Ascendant: Chronicles of the Red Lion

by F. C. Reed

  “I take that back,” Mirell commented with an impressed nod. “I guess they don’t completely paralyze, but do enough of a suitable job for me to walk away.”

  Zerosa shook the stars from her vision and hoisted herself up on one knee.

  “Stay down, Zerosa,” said Mirell. “I don’t want to hurt you anymore than I already have. But to be quite honest, I couldn’t care less about you. I’ve just come for the clone and her infinity particle.” She gestured to Amalia, a look of pure disgust on her face. “Look at her. Do you think that pathetic lump of guts and flesh is worthy of something so powerful?”

  Zerosa had been in the plane far too long without finding time to regenerate, and now she was paying for it. The timing could not have been worse. She struggled to stand. Joints ached and stiffened. Every point of pressure created by the Tanzo technique crushed her into submission, but that did not stop her from pushing herself to her feet. She staggered over to Amalia and pulled out a small translocation disk. She thumbed the button and held it between the two of them. It blinked rhythmically.

  Mirell grit her teeth as she glared at Zerosa’s efforts. “I hate to leave a job undone, but gods-be-damned, woman. You are nothing if not annoying,” she snarled. As she gathered herself to advance on them, her hands shot up to her neck, and she silently cursed herself for making such a careless mistake.

  Kharius gripped Mirell from behind, an arm wrapped uncomfortably around her neck. She barely struggled, feeling the coolness of the aethermechanical arm against her throat and knowing the other-humanly strength he could apply if he wanted. Instead, he whispered to her, his face pressed against her ear.

  “Back. Off.” Kharius said.

  “You can’t be serious.” Mirell laughed through a strained cough. “You too? The whole realm wants her, it seems.”

  Kharius glanced down the corridor only to find no sign of Zerosa and Amalia. In the time it took for him to check for the two fugitives, Mirell wrenched his elbow and wrist away from her, and twisted his arm behind him. Purring into his ear as a playful taunt, she pushed him away from her and made ready to give chase.

  Kharius stumbled back and instantly pulled his pistol. The single shot pitted the metal wall across from Mirell. She stopped and turned, annoyed at her hand having been forced, but also amused. “Is that an invitation to pool our resources and work together?”

  “Like hells it is,” replied Kharius.

  Mirell faced him slowly. “In that case, the sky marshal doesn’t take kindly to traitorous acts. I’ll be sure to give her my account of your interference. She’ll turn you over to the Imperium for this.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time,” Kharius mumbled. “She won’t believe a word you’re saying, anyway.”

  “You underestimate her trust in me,” Mirell shot back.

  Kharius sighed. “And how much do you think she will trust you after I show her the optic video I recorded of your inability to apprehend a defenseless clone?” He tapped his glasses with a finger and smirked. “But I also know firsthand, pardon the pun, how kindly she takes to failure as well. We’re both pawns to the queen. For now. Except you work for her and I do not.” He flexed his aethermechanical arm instinctively, as though the shriveled remnants pained him physically at the memory of losing it. “Checkmate, love.”

  Mirell clenched her teeth, but tried to stay relaxed. She hated being at a disadvantage.

  “Look,” Kharius said after a moment. “Zerosa Valinne is already a fugitive, and she escaped with Amalia. That’s no lie. I’m a man of principle. We both stand to lose something over this, so I recommend you go your way, and I will go mine and nobody has to know what really happened here. You have my word.”

  Mirell raised an eyebrow. “What good is that?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said, turning. “Especially since you have little choice.”

  Mirell crossed her arms in resignation. “If our paths ever cross again, and you are in my way—

  “Yeah, yeah,” Kharius droned as he walked away. “Save your threats for someone who will feel threatened by them.”

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Momentarily she felt weightless. The blast sent her senses reeling. Her ears rang and the temporary flash to white followed by blindness prompted extreme care in reorienting herself to her surroundings. Her shoulder and hip ached where she fell on them. Other than some bruising that was bound to turn purple overnight and plague her with pain in the morning, she was intact. Both she and Zerosa rolled to a stop. The cold, metallic floor and walls suppressed their groans as she pushed herself to standing while Zerosa, although still breathing, barely moved.

  Rain pattered on a tin roof somewhere and dripped from holes in the ceiling to puddle up in the corners. The air tingled as if charged with electricity, and the smell was a potent mix of sulfur and kerosene. A series of lights clicked on, starting with the ones overhead. As more lights cascaded on, an octagonal room took shape. Against a far wall stood one female flanked by two males. The shadows in the room’s corner clung to the group’s features, revealing very little at first.

  After a moment, the woman stepped closer and into the light. Even through the haze of fatigue and disorientation, Amalia still recoiled from the woman’s death-like appearance. Her skin appeared a dry, leathery gray, with tiny, red hairline cracks which branched over her forehead and cheeks like small channels of lava. It looked painful. Graying hair fell around her face and shoulders in thick dreadlocks banded with loops of metal. The loose leather trench coat was filthy and sported burn holes in some places. Her equally worn leather thigh boots, with straps from ankle to knee, hid several daggers, the blades of which rested against her legs.

  She held out her right hand in greeting, since the left one clutched a rusted shotgun. The mangled and discolored fingers resembled more of a beastly claw than a human hand. Pale pink lips spread into a slight grin.

  “You finally made it,” the woman said in a gravelly, strained voice.

  “What’s the shotgun for?” Amalia asked quickly as she was ushered to her feet.

  The woman chuckled. “Insurance,” she said. With a snap of her wrist, the woman brought the barrels up to Amalia’s face. “Does it frighten you?”

  Amalia said nothing, but without so much as a blink, continued to stare the woman in the eye.

  The woman studied Amalia for a moment, a corner of her mouth turned up in a grin. “Interesting. Little to no fear,” she said aloud, but to no one in particular. “They would make that change. It seems fitting for someone who would lead an army tasked with saving the aethersphere. At any rate,” the woman continued, “it’s nice to see you again, Amalia.”

  Amalia tore her eyes away from the woman’s face and looked at the gnarled limb, then back to her face. The bright, white, almost glowing eyes were unmistakable. Amalia gasped. “You. You’re the lady.” She fought with the memory. “The old lady at my door,” Amalia recalled after encountering the strange, glowing eyes again. “You poisoned me and made me a target.” She tensed with anger at the memory of being chased like a fox in a field of hounds.

  “Only to force them to bring you here.” The woman nodded. “And here is the truth of it all. I’m sure you know by now, but your life history was staged. Memories written by a soul weaver. You may know the cranky old bastard. Emotional stability carefully tailored. Relationships built for you without effort. An unfortunate shame, really. I liked your parents, who, incidentally, were my parents at one point as well. Kind of makes us sisters.”

  The two men moved to assist the semi-conscious Zerosa after the woman signaled for them to help her up. They pulled her to her feet and helped her out of the room. “My story was pretty much the same as yours, except it was fencing at New Jersey Institute of Technology, not lacrosse at UPenn. And our mother would also banter on about Duke and Princeton and Cornell. My crush was a guy by the name of Joseph Bailey. Now that I think back on it, he was nothing more than a godzillaturd.”

  Amalia ra
ised an eyebrow. “You’re not as serious as I remember.”

  “Idioms from the distant past. I love them. They’re too cute.” She chuckled to herself. “Douchebaggery.” She smiled while saying it. “Another of my favorites. The sky marshal’s douchebaggery nearly foiled our plans.”

  “Yes, thank you. I know the term. Use it myself on occasion,” Amalia said. “Distant past?”

  “Yes. Distant past. This is nowhere near the century you think it is. Anyway, I was also brain-trained by Marchand, like you, and they gave me the ‘save the planes’ speech more times than I could count. I think that’s the only thing they didn’t lie about or implant into my psyche. The planes are in danger of being consumed by the black, and somebody has to stop it. I just decided at some point that it wouldn’t be me.”

  “All the more reason to ally with Strann instead of conspire against her,” Amalia shrugged.

  The woman paused to think. “In theory, sure. But Strann didn’t like me too much, though.”

  “Really? She wasn’t your grandmother? In the simulated life, I mean.”

  “Hells no. I would have shot myself in the face. We didn’t get along. At. All. She likes order, discipline, and obedience. I don’t. And I really gave them a case of the green hells after I figured out what was going on. Still do from time to time. They haven’t figured out how to keep me from shifting into their plane. Which is why they kneecapped you with that stupid keystone. Didn’t want to make the same mistake twice. And before you ask, the sky marshal at the time was someone more respectable. Not that wretched excuse for a bitch they have now.”

  Amalia frowned as the woman leaned in. “Who are you?” she asked.

  “My name is Karra Zendrigoss. Some call me the beast, while others call me things I dare not repeat in the presence of company. I was once in the same dream as you. Then I woke up. A little too early, I might add. Then there were those who didn’t like the fact that I was self aware.”

  “Well, everyone seems to be afraid of you, from what I could tell,” Amalia said.

  “They should be,” Karra said, leading her out of the room. “I am the resistance.” Then she fanned her hands outward toward the innards of the super-warehouse. “We are the resistance. The rock in every shoe. The grain of sand in every eye.”

  “Who are you fighting? Or rebelling against? I can’t figure either way.” Amalia sank deeper into confusion.

  Karra shrugged. “Everyone,” she said, almost sounding sad. “The Legion. The Crimson Bloodguard. The Commander General. The Primus. Or now the Executor. Our lives are artificial, yours and mine. We really don’t matter. So we fight to matter and hopefully topple some regimes while we are at it.”

  Amalia held her hand to her chest. “I feel real enough.”

  “You’re a clone. You’re a clone of Ryna Nysnvor Strann, meant to be front and center. She’s dying, the clever old cow. There is no vessel for the infinity particle. That’s why you were created. That’s why I was created. A jar of flesh to hold the infinity particle, and in the meantime, to do their bidding until they find a more permanent solution. They probably told you how you have to save the planes, and all that nonsense, but now that I have pulled you behind the scenes, you can witness what the aethersphere truly is.” She opened her arms and shrugged. “It is, without a doubt, a wretched hive of scum and villainy, and all that.”

  Amalia smiled at the reference to her favorite movie. “So what happened to you? I mean, your face and your arm.”

  “Strann and Marchand wanted faster results, so they extracted DNA from you and accelerated its development. Technically, that means I’m you. My rapid development failed and brought about a lot of unwanted attention.”

  She held up the twisted arm and pointed to her equally twisted face. “This,” she said, “was the work of the exorcists. The Imperium. They said they would help me. They said they would save me. What they did was liberate me. Ripped me away from my reality and believe me it wasn’t easy letting that go. And yes, Strann and Marchand and that arsehole Valister Argos handed me right over to them.” Her knuckles whitened around the rail she leaned against. “Express delivery directly to the grand high cultist Imperium leader Marcus Brannick himself.”

  Amalia cringed. “And that’s what destroyed your features?”

  Karra nodded. “Everything under the aethersphere must balance. Tit for tat. To free my mind, I had to give up something else. I was just as beautiful as you once. Perfect in my own way. But you… You were the pure and untouched and untampered. Nearly two decades of development with no one the wiser. You were so perfect. You are perfect. It’s no wonder why everyone wants to get their hands on you.”

  “What would anyone want with me?” Amalia asked, trying to steer clear of the whole ‘perfect’ conversation. It made her stomach tighten, and no doubt flushed her face.

  “Depends on who you ask. Some want to ally with you and some against you. Some want to put you in power. Some want to eliminate you to preserve their own power. Some want to worship you. Some want to banish you back to the green hells from whence you came. Some want to pull you apart, cell by cell, and study your consciousness and biology. Some want to pull you apart to get at that infinity particle. Some want to make you a hero or a martyr or a queen or a war general. Some want to clone you and then alter their clones in whatever way fitting. Because you are the perfect clone. The tabula rasa upon which anything can be written. And that, quite frankly, scares the green hells out of me.”

  “And what is it you want? After having made such an effort to free me, surely there must be something.”

  Karra smiled. “I give you an opportunity to fully engage the world around you and all the planes at your disposal. An opportunity to choose your own direction.”

  “You didn’t answer my question,” Amalia said sharply.

  Karra’s smile faded, and she focused on Amalia for a time. “I saw fit to liberate you, and I did. I want nothing from you other than an acknowledgment of that.”

  She shook her head. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I’ve been used so much. Makes it hard to figure out who to trust.”

  “Trust no one,” replied Karra. “That seems to be the simplest and surest way these days.”

  “Not even you?”

  “I, for one, would not blame you if you didn’t,” a familiar voice said. Amalia spun around. “I often question her motives myself.”

  “Dorrian?” Amalia questioned. “What are you doing here? Wait. Who is in charge?”

  “It’s Dorran, actually,” he corrected. “And we have no set leader. Karra coordinates our efforts and we decide on what we would like to involve ourselves in and how we would like to do it. Walk with us, Amalia.”

  Amalia glanced at Karra. “I thought he was friends with Strann,” she whispered.

  Karra gave no response.

  “Do not mistake obedience for loyalty,” Dorran said. “Protecting this realm always comes first. And as far as the Commander General goes, that is her utmost of priorities. She has lost her way, but there really is no time to get into that.” He held out a hand, signaling her to continue walking. “Bastille still marches for the heartlands. We can’t let him taint anymore than he has. This plane will be strangled to death by the black if he succeeds. We now know what he’s been waiting all these years for.”

  Karra continued. “Of the nine planes, Harkhemenes is all but destroyed. We believe Bastille is saving its destruction for later because it’s a defenseless wreck, and therefore an easy target. If three more planes fall, any three planes, then the aethersphere will be thrown out of alignment. The aetherverse will cease to sustain life as we know it.”

  “Oh, is that all?” Amalia said with a sarcastic shrug. “Seriously though, if that’s the case, then why isn’t everyone working together?”

  “That would be most sensible,” Dorran began. “However, those interested in you and the infinity particle have very differing theories about what is happening to the aethersphere and the aet
herverse, and as a result, very differing solutions on how to maintain the balance.”

  “But nearly all of those solutions involve the greater part of you,” Karra added.

  “Even your solution?” Amalia asked. “Which, by the way, hasn’t passed me by that there is no truth here. Only speculation and opinion. That means your solution, if that’s what you’re calling it, could be wrong too. So why should I believe you’re right, and everyone else is wrong?”

  Karra sighed audibly. “We will only ask you to join with us, not force you.”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard that before.” Amalia thought for a moment as she looked out over the balcony. “I don’t know where I start and where I end. I’m without meaning and purpose for myself and without a life of my own. A clever collection of images and memories with emotions attached to them. Clone.”

  “Clone or otherwise, are we not all the same?” Dorran asked without turning. “Are we not all a clever collection of images and memories with emotions attached to them?”

  Amalia nodded after some thought. She could not argue with that.

  Karra took over. “Stay alive, for one. There will be many people looking for you. They won’t come here. You’re safe on this plane, but also can do nothing from here.”

  “Wait. I thought shifting planes was exclusive to the Munara Tai?”

  “More bullshit. Smoke and mirrors. More lies. Shifting planes is definitely easier for you, but not impossible for others. There are ways. The aethersphere would never allow for such a heavy tip of the scales otherwise.” Kara shook her head. “Most of what you think is true was a carefully crafted script, down to every detail of your time on Earth’s Philadelphia. Marchand is that good of a soul weaver. Don’t forget that.”

  Amalia vowed that she wouldn’t. And also vowed to confront Ryna and Marchand and all the rest, as soon as she could.

  “You will have to venture out into the other planes, and that puts you directly in the path of danger. Your bloodsteel weapon. You’ll need that. The khydrid longsteed who acknowledged you in the livery. You’ll need him. And we must, at some point, retrieve Thanial Dumiir. These are all instruments customized for you, for very specific purposes. The lot of us have worked for years to set this in motion.”