Shadow of the Void

by Nathan Garrison

Her body lurched forward, awkwardly. “First steps,” her lips said with strange inflection, “are always the hardest.”

  Panic rose as control of her own body fell away. She fought the urge to claw her way back into the saddle of her being. I told him I trusted him. Will I go back on my word so soon?

  The next few steps saw them both slowly ease into their new roles. Thankfully, Elos didn’t have far to go.

  He stopped her body a few paces away from Arivana. “My queen?”

  She turned. “Tassariel? Yes, what is it?”

  “I came to ask you a favor.”

  The girl smiled broadly. “Name it, and it’s yours.”

  “I need your handmaiden.”

  “Flumere? Whatever for?”

  Elos lifted Tassariel’s hand, which brimmed with familiar energy shaped in an unfamiliar way. The handmaiden’s eyes flared like falling stars. “The world needs to know who she is,” Elos said through Tassariel’s lips, “and why she, and her kind, are here.”

  Tassariel only wished she could ask herself what that meant.

  “What is that?”

  Jasside craned her neck, staring up at what appeared to be a crack in the sky. Its edges flailed like tattered cloth ravaged by gale-­force winds. It looked to be getting wider.

  “I knew, even before I met Ruul, that the world wasn’t as simple as most ­people assumed,” Vashodia said, ignoring the question. “And his very nature not only confirmed my suspicions but urged me to probe even deeper for the truth.”

  “And what truth would that be?”

  Vashodia giggled. “We weren’t the first species to lay claim to this world.”

  “We? You mean humans? I thought the valynkar were the first to settle here?”

  “Think, girl. What did you just witness on that battlefield? What became of the rest of my kin?”

  Jasside thought back, remembering the new shape Angla and the others had taken. Dark clones of the valynkar. And if they were once human, transformed by their god into their current form, then . . . “The valynkar were once human as well.”

  Vashodia snorted. “A fact those still living have forgotten.”

  “But who was here before us, then? And how the abyss do you know all this for certain?”

  “As I said, my visit to Ruul prompted further investigation. He revealed the existence of the threat but had no way to ascertain its scope. Since his knowledge was as ancient as it came, I had to search even farther into the past. On my own.”

  Jasside gasped. “You peered through time.”

  Vashodia nodded.

  “But that’s dangerous! Gilshamed told me—­”

  “He filled your head with his own fears born of a limited mind. Justifiable, but ultimately pointless. The light illuminates too much, overwhelming the seer, but darkness hides the extraneous. We only see that which matters most.”

  “Exactly what we seek.”

  “Precisely.”

  “What did you find?”

  “I found a ­people decimated by the arrival of our twin gods, their remnants flung to the farthest reaches of the void in a desperate escape. More importantly, I gazed into the very heart of their society and saw an enemy that would never forget. One that would never let go of revenge.”

  “Enemy? What enemy?”

  Arivana winced as a surge of light danced from Tassariel’s fingertips and slammed into her handmaiden. Flumere jolted. Her eyes and lips cut towards the valynkar like knives dipped in poison. Elos wove the spell around her, making it spin ever closer with each breath. Layer by layer, the caustic light seemed to strip away the woman Arivana thought she knew.

  What remained was something unrecognizable.

  Something . . . inhuman.

  Tears streamed down cheeks that seemed hard and yellow, like candle wax if it were made of stone and sunken like a corpse yet, somehow, still vibrant, still alive. Two tall, thin slits stood in place of nostrils. Flumere’s mouth protruded, almost beak-­like but soft, and her jaw and neck slanted towards her chest as if a single piece of ridged flesh. Her exposed body bore all the same signs of her sex, but the positions of each joint and muscle were distorted enough to render hopeless any attempt at identification.

  Arivana forgot how to breathe.

  All the eyes once glued to her found a new place to rest. There would be no containing this. No trying to keep it a secret. Something momentous was being revealed, and she doubted anything short of divine intervention could stop the whole world from learning of it.

  For one fleeting moment, Arivana wished it could all just go away. Her crown. The pain of her loss. The mountainous task ahead of her. The unpleasant secrets soon to be unveiled.

  The moment passed. I have work to do.

  Taking a deep breath, she folded her hands neatly together, taking the dancer’s stance that Claris had taught her so many years ago. She became the very image of repose.

  “Flumere,” she said, forcing her gaze to remain steady upon the creature crouching naked before her. “Please, tell me what is going on.”

  The crack widened, radiating outwards like pain from a knife wound. Pressure assaulted her mind as it flashed open, and unknown power flooded from the breach. It was like nothing she’d ever felt before. Neither light nor dark, it was something else entirely. Something unholy.

  Chaos.

  The crack snapped shut. Its energy fizzled away, frayed strands wobbling throughout existence in no pattern she could discern. Jasside hazarded another glance skyward.

  There were . . . things . . . blocking out the stars.

  “Does that answer your question?” Vashodia asked.

  Jasside forgot what she had asked.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “And I don’t have time to explain. Please, Jasside, I need your help.”

  She felt a physical jolt at the words. “Come again?”

  “You heard me. And you know I don’t like repeating myself.”

  “Yes, but . . . you asked for help. It even sounded sincere. I’d almost say—­”

  “Abyss take me, girl, will you shut your mouth for once and just listen! There is a task I must perform, but I cannot do it alone. I. Need. Your. Help.”

  Jasside peered coolly into the last crimson eyes in the world. “What task?”

  “Giving humanity a fighting chance to avoid our own genocide.” Vashodia pointed towards the sky once more as the objects blocking the stars burst into flame. “Stopping the first wave of this invasion before they wipe out the bulk of our fighting force.”

  It was the word invasion that triggered it. Jasside felt the puzzle pieces snap cleanly into place. She knew, now, that she was right where she needed to be. She had been all along. There was no decision to be made.

  “I’m yours to command,” Jasside said.

  Vashodia flicked her wrists. “Take these.”

  Jasside lifted her hands just in time to catch two metallic spheres. She smiled.

  Ruul’s light, it’s about time I got to use these.

  “My name is Sem Aira Grusot. I am a spy. And . . . an assassin.”

  Though she didn’t know how, Arivana managed to hold back the tears. It was, perhaps, that they’d all been shed, but young as she was, she knew no tragedy ever released its grip upon a grieving soul. Not entirely, at least. And with the eyes of the world all pointed in her direction, there was no room for error. Especially the error of weakness.

  “Assassin,” Arivana said. “Do you mean to say . . . ?”

  “That I had a part in your family’s death? Yes. My team was responsible for the fire that claimed their lives.”

  “Your team. I see.”

  Arivana did not see. But she knew she must appear to be in control. “Why did you do it?”

  “To sow chaos among your kind and destabiliz
e your greatest threats. It worked, for a time. But now that you’re all here together—­making peace, it seems—­I see that our mission has failed.”

  “How many of you are there?”

  “Enough.” Flumere—­no, Sem Aira Grusot—­shook her head. “But don’t expect me to be giving up any names. I won’t betray my own.”

  “Just me.”

  It was a small voice, Arivana knew, and she hated herself for it. But the idea struck her to her core, and it was impossible to shake. Especially because . . .

  “You helped me,” Arivana said. “You went well beyond the duty of your position. You were . . . my friend.”

  “I was. I am. I . . .” Sem Aira hung her head. “I do not have to explain myself to you. I will not.”

  Elos pushed Tassariel’s body forward, locking eyes with the queen. “Her reticence will be dealt with in time, your majesty. We have more pressing matters to address.”

  “What could be more pressing”—­Arivana snapped a hand towards the thing standing where her handmaiden had been—­“than this?”

  “The consequences of her failure.” Tassariel sighed. “The punishment will not be endured by her, however, but by us.”

  “I don’t understand!”

  “You will.” A sad smile spread across the valynkar’s face. “It has been an honor to meet you, young queen. I have faith that you will lead humanity well.”

  Arivana felt a lump forming in her throat. “Tassariel? Why does it sound like you’re saying good-­bye?”

  “Don’t be absurd, my child. I am merely saying . . . hello.”

  “Shall we harmonize?” Jasside asked.

  “No. Our tasks will intertwine but must be kept separate. Link with your darkwisps”—­Vashodia removed another pair of spheres from the folds of her robe—­“and I will with mine. It should be sufficient for our purposes.”

  Jasside obeyed within the beat. She energized, flicking open the clasps on the metal balls with each thumb. Dense swarms surged skyward, crackling with black static. She directed her energy among them, imposing her will with ease, and soon found a few hundred new signatures aligning with hers in moments. The rush of amplified power pulled at her like a waterfall, and she gasped in ecstasy.

  “Sweet blessed creator, I could get used to this.”

  “Another time, perhaps. We’ll need to act quickly yet precisely. The margin for error is so insignificant, it might as well not exist.”

  “No time. Impossible odds. The world at stake. Am I forgetting anything?”

  ­“People will hate us for what we do here today.”

  “Lovely.”

  “You’ve no issues with that?”

  “Why should I? Just because ­people don’t recognize their gifts doesn’t mean we should stop giving them.”

  Vashodia’s lips slowly twisted into something resembling a smile.

  “Something funny?” Jasside asked.

  “Just that we finally found something to agree on.”

  Jasside mirrored the expression. “Good. Our task?”

  The mierothi lifted her gaze towards the sky. “To simply reach my target over such a vast distance will take up all my energy. I’ll need you to be the bridge. Or, more accurately, the river.”

  “I create the current, and you swim it?” Jasside said, catching on immediately.

  Vashodia nodded. She cracked open her spheres, and swarms of darkwisps—­thicker, Jasside noted, than her own—­buzzed around the small figure. Her mistress lifted a hand, manipulating matter into the shape of a disc no larger than her hand. Dragging a claw along the opposite palm, Vashodia drew her own blood, then smeared it across the disc she’d just created.

  “Making an extension of yourself?”

  In answer, Vashodia flicked the disc into the air. Jasside caught it on a thin wave of energy, holding it in place. Drawing a steady stream of power through her linked darkwisps, she lifted a hand towards the flaming objects in the sky and readied herself for a long push.

  “No,” Vashodia said. “Not that way.”

  Jasside raised an eyebrow. “In case you missed it, oh mistress of mine, there’re some big scary . . . things . . . falling out of the void that we need to deal with.”

  “And we will. But not directly.”

  “Care to explain why not?”

  “I do not know our enemy’s capabilities, but Ruul hinted that he was all but helpless when he first encountered them. Until we know more, the only sure way is to hit them in a way they cannot deflect.”

  Vashodia pointed towards an empty spot in the sky.

  Jasside squinted, trying to read what few stars were already visible. Then she realized where she was staring.

  “You . . . you can’t mean to . . .”

  “I can. And I will.” Vashodia giggled. “Haven’t you ever dreamed about killing a god?”

  Though the celebration among the mierothi continued, Draevenus could not join in. Something was wrong. Not with their new bodies—­he’d never felt better in his life!—­but in the world at large. Something that had always been there, even if never consciously recognized, had now gone missing. Like floating on a sea, only to have the boat beneath him vanish.

  His eyes drifted down past the jubilant faces of his kin, to a ground cloaked in dust kicked up by their dancing feet. An object lay there, small and forgotten.

  The box that had contained the very gift they all now embraced.

  Draevenus shuffled towards it, gently pushing through the crowd. No one paid him any heed as he knelt and, like a sickly infant, cradled the metallic container to his chest. It was empty now. Hollow. Just the like the unseen presence of his god. And knew what was missing.

  Ruul.

  Ruul was dead.

  “He will not be forgotten,” a woman said from behind him.

  Draevenus turned to see a young valynkar with lavender hair approaching. Other mierothi gave her a wide berth, gazes narrowed with distrust, but she seemed to be ignoring them.

  “What would a valynkar know about Ruul?” Draevenus asked.

  “Nothing, and less,” came her reply. “But I happen to know a great deal.” She stopped a few paces away, peering down on him with eyes that seemed more ancient than her age suggested.

  Though he didn’t know why, Draevenus felt humbled in her presence. He took hold of the sensation, turning it over and analyzing it, until he realized that he’d felt something similar before. Once. Very recently.

  “What are you?” he said.

  “A friend,” she said. “Despite what history might suggest.”

  “It can’t be. You’re—­”

  “What? A woman?”

  “I was going to say here. Down here. On the surface. I always thought you stayed . . . you know . . . up above?”

  “The time for that will soon be gone. As will you if you don’t heed my instructions carefully, and quickly.”

  “I’m supposed to just take your word, am I?”

  “You will. Unless, of course, you wish to throw away the dying gift of the being you claimed to serve.”

  Logic told him to laugh in her face, but instinct screamed the opposite. He’d never had much success, throughout the ages, listening to the former.

  “Very well,” Draevenus said. “What would you have us do . . . Elos?”

  “Survive,” she said. “As long as you can. Fight on until your final breath. Do not lie down and rest as annihilation comes calling.”

  “Will it?”

  Shaking her head, she pivoted and pointed towards the horizon. “It already has.”

  “Push, girl.”

  “I am.”

  “Not hard enough.”

  “I must be nearly there by now.”

  “You’re not even halfway.”

  Jasside felt her breath cat
ch at the statement. Her appreciation for how vast this world and all of creation were grew tenfold in that moment. And with it, dread. “I don’t think I can make it.”

  “You’ll be fine. Just flare your darkwisps.”

  “Flare?”

  “Pull all the remaining energy from them at once. It will destroy them but grant you a sizable increase to your capacity. Pace yourself, though. Burn through them too quickly, and this will all be for naught.”

  Jasside did as instructed. She singled out one of her harmonized darkwisps and snatched everything from it she could in a single beat. It fell to the ground, a scattered heap like flakes of spent ash, but she could feel the increase to her own power instantly. She pushed Vashodia’s disc even farther into the sky.

  After half a mark, she felt the boost of power begin to fade, so she flared another darkwisp. The bonus power lasted just as long this time, but the energy required to move an object over so great a distance grew more demanding the farther away it traveled. She flared the next one sooner, and the next sooner than that. It became a race between the distance still to go and the darkwisps she had left under her control.

  Sweat poured down her brow despite the freezing temperature as she maneuvered the disc with exponentially increasing amounts of effort. At last, with only three darkwisps remaining, her mistress cracked a brief smile. “Close enough. Hold it there and do not let it waver.”

  Shaking to obey, Jasside didn’t have enough mental capacity to reply.

  “Now, old man,” Vashodia said, “let’s see what you have to work with.”

  A growing sense of disembodiment fell over Jasside as both she and her mistress, at each other’s side manipulated energies whose effect took place leagues and leagues away. The unease only grew as Vashodia probed an edifice more ancient than Jasside could fathom. A monolith in the sky she’d seen almost every night of her life.

  The Timid Moon. Or, as the valynkar called it, the Eye of Elos.

  Its bright circle blossomed into sight, illuminating the world below with pale light several tolls ahead of schedule.

  “What did you do?” Jasside asked.

  “Just maneuvering for an approach vector,” Vashodia said. “Got to get the angle just right.”

  “Huh?”