A Space Oddity

by J. J. Pavlov

  For the past two centuries, champions of the gods had been selected from among the populace. Members of the magic academy in Vertex Mundia had once again been invited to Orthum's sanctum in the recent winters. At the same time, others returned after many decades of service under the Mage of the Beginning. They went on to serve as lectors at the academy.

  After questioning some of those with all the persuasiveness she had, Aurelia learned that the sanctum was a floating fortress traveling across the world while hidden among the clouds. It housed over a hundred champions from various nations, including the Mineva Republic and even the pharaonic nation of Ammenhotep in the far-south of Enorath.

  The Kingdom of Terminus had, under the orders of the prime minister rather than Aurelia's, begun establishing a foothold in Ceogath shortly after the latter's victory over Rannoz and his army. The Dominion of Rannoz had crumbled after his death, and rivaling tribes were vying for supremacy once again.

  There, somebody had spotted Orthum's sanctum not long ago, and the Golden Queen understood that he was going to create a new wave of demons. She had made her choice, and there was no turning back now.

  Opening Vanadia's mausoleum and taking out the golden casket containing her skeletal remains onto a small boat which she gilded with a touch, she floated it up into the sky. Aurelia took her along on this journey because they had been together on every single one since they first met. It was most likely her last one, so a funerary boat was the perfect vessel for that purpose. She would helm it toward the ruin that awaited her, but she would not be alone.

  Traveling across the sky toward Ceogath at speeds no human had ever achieved before, Aurelia single-mindedly searched for the sanctum. She would confront the so-called Mage of the Beginning and have him confirm Fimbria and Lucerna's tale with his very mouth. If he refused, she would pour liquid gold down his throat until his stomach ruptured.

  When she finally discovered the sanctum in the eye of a storm, she understood the difference in power between humans and these false gods. It was a massive, cube-like structure as tall as a mountain. The fact that it could hang in the sky unmoving while a storm raged around it - if it was not created by it in the first place - evidenced the fact that this went beyond any human's understanding of magic. She may have been able to manipulate gold with a mere thought, but she could never move a mountain of it like that.

  Whispering final words of affection toward the casket in which Vanadia laid, Aurelia prepared herself for destruction and charged head-first into Orthum's sanctum through its black walls. To her surprise, she was not met with resistance or even instant death, but living horrors.

  Humans and demons alike were working side by side, their eyes and movements lifeless, entire limbs replaced with metal, tools for fingers, and lenses for eyes. She had entered a service area - one the champions she had questioned must have never seen, or they would have told her of this.

  No, those who had seen it were most likely among these unholy creations now.

  Making her way through the seemingly endless corridors, Aurelia finally entered an area that appeared ancient in comparison. There were humans wearing clothes familiar to her walking around while conversing, casting magic without speaking, and reading books on arcane knowledge. Men and women from the Kingdom of Lares, Mineva Republic, and Ammenhotep were living side by side peacefully despite the political differences between the nations they hailed from.

  Everybody was surprised to see the queen of Terminus, whose appearance was well-known throughout the nations of man. In return, she recognized some of their faces, they were promising students from the academy of Vertex Mundia. She had seen them off only a few winters ago when they were selected as champions. Relief at the thought that she may have found allies yet came over her.

  In her misfortune - or maybe luck - Orthum was gone from his sanctum, so she did not have to fear immediate retribution for her break-in. It gave her time to speak to the champions, and inform them of the truth regarding the holy sanctum in which they lived blissfully unaware of its underside.

  They were rendered speechless when they were led inside the bowels of the flying fortress. Horror and pity overcame them, for both humans and demons; this was not something living beings should be subjected to.

  With this revelation, Aurelia knew that they would be more receptive when the time came to tell them of her encounter with Fimbria and Lucerna. Many could not believe it even after what they saw, but those from her kingdom decided to stand by her side no matter what she decided.

  That was when Fimbria entered the flying fortress and lent credence to the unbelievable tale with her dark but undeniably divine presence - despite her denial of her godhood. She used her knowledge of the ancient language to access what she called the sanctum's spirit. Through moving paintings on the wall, she showed them proof of the gods' falsehood.

  The human champions unanimously decided to abandon their belief in the false gods. The Witch of the End informed them that the source of their powers could be found on the moon; they would be able to turn them into mortals and punish them for their crimes. Aurelia stirred their morale with the promise of greatness; their actions would be written in history and spoken of millennia from now.

  Before the Mage of the Beginning could return, Fimbria steered the flying fortress higher into the sky and eventually cleared the clouds. As they floated into the darkness above, she began to teach the humans how to operate the sanctum's arcane technology.

  On an exploration walk through the fortress, Aurelia discovered the breeding vats of all kinds of new demons. Among them was one that stood separated from all others, and contained a horned being, not unlike Vanadia. She had already believed Fimbria when she said that the demons - and with them, the love of her life - were but creations born from Orthum's boredom. But with certainty before her eyes, she very nearly broke down in tears. Only blaring horns going off all around her pulled her from the edge of sad reminiscence and back to the present.

  When she arrived in the command room, Fimbria informed her that the original owner of the sanctum had come to reclaim it. His face appeared on the wall, visibly angry that the humans had stolen his property. It would appear that he spoke to them from a vessel shaped like a triangle a distance away, which was poised to attack.

  When they refused his demand for surrender, he engaged them in battle using flashes of light and burning ballista shots that exploded on impact. The Golden Queen, against Fimbria's objections, left to bring the fight to Orthum. Meanwhile, the champions scrambled to man the arcane weaponry of the sanctum.

  When she opened a gate to the exterior and was blown out into the vast nothingness, Aurelia was made to realize that space was a hostile place in which living things were not meant to exist. Her skin began to crawl, and all the air was sucked out of her lungs, causing her to very nearly die from suffocation. However, she overcame it by turning herself into gold and controlling her movements through her will alone.

  Her transformation into the true Golden Queen was completed at that moment.

  Flying through space on the golden funerary boat, she flew straight toward the Mage of the Beginning. Her vessel was loaded with countless golden weapons that listened to her very thoughts, and she would tear through anything in her way to get to him. She instinctively deflected flashes of light and exploding arrows but realized that unless she concentrated them all in one spot, her weapons could barely scratch the smaller vessels.

  Only with the help of the sanctum's light weapons, which cut a path through the enemy fleet for her, could she reach Orthum's flagship. However, before she could bear down on the Mage of the Beginning with the entirety of her arsenal, his vessel disappeared in a distorted flash. The Golden Queen had forced one of the false gods to retreat, and all the champions in Orthum's sanctum witnessed it.

  Morale was high, and they set course for the moon to put an end to the reign of the deceivers that controlled the world for their pleasure. Along the way, the champions that had be
en unable to participate in battle before learned to use the small one-person vessels abundantly available inside the cubical flying fortress. They would be able to aid their queen more directly next time.

  Three days into the journey, Fimbria introduced Aurelia to a machine at the heart of the sanctum, which could build everything her mind was capable of conceiving. She wished for a weapon with the power to overcome the armor that Orthum's vessels boast, but could not envision one.

  That's when one of the champions, a young man by the name of Tiberius, suggested a concept based on a strange weapon he found in the archives of the sanctum. Aurelia had personally congratulated him on being chosen by Orthus several winters ago, so he was bound to be a brilliant mind.

  The weapon would use the exceptional cutting power and near indestructible property of something called a 'monomolecular whip' in the arcane languages. By adding a tiny weight made from gold to the tips of the many whips stored in the weapon, the Golden Queen would be able to control their movements.

  The machine assembled it in the blink of an eye, but when Aurelia went to test it in the training hall, it fell apart the moment she swung it. They had encountered the paradox of the unstoppable force meeting the immovable object; a core that could withstand the whip capable of cutting any material could not exist.

  That was when Fimbria made a suggestion which the Golden Queen would have taken her head for under normal circumstances. However, after thinking it over, she understood that if it helped the weapon reach completion, it would have a poetic ring to it.

  She had proposed to use Vanadia's bones, which Orthum had created to be indestructible.

  Surely, he had considered the possibility of a monomolecular whip being used on them, too.

  The deceased demon woman would provide the final piece required for the destruction of the false gods. According to the Witch of the End, more powerful versions of Vanadia would appear if the Mage of the Beginning were left to his devices.

  A quick test revealed that the black bones, all that remained of Aurelia's beloved demon woman, were indeed able to withstand the cutting power of the monomolecular whip. With this, Tiberius went to work and used Vanadia's forearm bone for the core around which the rest of the weapon was formed. Once it was encased in gold, it was no longer visible from the outside. Only those that knew would understand how significant that weapon was to the young queen.

  In the trial, it performed exactly as it was meant to. The weapon shredded a block of steel, which Orthum's sanctum and other vessels are primarily armored with. She now held an immensely powerful tool for the destruction of the false gods in her hands.

  This weapon would never leave her side, and she sealed it away until the moment it was needed by putting it inside her own right forearm. In return, she replaced the bone now missing from Vanadia with a piece of her own. In death, as in life, they would be together forever.

  She named the weapon Vanadia's Will, to honor her dead comrade and lover.

  According to Fimbria, one moon had passed on their journey when the moon loomed before them. Along the way, they had been harassed again and again by Orthum appearing with strange machines and powerful weapons meant to destroy them. The crew of champions had successfully beaten them back without only a few losses so far. They had soon understood that the Mage of the Beginning was having fun while experimenting on them.

  But when they saw the massive fleet that barred their way, they knew that this was the decisive battle for the fate of the future. It was an army meant to stop them rather than a toy the owner did not care about. And the Golden Queen realized that they had played right into the hands of the false gods when they took the battle far away from the eyes of witnesses that could speak of their tales.

  This was a battle they could not afford to lose. Aurelia equipped Vanadia's Will from the very beginning while heading out on the golden funerary boat, accompanied by the over one hundred champions who had completed their flight training. Fimbria operated the weapons of the sanctum and directed the humans and demons that had been turned into mindless servants to aid them in battle.

  Aurelia's golden form as she shot across the battlefield in a streak of light was awe-inspiring, and the champions fought valiantly. However, the difference in numbers soon became apparent. While the enemy pilots were all mindless puppets, their sheer numbers soon overwhelmed the Golden Queen's side. One after another, champions fell, their vessels reduced to space dust.

  Even though she had only spent so little time with the champions, the Golden Queen had come to regard them as comrades. Seeing one after the other die far from their homeland and knowing that if she failed, they would be struck from history, caused her heart to ache. No longer just for the sake of revenge or freedom, but all those that had suffered for the sick entertainment of a few psychopathic humans drunk on power.

  Yet, emotions could not overcome reality, and eventually, even Fimbria was forced to abandon the flying fortress when it broke apart from internal explosions. The enemy fleet had been diminished, but Aurelia now stood alone.

  Then, Kael appeared before her in a flash of light as if to drive home that her situation was beyond hopelessness. He approached the Golden Queen with a cold expression, eyes filled with neither disdain nor anger. There were no empty phrases praising her efforts or condemning her actions; he simply gave her an order.

  "Join me." He spoke with all the dignity of a principal god, his calm voice echoing in her mind rather than her ears. Floating in deep space without any protection, his divinity could not be denied. But Aurelia knew the truth.

  "Do not mock me!" She shouted in response, but her voice did not travel in the nothingness between her and her ancestor. But Kael understood what she said, his eyes closing as if she were an unruly child that tested his patience.

  "Then return home and forget about everything that happened." He raised a hand and pointed at the blue marble behind her.

  "I will never forget!" Without turning around, Aurelia refused once again. This time, Kael's eyebrows furrowed in displeasure. She then continued, her voice filled with wrathful determination. "I will raise another army. Again and again, until I bring you down. Never again will you play with our lives!"

  "Then, I shall kill every last living being on Mundia so that you may wander its ashes for eternity while regretting your choice." Glaring at her in apparent anger, the Lord of the Sky announced in a voice rumbling through her head. His patience had run out.

  At that moment, Aurelia understood that he was most likely unable to kill her in her new golden form, but would not suffer to see his garden disrupted by her actions any further. He would rather destroy it than have to put down rebellion after rebellion. She could try to take his life now by using Vanadia's Will, but something told her that she would not succeed. And then he would carry out his threat of purging the world all the same.

  She could not get her revenge while sacrificing the world.

  Finally, she lowered her head in surrender. If she still had had blood in her veins, she would have cried it in humiliation and suppressed rage. As long as she lived, she would never forget those that lost their lives to the game of the false gods.

  She could not return to her palace as if nothing ever happened. She would not be able to live with herself if the comfortable life surrounded by luxury and servants mellowed out her heart and put out the fires of vengeance.

  Solitude would allow her to feed the smoldering flame with memories of her time with Vanadia, her only diversion to stave off the insanity of isolation. And maybe, just maybe, something would change in the future that created a new opportunity for her to ignite a revolution with the dying embers of her rage.

  "Do you think me foolish?" Aurelia asks me when she concludes her story. Her question may sound abrasive, but her expression is soft, almost weak. Her eyes, dauntless even when she saw my true form, are now filled with weariness and doubt.

  I shake my head in response as I process these revelations. The level of te
chnology that these false gods wield is far beyond that of humans from my world. Then it's even more incredible that the Golden Queen seems to have awakened to a power that could rival theirs all on her own.

  And the weapon I took from her is something that important, huh? Good thing I didn't throw it out with the rest when I tried to propel myself back to Mundia.

  "Here, I'll give it back." I stand up from the tentacle chair and raise a pillar from the ground, which opens up to reveal the rod-like weapon called Vanadia's Will. Aurelia blinks in surprise, then looks up at me with a dubious expression.

  "Do you not worry that I will cut my way out of here with it?" She doesn't move to take it yet and asks with a clear gaze.

  "Will you?" Looking straight into the Golden Queen's eyes, I meet her feelings with mine. After hearing that story, I can no longer think of her as just a past enemy. It makes me want to help her.

  "I suppose not." Raising a hand toward Vanadia's Will, she makes it float over to her. Then the hilt of the rod sinks into her palm as if her skin was liquid. Within seconds, the weapon disappears without a trace, and nothing is visible from the outside.

  "You have an incredible body." I walk over to Aurelia, whose expression doesn't reveal what she thinks about me approaching her so casually. When we fought, she wouldn't let me get near beyond a certain point, calling me a filthy creature that was beneath her. Now, she has a different attitude toward me.

  "Is ogling me a fun pastime?" She asks as I loom over her. I've stripped her of her armor and clothes, but she still hasn't made an effort to cover her naked form even though she has prehensile hair. Then again, I'm naked too, though this avatar lacks all the naughty bits.

  "That too." I admit truthfully, as I extend a hand toward the golden girl. Although she looks about the same age as I do, she became immortal when she was twenty-six years old. Not accounting for the centuries she has lived since then, that makes her my senior regardless.

  She said that when she exited Orthum's sanctum and was blown into space, she turned her body into gold to control it directly with her mind. But it doesn't explain how she produces bodily fluids and can feel soft to the touch but is also hard against impacts.