The Path to Loss (Approaching Infinity Book 4)

by Chris Eisenlauer

  “Agras La, again!” Raohan La thought. “Do not stop until he is blind with tears and he suicides.”

  “Yes, Raohan La.”

  “Morden La, make our presence known. Make us many!”

  “Siskus La! Nistram La! Aid me in filling the sky with hard thought, a storm to cleanse this blight from our world, but do not disturb the skeleton man. Let him drown in Agras La’s dark despair.”

  “Yes, Raohan La!” came the double reply.

  • • •

  Hilene hovered next to Jav, who was unmoving in midair. She’d given up pleading with him, could perceive the fine energies invading his head and the source from which they radiated.

  “Scanlan!” she cried through her Artifact. “If they’re still online, give me control of Gran Mal’s weapon systems.”

  There was a five second pause.

  “Granted,” Scanlan replied. “But I warn you, Miss Tanser: you have less than a minute to make effective use of them. The Palace has nearly completed coordination efforts.”

  “Understood.

  “Gran Mal,” she shouted aloud. “Holographic weapons console to origin point of vocal recognition match.”

  The console she requested appeared before her. Her fingers danced over it, even as the wind seemed to pick up and fill with unseen—to all but her—projectiles. She counted thirty-five shapes encroaching, some approaching the clearing, some moving directly for the Palace. There was a lot of stray energy floating around and she had the idea that, to regular senses, the approach looked very different. No matter. She would free Jav one way or another, and then they would deal with the numbers that were upon them, or what would remain of them, in the next few minutes.

  She finished with the control panel and it winked out of existence. She ran her fingers lightly along the jawline of Jav’s helmet, turned to the source of his torment, and streaked forward through a storm of turbulence. She passed over the giant reptile that had made her sick, knowing that Gran Mal’s impending attack would clash with its unending scatter shot TK, but that was all to the good. She smiled within her helmet and cried aloud, “Launch! Gran Mal Salvo!”

  The myriad plates upon Gran Mal’s back flipped to reveal an array of missile tubes, while at the immediate center of its faceted shell, a black spire of metal, twenty centimeters at its tip and one meter in diameter at its base, rose to a height of fifty meters. The angle at which the Gran had fallen aimed many of the tubes almost directly at the Palace, but as the missiles fired in machine gun succession, they swung around on tight axes, heading back towards the highest concentration of giant reptiles. Row after row, the tubes fired, filling the air with uniform smoke trails. Some of the missiles were caught by the TK onslaught, detonating in the air, filling the sky with fire and more smoke, but they kept firing until the launch tubes were empty.

  When the first missiles struck ground, the forest came apart. Giant reptiles, those who were able, defended themselves in whatever way they could. Some scattered, bolting on four legs, some teleported, some rose up into the sky, above the downward arc of the endless fusillade. Eight died. Six more were injured.

  This suited Hilene just fine, though was not her actual goal. Chaos was, and she’d achieved it. She dropped down amidst the explosions and falling trees, found a suitable timber, shearing it to a point and leaving it a healthy five meters in length. She rose up again, balancing the makeshift spear upon her shoulder, and targeted the reptile who’d been affecting Jav’s mind. She’d watched Jav try to raise his pole sword against the reptiles, and though they seemed to have some defense against her melee engagements, her spear would not be denied. Not under the cover of chaos, anyway. She sped through the erupting forest, building momentum until she reached a range at which was confident she could not fail. She gripped the massive log-dart with both hands, raised it from her shoulder to over her head and hurled it with all her might. It shot through the scene of destruction, not looking at all out of place, but its trajectory had been carefully determined. It pierced the reptile’s face, entering at an angle through the right corner of its mouth and out the back of its head. The reptile died instantly. Its body and neck went limp and its head was driven to the ground, pinned there by the fallen wooden stake.

  The rumble of missile impacts had subsided, but the dirt and debris raised from the countless explosions darkened the sky and continued to rain down for a long time afterward. Lightning flashed low in the sky, reflecting off the smoke and particles hanging in the air, and causing Hilene to turn her head.

  • • •

  Jav’s mind snapped into focus. Dread still lingered, but the hopelessness was gone. He knew now that he’d been subjected to a psychic assault and that he had Hilene to thank for his life. Had it been anyone else, he would have preferred to allow the darkness to consume him, but he’d promised his life to her if she was willing to take it. That transaction would have to wait for now, though. The guilt, also still present, was his and he accepted it. He did not, however, accept having it foisted upon him by another. It was his and his alone, and despite coming close to death, he—and the Empire he served—was still the only judgement of which he was certain.

  Just past Gran Mal, the air was clouded with dirt and smoke. He hadn’t seen it, but Gran Mal must have unloaded its missile tubes. Its back was layered in fine wisps of smoke, clean and white by comparison and rising in small streams. TK projectiles were flying out of the billowing murk raised by the Salvo, towards the Gran and the Palace. Some passed very close to him and might have been dangerous to him moments before, but not now.

  The flash from the Palace Lightning Gun batteries caught his attention. He saw the cracked light strike Gran Mal’s upraised antenna and heard the hum from the lens below the Gran almost immediately. The hum rose in intensity, shaking the ground, shaking the air, shaking his Darkened nerves. Something like a soap bubble grew out of the lens, the light inside different from that outside. It expanded rapidly, flickering as it went, ranging across the terrain and into the sky until it contained Jav, contained Gran Mid halfway to Jav’s current position, and finally the Palace, reaching up its length to exactly where it had been severed.

  Inside the bubble, everything flickered as two worlds—two times—stuttered into synchronicity. The ground and the air shook. Beneath Gran Mal, great tiles of marble appeared and were rent, looking as though they’d suffered through an eternity of neglect and ruin. The trees that remained, limited first by Gran Mal’s assault and then again by synchronization, burst the ground where they rooted. The heavy frame of the lens cracked in several places, aging in an instant two hundred million years. The top of the frame crumbled to powder and the reaction continued down each side in unequal measure, finally bringing an end to the fantastic merge.

  It was night, but a green glow suffused the darkness, almost like a fine and constant sheen of rain, or a swirling fog driven by nonexistent winds. To cement the impression was the low hiss that permeated the air. Jav regarded the surreal surroundings with equal wonder and dread, though why the environment should inspire the latter he did not know. He was cold. Or was he hot? His skin itched all over beneath the protection of the Kaiser Bones. Or did the Kaiser Bones themselves itch?

  He saw that the severed ends of the Vine and Palace were separated by nearly a hundred meters now instead of hundreds of millions of years. Fibers shot from both, reestablishing a connection, and drew the ends together. Additional fibers sprouted from either side of the seam, took root in the opposite half to further bind the wound.

  With the restored Vine at their backs, Jav and Gran Mal were now between two massive buildings, each less than a kilometer away. No, only one of them was a building. To their right was a row of towering humanoid figures wrought of heavy, black steel. There were seven of them and they were likely not simple statues. On the other side was a fortress twice Gran Mal’s size.

  Jav found himself drifting in the air towards the fortress, drawn to it somehow.

  They wer
e back in the present, he was sure, but something about this place wasn’t quite right.

  “Scanlan,” Jav said through his Artifact, “I think you did it.”

  Scanlan didn’t answer at first. Jav could tell that the channel was open, but there was a kind of static crackling. Finally, Scanlan replied, plainly exhausted. “Was there. . . ever a doubt, General Holson?”

  “I don’t think we’re done yet,” Jav said. “Given the lens’s condition, though, would I be right in assuming that it can no longer be used against us?”

  “I think it would be safe to say yes.”

  “Good. Find your way back to the Palace. Gran Mal is a temporary loss. I assume you can repair it and yourself at a later time. You can get back, can’t you?”

  “Indeed, General Holson.”

  Jav shrugged at Scanlan’s indignation and watched as the Clockwork Beam issued from one of the machine general’s eyes, erecting a lattice work cradle for what remained of him. From the back of the knitting cocoon, jet fire erupted and Scanlan streaked through the green haze for the Palace.

  Gran Mid arrived then and Jav descended to alight upon its brow. As they continued on together towards the fortress, Hilene joined him.

  “Feeling better?” she said.

  He thought for a moment. The hot/cold/itchy sensation hadn’t gone, but it felt far away, like it was being smothered beneath something more insistent. “Much. Thank you. Actually, now that you mention it, I feel. . . light. I feel good.”

  And he did. He couldn’t remember the last time his mood was so unfettered, so optimistic, so full of promise. The hole inside him—was it starting to fill? Is that what this was? It had been so long, but there was a familiarity he couldn’t ignore, something he recognized from ages ago. He felt his breath, useless as it was, constrict in his chest. He was experiencing hope—and happiness—on an order that threatened to bring him to tears.

  “Hilene,” he said, nearly gasping her name. “Something’s happening.”

  “You mean besides everything that’s happening?”

  “Yes.”

  • • •

  Raohan La cursed himself yet again. How could he have allowed the situation to come to this? He hadn’t expected the plant’s electrical discharge to be used in the manner it had, nor could he have imagined that the missile attack with its unthinkable volume would be used as a diversion or delaying tactic. He’d been certain of the plant’s and humans’ inability to produce the quantity of power needed to initiate the reaction, power he’d supplied on the two previous occasions with his own mind. It had been vanity, of course. Foolish vanity. The plant had plied its way through space, folding it in discrete bunches in numbers sufficient to bring about the beginning of universal collapse. Even cut off and isolated as he had made them, he never should have underestimated these foes. He vacillated between self-control and blind fury, but the latter would do no good. His clan, what remained of them, must regroup, focus their efforts and make due with the current circumstances.

  He thought first to Chushin La, but got no response. Black horror spread over him like a cold, numbing fluid, and the autonomic pulse that cleansed him of the infecting machines skipped a beat. He swallowed back additional but ebbing anger.

  “It appears our time is past, my love,” he thought to her memory. “I will join you shortly. At the very least, I will be able to fight alongside my long-time friend in defense of our home.”

  But he would be doing it alone, he realized. Chushin La had passed with eight others during the missile attack, and her loss had already been keenly felt. Those that lived, some still with untended injuries, had all been within the influence of the time bubble, but now, with the Kossig Engine less than two kilometers away, they would begin to succumb to the deadly getnium rays. With Chushin La’s expertise, they might have staved off the effects of the getnium rays temporarily, but even Raohan La was susceptible, though he might outlast his fellows. Who among them would be stricken first with madness, would become a savage liability? Would he go mad and turn on Stol in the end? Or would he simply melt, spontaneously liquify into a genetic dead-end stew?

  He composed himself. Death awaited all living things. He knew his fate was no different, but there was still work to do.

  “Stol, can you hear me,” he thought.

  “Yes, my friend. I’m here,” Stol Kossig replied in his mind. “And I gather by your presence that the situation has turned dire.”

  Raohan La nodded, not realizing in his exhaustion and the early stages of getnium poisoning, that this act communicated nothing. “The humans, Stol. They are dangerous, but the monstrous plant must be destroyed.”

  “Understood. Wait. There are two humans approaching the Citadel.”

  Raohan La shook his head. “The plant.”

  “Isleyna. . .”

  “Your sister. Of course. Secure the Citadel. Come when you are able.”

  “None can stand against Godsorts, but if you say they are dangerous, we will strike hard and strike fast.

  “Enzo, Temmus: you’re with me. The rest of you, get to that cancer and support Raohan La in attempts to destroy it. We’ll be with you presently.”

  Raohan La heard Stol in his head and frowned. There was nothing to do but move forward. He reached out with his mind through the terrible getnium static, found each of his remaining fellows, twenty-five in all, gripped them with his power and willed them all as close to the terrible plant as he dared. This proved to be more taxing than he’d hoped. He was weakening by the moment. The machine virus with which the mechanical man had afflicted him was running rampant again, and he was quite sure now that any overt expenditure of mental power would cost him a few moments, if not full minutes, of his short remaining life.

  • STOAKES III •

  10,900.085

  Stoakes was worried. For the first time, it looked like the Empire might be beat, but not in the conventional sense. Even if the current Shades were able to eliminate the indigenous giant reptiles, the Palace was cut off from the rest of the Empire and all its available resources, trapped millions of years in the past.

  What made this a real problem was that his most recent reproduction of Ana Tain had expired during transit and now it was beginning to look like he would never have another. He humphed inwardly at how dependent he’d become on the Emperor’s little inducement. He was like an addict. Her presence hadn’t directly affected his choice to see the contract through—or at least he didn’t think it had—but she had had a profound effect on his general outlook. He still wasn’t proud of what he was doing for the Emperor, which was probably healthy, but being able to bury his face in Ana’s bosom and forget, at least for a short time, the ruin he was bringing to so many lives, his own included, enabled him to move forward.

  Every day he found himself questioning his motives for honoring the contract. Was his word justification enough, or was it just an excuse? He didn’t know, but he still intended on taking the promised payment, and he certainly hadn’t refused Ana on any grounds, moral or otherwise. The truth was, he tried not to think about the truth. Ana made it so he didn’t have to. Except now she was gone and he might not ever get her back.

  There’d been a plan, of course. Scanlan had solved the mystery of the time lens and had come up with the means to return them to the present, at least the theoretical means. Execution was another matter, though, and there wasn’t much Stoakes could do but wait.

  He’d been thrown from his bunk when the first impact had altered the Palace’s approach during planetfall. Reflexively going Dark had saved him from being bounced around his cramped quarters, which in turn had saved his quarters from taking major damage. The bumpy landing, however, had crippled the attached gravity trainer. The block was cracked in two and last on the list of things that needed to be repaired or replaced. He supposed he could venture out into the Palace and use one of the public trainers, but the settings he required to get any kind of work out, more for nerves than anything else, would ra
ise too many questions.

  He sat in the low light of his quarters, watching the seconds tick away, feverishly hoping that Scanlan’s plan would work and that they would get it underway as soon as possible. The Tether Launch bay, still in perfect working order, taunted him, though. It dominated one wall and seemed to beckon constantly. Under other circumstances, he might use it to get away for a while, distract himself from the monotony of his own company, but now he felt like if he got too close to it, it would jettison him just in time to make a return to the present impossible. It was ridiculous, he knew, but he couldn’t dismiss the thought. One day he would leave the Empire behind, but he wanted to do it when he was ready and on his own terms.

  He’d had a holographic screen tuned to the video feed of Scanlan’s work site, but watching Scanlan was like watching the sun cross the sky, not knowing if or when it would ever set. Stoakes was too restless for that and had killed the feed.

  Maybe he should try to sleep. He’d never be able to do it on his own, but the appeal of just skipping ahead, past this insufferable lull was potent. He could get enough narcotic to put him out for several hours, even a day or two, if he pleaded his case right.

  “Attention, Palace personnel,” a calm, modulated female voice—it was Brin Karvasti’s, Stoakes knew—said over the Palace-wide public address system. “Do not panic. Stand by for temporary black out. Power transmission to commence in one minute.”

  After pushing her power of suggestion through the Palace system, Karvasti needed to exert herself little to ensure that the normals would do as she said. Stoakes however, with the aid of his Artifact, was immune to this level of psychic tinkering.

  He shook his head and snorted. “One minute?”

  Briefly he thought about restoring the video feed, but that would be foolish. The very moment there would be something to see, he’d be without power to watch. He thought about going outside and then everything went black and still. Transmission.