few remaining mated with mortals to ensure their bloodlines survived, and those created the Little Gods. Are you following me so far?”
