by Alex Davis
***
Ameri lifts herself to her feet as Apius seeks to press in, keen to press the advantage. Ameri is slowed, but more determined than ever to destroy her foe. She swings out clumsily again with the club, missing Apius and sending herself spinning on the spot. The Re'Nuck does not miss the opportunity – his punch lands right on her chin. Ameri reels. Ameri rocks.
Ameri holds her feet.
Apius moves in for a second strike, but Ameri ducks beneath the blow this time. Still holding her club in her hands, she jabs the blunt end into his stomach. Apius doubles over. Ameri rises, looking for a finishing blow. The downswung club misses Apius by the smallest of margins as the Re'Nuck falls backwards, his only defence. Ameri tosses the club aside and launches herself at her grounded enemy. The club has helped her none – perhaps hand to hand combat will afford her more luck.
Their conflict remains private. No-one else would be willing to step into the battle between their two leaders. All around them is chaos, but it is nothing more than periphery to their personal war.
***
Viarus allows his hate full expression, taking his revenge on those he once called brother. Piapus looks at him pleadingly, not understanding why.
He always was a fool.
The shovel crashes into the side of his skull, which is instantly reduced to a red ruin by the force of the blow. As Piapus falls, Viarus lands another blow on the backstroke, effectively pulping the entire brainpan. The squelch of ruined bone and grey matter does not move him.
A body lands heavily on his back, and Viarus turns to try and shake the grappler behind him. The figure clings on tenaciously, and so Viarus does what comes instinctively.
He falls limply backwards.
The figure beneath him has nowhere to go, landing heavily beneath him. Still the hands of the stranger close around his neck. Viarus tries to get to his feet.
The hands tighten.
Viarus attempts to get his own fingers beneath the iron grip of his combatant. The digits do not give.
The hands tighten further.
Viarus can feel the breath escaping him. His lungs start to burn. The air is about to run out, and his life with it.
Another figure looms above him, this one lashing downwards with bare fists at Viarus's assailant.
The hands loosen.
Viarus rolls away, choking.
The Animexian that helped him looks down in horror, realising that he has just assaulted one of his own kind, that Viarus is now their common enemy.
The two of them round on him, but still his odds are better than they were moments ago. Gripping his shovel, he takes a step forward into a battle stance.
***
Ameri lands on top of Apius, who instantly tries to crawl away from beneath her weight. She straddles him, pinning him to the softened soil. She scratches at his face, his eyes, drawing dark red trails of blood with her bare hands. Apius tries to defend himself, but can go nowhere.
In a final, desperate act of violence, she presses her nails down direct into the soft flesh of the fear-filled eyeballs of the Re'Nuck.
Apius grips at her forearms, attempting to relieve the pressure, but Ameri will not give. His desperation is no match for the raw cruelty that now fills her.
He can feel the nails breaking through the tender surface of the eyeball, and he cries out in terror, realising that in moments he will be blinded.
He scrambles around, reaching for anything, a stone, a piece of wood, anything that he might strike her with. The only thing he can grasp is a handful of mud, which he flings into her face. The moment of shock is enough for him to roll away, his eyesight marked by red at the edge. He cries out, giving voice to his raw frustration.
The scream that escapes him is mental and not physical, and it is only this that drives Ameri back even slightly. She grips her ears with bloodied fingers, trying to block out the horror of the sound.
So embedded had they been in their physical conflict, both had forgotten their own mental capabilities. Whatever damage has been done to his eyes, Apius is not impeded even slightly in this battle. He can reach into her mind using his inner eye, and reach he does.
In his time torturing Zerial, he has grown used to the infliction of pain, the infliction of fear. And he can feel that first familiar glimmering of terror within Ameri now.
He plans to use it to his advantage.
***
The screech reaches into another mind not far away. Viarus is almost floored by the mental squeal of agony, and he has to maintain his defence in the face of a barbarous attacker, determined on clawing at him with bare nails. His opponent inflicts a deep gouge in his cheek. The pain is what brings the external world back into focus. The handle of the shovel shoots upwards, outwards, not as effective as the flat head but enough to give him a moment's respite. With a yard or two between them now, Viarus is able to swing the improvised weapon. A satisfying crunch follows. The motion vibrates through the wood all the way to hands and arms. The enemy, once his friend, falls prone. Dead or unconscious, it does not matter for now. He has the freedom to think for the first time.
And he knows he must direct those thoughts against his former master.
He strides forwards to the pair fighting a titanic battle in the middle of the arena of warfare. To an unknowing viewer they may look like the calm eye of the storm, but Viarus knows far better.
***
The battle manifests itself swiftly, the exterior melting away to allow the inner focus. The mind can create any landscape within its imagination, or within any other imagination, given sufficient power and skill. Ameri tries to fight the invading force within her brain, the arrow given the name of Apius. But his power is too much. She had no idea that his channel had grown so strong. The mental landscape, usually so peaceful, is instantly transformed into a tumult. The land that was once so solid beneath her feet quakes, great rents being torn in its surface. Fire springs as if from nowhere, sourceless, reaching out for her with inferno fingers. She ducks, runs, but the constant feeling remains with her of being herded into a corner. She can hear a wave of cruel laughter, and looks up to see Apius himself. Or at least the resemblance of Apius – he is painted in black, and has wings attached to his shoulders, a grotesque bird-creature. He stands atop a towering pillar of rock, far clear of the catastrophe developing beneath him. Ameri wonders how she can defeat him.
But she knows that she cannot.
That is until another figure runs past her, braving the fire and the breaking earth to launch forward at Apius. This shape is winged too, but painted a paler shade of grey as it ascends. She thinks for a moment that she recognises the figure...
Viarus?
The two bird-shapes come together in a melding of flesh, a ball of violence that tumbles uneasily towards a chasm in the earth. As they crash towards landing the abyss suddenly heals itself, and the chaos all around her dies. She tumbles to the floor in both relief and exhaustion.
Death has been so ready to claim her.
Perhaps it still shall.
***
The cold black eyes of Apius meet the cool grey eyes of Viarus. Apius's mastery of the mental realm has grown, without question, but Viarus has spent his time exploring the power of his own mind as well. The stare is locked until the two of them can bear the stillness no longer.
Aggression explodes between them.
Apius lashes out with a taloned hand, and Viarus ducks below it. He punches forward with his own curved claws. Apius moves quickly backwards, escaping evisceration by the thinnest of margins. A trickle of blood appears on his stomach, mirrored on the end of Viarus's bladed nails.
'You are my master no more, Apius. To think how I used to revere you, look up to you.'
'You still should. That way I may not have to destroy you.'
'Destroy me? You do not have the power. This madness ends here, Re'Nuck.'
The derogatory use of the title spurs Apius into
a fresh assault, a flurry of punches and kicks. He has the appearance of a whirlwind, the movement never stopping for a moment. Viarus is equally sinuous in his response, raising arms and legs to produce one block, one parry after another. The dance of death that is carried out between them is dazzling. There are strikes and counter-strikes, grunts and bruises, but nothing conclusive between the two.
Apius lands a punch on Viarus's chin, trying to follow up with a flattening kick. Viarus rolls with the movement of his fall, pirouetting away from the kick. His own slash rakes the cheek of the Re'Nuck, who howls in pain, grasping at the arm that caused the injury and wrenching Viarus to the floor. The stomp intended to crush the skull of his foe is dodged.
Ameri can only watch on, rapt, such smooth and intentional violence unknown to her. Surely nothing can separate them?
That is until the entire mental landscape melts away. The transformation happens in an instant. One moment they all stood on solid ground, the next there was nothing but air beneath them. They all tumble, tumble, tumble, their screams mingling together...
And then the entire mental realm is gone. The three of them are back in their bodies, back in the clearing, back in the real world.
Yet the world is as they have never seen it before.
The Last War
The conflict has ground to a halt as Apius, Viarus and Ameri drag themselves to their feet. The shock of the wrench back to reality still has not fully settled. All around them, where a war was being fought, there is no movement at all. Their friends, their fellows, have all frozen.
And, in their midst, four silver-clad figures share the same sense of stillness.
Ameri watches closely, and they convey no emotion whatsoever. Their sense of stillness is nothing but discipline. She dares to reach out with her mind, just for a moment, but finds her approach met by an unbreakable wall of metal.
Who are these beings that stand among them? And what is the strange construction that casts a vast shadow behind them?
For a moment Ameri is confused, but then remembers what the object reminds her of. The seeding pods in the drawings... the source of their creation...
The door to the vessel is open, disgorging more of the silver aliens that stand in their midst. And they are followed by a figure even more impressive.
The form looks something like the Animex themselves, sharing the same gauntness and rakish height. But there the resemblance ends. The shape is swathed in voluminous robes of blue, produced to a quality far beyond what the Noukari could achieve. The face is old, incredibly old. Ameri is transfixed by the visage. It is not weak, nor feeble, but the eyes have undoubtedly seen much. Much of everything – pain, joy, despair.
And now, they are tinged with disappointment.
Sweeping imperiously into the heart of the clearing, flanked on either side by its shining companions, the being looks over the dead, the injured, the unwounded with the same disdain.
Ameri has to resist the urge to fall to her knees. This may not be a god, but it is unquestionably one of their creators.
The Animex.
The silence is utter until some begin to fall to their knees, debasing themselves before god or creator. They see it differently, but their emotions are much the same. She realises this at the same moment as everyone else. Right now, their differences mean nothing.
They are in the presence of majesty, of the greatest power and wisdom they have ever encountered. The Animex's first words will never be forgotten.
'To arms.'
***
Apius weeps openly, uncontrollably. He is stood in the presence of a god! His message was heard by the celestial beings that created them! He falls to his knees, but cannot prostrate himself any further. He cannot pull his pain-filled eyes from the sight of the holy being, which looks around the clearing. Is there disgust in that expression? As well there should be, given the blood of the Animexians that has been shed! His joy doubles as he realises what the Animex has come here to do.
He has come to praise Apius for all he has done. He is here to condemn those who stood in his path, perhaps to kill them, exile them. This will be the moment of his complete triumph, the ascendancy of the Re'Nuck. He can barely see the god and his angels through his moistening eyes.
But he hears the words perfectly clearly.
'To arms.'
Yes! Strike them down! Destroy those who have refused to believe in your godhood!
At this proclamation, the silver-garbed figures begin to move. They swiftly draw something the likes of which Apius has never seen from their belts – but immediately he senses this is something that harnesses destruction. They wield it as their enemies have held their clubs and shovels – with deadly intent.
The figures move crisply to the edges of the clearing, a formation that is clearly practiced given their precision and timing.
Then lightning barks from their very hands.
The implements they hold explode into a cacophony of life, spitting electricity into the midst of the silenced Noukari. Those first few struck have no time to react, no time to scream, not even the time to register life turning to death.
Apius watches in horror as the soldiers move inwards, closing their hellish net, casting actinic agony all around them as they go.
That horror grows with the second realisation.
They are striking down only his followers.
Animexian after Animexian is transmogrified from flesh and bone to mere explosions of blood subsumed by the hungry soil. The faces of the loyal fall as they realise these shining angels are in fact their harbingers of destruction.
Half of his religion is extinct by the time any of them have the chance to run, but they only move closer to their deaths, giving these strangers the opportunity to destroy them at closer range.
The web has caught them all.
There is no mistake, only cold precision. This was something that was decided before their arrival. There is no spontaneity, only premeditation.
This is what the Animex wanted all along – to come here and wipe them out. The last of their number, poor Akaris, runs and runs, but each time he turns he is face to face with one of the metal-bound warriors. They are toying with him, and Akaris knows that death has come for him, hoping only to prolong his life by seconds more.
Soon enough, he has no seconds left.
Apius has been weeping the whole time, although the reason for the tears has changed. Now he lets out a cry of anguish, both physical and mental, at this denunciation of all he has built.
The scream is cut short by the merest of thoughts from the Animex, an easy reflex that belies huge psychic potential. Apius is silenced, his tongue frozen in his mouth. The stare directed at him by the majestic figure is warning not to repeat the action.
Now the warriors of the Animex close in around him, a glimmering noose closing around his neck.
***
Apius can barely see the approach of his god through bleared eyes. His crying is uncontrollable, endless. He could not find a way to stop if he tried.
Two of the silver warriors step aside to allow the Animex to stand directly in front of his greatest worshipper. He looms over the kneeling form of Apius.
'You wished so much to speak to me, Re'Nuck? You would hurt, kill so many just to hear what it is I have to say? I am here, and I bid you to listen. I bid you all to listen, and remember these words!'
None reply. None dare respond to the booming, mesmerising voice.
'I have watched you since day one. You seem so ready to forget so much. The seeding pods that carried you told so much of the story, yet you have preferred to fabricate your own.'
As the Animex looks around the clearing, there are suddenly none willing to meet his steady stare. He continues regardless, knowing that they are listening well enough to him. Their shame is testimony to it.
'At first, I was pleased with your progress. You were the simplest form of life when you arrived, but
you quickly grew and developed. Before long you had a working civilisation here, and I believed that things would all be well. My children were making their own way.'
Apius's head has fallen completely to the soil, his tears mingling with the wet dirt beneath. He does not want to hear the words, but there is no way to ignore them. This was what he wanted, once...
'Until this.' The Animex points at the temple, the vast building that dominates the clearing. 'I allowed this to pass, because I believed that as a race you were intelligent enough not to let this grow out of hand. I thought that you would soon enough see the light, and this concept of religion would die out. I will say this now, and say it clearly. I am no god. None of my fellows are gods. We are beings much like yourselves. We have wisdom, intelligence, power. What would we want with religion, even if we were gods? Do you think your prayers and singing would mean anything? I have heard it all, and as I stand here, I am embarrassed to call myself your creator. I stand here only because I have to prevent a war, to stop the complete annihilation of this settlement!'
The raised voice fills the clearing utterly.
'None of you are innocent. The growth of this religion is at each of your feet. This ends, and it ends now. I had hoped that you would be able to end such a thing yourselves. It is disappointing to see your children fail you so.'
'And you, Apius.' The steady gaze falls upon the Re'Nuck. 'You are the worst of all. Your followers played their part of course, those who filled the temple to hear your false words, those who flocked to you seeking something more than building a society! Not exciting enough for you, Apius? You appointed yourself a title and set about building this... nonsensical... religion of yours. Think of the time, the energy, the efforts of your people that you have wasted! Consider all the blood already on your hands, so many of your fellows lying in the ground because of your actions, your desperate need for our approval! You shall find none, Apius. You will find only our disgust.'
