War of the World Makers

by Reilly Michaels

  Her body had revolted upon arrival, as if spun on a torture wheel. Her feet pushed into the gloppy mud of no man's land, and as her eyes adjusted she noticed the bodies of British soldiers, hundreds of them frozen by death and time, many with surprised eyes wide open and staring at the sky. A few sat upright, due to rigor mortis, their hands extended before them, gripping rifles they no longer held—one of them from a Welsh regiment. He looked like a movie actor, handsome, a cigarette in his mouth. Had he stopped to smoke or been advancing with it dangling from his lips? No matter. As she stared at the corpse, a flash of brilliant light bathed him quite suddenly.

  The entire bubble of Zone lit up for miles.

  Freddie saw dark and ominous figures hurtling from the source of it, at least six miles away, twenty or more of them flying towards their position, others dropping to the ground and running. They appeared in the distance like black spiders with human legs, and beside them, shimmering points of light like little moons, half a dozen or more, hovering in the air.

  "Dio Soldati," Catherine said with a note of fear in her voice.

  Gazing up, Freddie saw more lights, star-like and forming in the air, thinning to streaks and opening wide like pockets. Things sprung and flew from those pockets, the likes of which she could never have imagined. Many appeared to be machines, human-like or insect-like, or a thing in-between, and they soared while others dropped to the earth, appendages and weapons clicking out and aiming in preparation for battle.

  "Black armor units from Surya," Catherine said calmly. As Freddie would later learn, Surya was a twenty mile long orbital manufacturing and command base for Saravastra's black armor forces ("black" or "magic-black" referring to a vanadium alloy steel coated with a magic shield). Saravastra, in coordination with Mother Yarrows, dispatched black armor units to conflict points via teleportation from Surya. At any one time, over twelve thousand separate black armor weapons of all classes were operational, each one commanded by something called an "artificially intelligent brain" magically joined with the soul of a Warrior Bodhisattva.

  "Feel the heat of aria in you now. Prepare for war, princess!" Catherine shouted.

  Freddie's breath came heavy and the hearth of her aria smoldered hot, throbbing into her chest and towards her throat with powerful language, and with more feeling of depth than ever. Her pains of transition to the Zone faded and an iron-crushing strength spread to her fingertips. Her senses expanded too, and her mind seemed able to process many more things at once, as well as see possible moves and countermoves while the enemy forces drew near. The sounds of long distance firing and return fire began to fill the air with lightning cracks and cicada-like screeches that hurt her ears, and too, colossal exhalations of heat that flushed her face, and WHUMP-WHUMP bellows that felt in her nauseous stomach way too much like heavy British howitzers.

  Turning to take the temperature of Catherine’s face, she was astonished to see a fantastic figure suddenly appear before her. Her huge black eyes blazed out from a stunningly beautiful Oriental face. She wore a white tunic pinched at the waist and light samurai armor on her upper body and thighs, and she carried a long and gleaming naginata, a classic Japanese weapon that appeared like a sword blade fixed to a long wooden shaft. Her long black hair rose up about her head, tendrils of it grasping small metal discs and marble balls which Freddie guessed must be weapons and captured spells. And while she stood there, the light of war boiling hot behind her, Freddie noticed how the echoes of firing stopped and held at one pitch. Lights in the distance no longer flickered. All time moved forward so slowly it created an impression of all things grinding to a halt.

  "Sister Itagaki!" Catherine exclaimed with a look of surprise. The two of them hugged for a moment before Itagaki pulled back and said, "I am glad you are here, Czarina. I will be conducting operations unless you say otherwise."

  "I do not. You are more experienced at the symphony of battle in the Zone."

  "Mandukhai is leading the Dio Soldati this time."

  "Will you be her death, or shall I?"

  "Whoever has the good fortune of ending the monster's existence, I will sing their praises, and if it be me, I will sing of myself," Itagaki said and smiled darkly. She then glanced at Freddie and said to Catherine, "I have never seen you so young, but her eyes have that same fire. Together you will not be defeated. What force can withstand two voices of aria much less one?"

  Upon saying that another figure entered their presence, walking up from behind to stand beside Itagaki and glare at Catherine. She was taller than all of them, at least six foot four and with the vague look of a Viking shield maiden: hair long and blonde beneath a shining, nose-guard helmet, sword-steel eyes of merciless stare, but the rest of her was a puzzle to Freddie. Her body fitted with black armor cuirass and greaves writhing with live yarrow symbols, frighteningly reminiscent of Temujin Gur; and her face, tattooed with yarrow sword-symbols that glowed like fierce red scars. Strapped across her back, a black and gold-tasseled scabbard sheathing a great sword, a fully formed yarrow sword, the hilt made of polished gold.

  "Aella of The Fianna," Catherine said, returning the glare, "or is it Hervor, ravager of helpless villages? I see you have Tyrfing on your back. How many children and elves has it eaten since last I saw you? But we all know elves do not exist except in poor imaginations."

  With irritation in her voice, Itagaki said to both of them, "Save your bitterness and rage for the Dio Soldati."

  Aella glared at Itagaki, saying nothing, then turned the glare on Freddie, who faced her bravely. She was not afraid of the warrior Wizard Goddess—or so she appeared, definitely more powerful than a spell captain. Aella, to Freddie's surprise though, reached out with one hand to stroke her long dark hair, her eyes never losing their furious steel.

  Itagaki shouted at Aella, "Enough! The time lock ends now! Currículo Tempo!"

  Aella lowered her arm and turned to face the battle, reaching behind her back to draw her sword Tyrfing. Freddie watched as the sword lifted out, turning from the color of yarrow moon-steel to the dark color of blood as it breathed air. Freddie heard it inhaling as it left the scabbard, and once done, it exhaled and Freddie felt the sword breath hot as frigid Artic on her cheeks. It smelled of the Somme battlefield, as if the sword had cleaved the British down and not the German 08 Maxims. The sword spoke to Aella in whispers. Whatever it said caused Aella to turn for a moment and glance at Freddie once more, this time with a puzzled look.

  "For Saravastra and Earth!" Itagaki shouted, and upon saying that, she turned and ran towards the oncoming enemy. Other Japanese samurai, both male and female, a hundred or more of them, all powerful spell captains with gleaming naginata and magical weapon hair, followed right behind her. They ran to either side of a surprised Freddie. She had no idea they had stood behind her the entire time. They sprang forward at twice the speed of a galloping stallion and leaped, one rank of ten after another thrusting up and rising, each rank forming a flying V formation like brilliant swans soaring at hundreds of miles per hour with a loud war cry of "Banzai!" directed at the oncoming apparition of the Dio Soldati. Aella followed, rising above their ranks, her whispering yarrow sword before her.

  "Onna Bugei-sha they are called," Catherine said with a hint of sadness in her voice. "Many will die today after having lived for centuries. But they can join and combine their powers. That will save some of them."

  And as Freddie watched the samurai turning to specks that winked out with a flash, a plague of locusts appeared over two miles away, hundreds of feet high in the golden moon air and roiling towards them like an angry black cloud. "What in Beelzebub's name!" Freddie yelled. She pointed to it and watched Catherine's eyes grew huge and horrified.

  "It's ... my God, bodies, the dead bodies of British soldiers, thousands of them."

  Upon saying this, Catherine stopped time again with a few Galician words. Once more the war about Freddie stilled to a crawl. Strangely enough though, out the corner of her eye, a few objects seemed to be
moving less slowly than before, picking up speed. She did not understand. One of them, a black armor mini-reaper five times the size of the Anhalt World Stormer, actually flew at a walking pace.

  "This battle is one of moments within seconds, within moments," Catherine said, her face appearing anxious. As World Makers, we are the fastest. We must unite and take out as many Dio Soldati as possible, as quickly as possible, and lock onto the Nicholas Line satellites. But we must move! Aella's sword is possessed by Black Agnes of Scotland, and she will get word to Master Paganini either directly or through the Mother Yarrow grapevine."

  "The grapevine?"

  "They all talk. They even gossip."

  "Why does Aella hate us?"

  "She hates me, but you reminded her of a more innocent me. She loves me in the way a man loves, but believes me evil and wants to kill me. She is a hypocrite and I do not have time to talk. We must join the battle and summon The God of The Overman from his Dubai castle."

  "But—"

  "No time! Feel your aria! Currículo Tempo!"

  Time resumed. Things not moving began to move. Things moving sped up to a blur. Freddie heard a thunderous rumbling a few hundred yards to her right, as though a new volcano were erupting from French soil. She turned to see an impossibly massive machine rearing up from the earth like a Titan. At full height it stood taller than the Strasbourg Cathedral, over six hundred feet, and the body of it like a black kite the size of at least three hundred English warships. Hundreds of gun turrets of all sizes protruded from the sides, and crescent shaped objects, glistening like white flame, shot forth with a distant whooooshing sound from a slit below the crest of the thing and just above the six legs it possessed, three to either side.

  It immediately attracted a barrage of fire from the Dio Soldati units forming up miles away. Great streaks of energy struck the surface of the black-armor enormity and sizzled as they drilled at its skin. The Titan machine fired back with all its gun turrets at once, the sound and fury raking the air like a roaring cry of hurricane.

  "A War Reaper," Catherine said. "Follow me now! Mother Yarrow Maria steers us as one!"

  Before Freddie could muster a thought, they both rose into the air and launched forward at hundreds of miles an hour, side by side, not more than a few feet apart and rising high. They imagined the highest limit of their power, streaming out from them, forming a scythe of energy, and they sang their aria deep and strong in the killing wind of their soar:

  Tao encher-nos, forte e quente.

  Recorrer a fouce

  e coller nosos inimigos,

  En nome de Ahriman e Saravastraaaa!

  (Tao fill us, strong and hot. / Turn to scythe / and reap our foes, / In the name of Ahriman and Saravastra!)

  Then the world went insane.

  Even what Freddie had seen so far could not have prepared her for this magical death struggle. With the aria spell, she became a scythe of Tao force thick as castle Bärenthoren and over half a mile wide. The scythe, too bright for human eyes, powerful enough to cut the Alps in half or burn Greece to ash, was a hundred times stronger than all the shells fired by the British in six days against the German lines.

  Like an army of Anhalt Sun Angels, the two of them hurtled forward, crackling with a billion volts and loud enough to shatter every window in France. Straight and true they flew, towards a flying wedge of the Dio Soldati. They cut through waves of British corpses hurtling end over end through the air, their rifles, helmets, bibles, spectacles, pipes, coffee tins, rosary beads, and all manner of other flotsam rolling along with them. The scythes simply turned them to brief sparks, burned out so fast they did not have time to smoke, while behind them, the ranks of the living warriors drew closer.

  Multi-armed Dio Soldati, twenty feet in height and looking like demonic black knights whose sad-clown faces surprised Freddie, tried to swerve away from the scythe. Many were cut to shreds and disintegrated, fizzling and popping out like damp fireworks. Pieces of others burned or sheared off. Many plummeted in trails of smoke to the earth like fallen angels, sorrowfully screaming on the way down with the voices of both women and men. The moon orbs of the Dio Soldati, hovering nearby, each the size of a baby elephant, darted away more quickly from the World Maker scythe, firing a spread of destructive energy lances and bolts as they did so. A few lost their skin to the heat and shriveled with a crunch, though many more were totally consumed as Catherine bobbed the scythe up and down in an effort to do more damage.

  Meanwhile, Dio Soldati on the flanks volleyed at them with all manner of fire and force. The cries of their spells could be heard, shouted with booming voices above the whine and screech of the killing bolts—but all turned to useless smoke against the scythe of pure Tao. Ten foot long war swords and other magical edge weapons wielded by the six limbs of the Dio Soldati, strong enough to cleave tungsten steel or ordinary magic shields like so much macaroni, were swung and hurled at velocities in the supersonic range. To no avail though. Nothing stopped the princess and Czarina. Nothing could. God Soldiers strong enough to collapse empires in an hour failed to even slow them.

  At least five platoons of Master Godfellow's elite perished that day, even more wounded or disabled. Truly one of the worst defeats for his forces—all occupants of the Dio Soldati armored suits belonging to the Cadre of The Overman, each one a superhuman man or woman with the power of a Hercules. Though none of his new race possessed magical ability in the way of spell captains, their suits, designed by him for inter-dimensional and interstellar warfare, maximized both sides of the Tao, thus providing a formidable array of magical and non-magical weapons including clusters of war spells and particle-beam disruptors, magical sonics and anti-matter rounds, black-armor plate and force screens, as well as a variety of edge weapons. Against all but the most powerful Wizard Gods and World Makers, they proved invincible, and their sad clown faces were a joke of Godfellow origin.

  "Death by clown," he called it. It reminded him of a certain actor who belonged to a traveling troupe in medieval Italy. The man was really a knight in disguise.

  All of the Dio Soldati divisions believed Master Godfellow to be humorous and of good nature.

  They loved him and believed in his vision.

  Оверман

  11

  Wizard Goddess Rivalry - A New Hole on Mars - The Welsh Corpse

  AS EDISON GODFELLOW SIPPED HIS PINOT NOIR AND MUSED on how the poet-singer Leonard Cohen in his old age looked disturbingly like that old buffoon American president from the 1980's, Ronald Reagan, he was joined at his favorite restaurant, Le Petit Sanglier in Dubai, by a striking and powerfully built Wizard Goddess—a former Mongolian queen by the name of Mandukhai. She had arrived fresh off a disputed conflict point at the Battle of The Somme. The dining room hostess showed her to his table. He glanced up to see her approach, looking like a cross between a Chinese warlord and a circus acrobat, hung with clinking weapons and smeared with blood—her right eye also missing, and several fingers in the process of growing back.

  "Must you wizard goddesses always be dripping blood?" he said, smiling and inviting her with a sweep of his hand to sit down.

  Never a woman of many words, Mandukhai said dryly:

  "No time to bathe, God One."

  "One evening, you shall attire yourself in a black sequined gown and we will dance on the patio, beneath the poetry of the Dubai night while listening to Frank Sinatra. Thus spake Zarathustra."

  Edison, in joking manner, often made that Zarathustra comment. It came from the writings of the 19th century philosopher Nietzsche. Zarathustra was a prophet who predicted the coming of The Overman. It suited him to imagine himself Zarathustra, wise in the ways of destiny and ushering in a new age for humankind.

  Mandukhai sat beside her God One. The golden light of the Himalayan dusk pouring across the dining room of the Le Petit Sanglier bronzed her skin and made her even more beautiful.

  Edison wished her streaks of blood to disappear, and they did so until her skin sho
ne, making her appear like a glowing artifact. He was pleased. He sipped his pinot noir. "Speak to me of the Battle of The Somme," he said. "Who by chance was powerful enough to remove your eye?"

  "Itagaki."

  "And her fate, pray tell?"

  "She was cut in half, but lived."

  "And the fate of her Onna Bugei-sha."

  "Most of them dead. One half of her cried over what remained of their corpses."

  "The next time, she too must perish so that the future may live. Thus spake Zarathustra."

  Mandukhai's eye bubbled and popped to true form, restoring itself as she spoke further of the conflict. She explained the details of the Nexus Zone battle while her hand of new fingers reached under the table and smoothed up his thigh, and this prompted him to summon the waitress, Angelia Jolie, and order a bottle of 1938 Chardonnay from Burgundy (stolen from a private Napa Valley collection in 1996). While they conversed, Angelina Jolie returned a minute later, glaring like a wild beast at Mandukhai. Edison knew it was Eréndira, once again stupidly attempting to disguise herself and spy on him.

  He sighed, and said, “Ahhhhh, such is fate.”

  But why had he been insane enough to bring them together in the first place? For the trip to Mars, of course. He required two powerful and loyal magical beings to guard his flanks. Also, neither would allow themselves to be bested by the other, so both would give their all in a fight against the common World Maker foe.

  Edison knew Eréndira's jealousy could topple whole nations, and between mad bouts of love with her, he tried his best to steer her blistering energy in the right direction. Before she could launch herself at the throat of her rival Mandukhai (who wished to bear him a dozen demi-god children named for Chinese mythic heroes) and thus wreck the entire restaurant and burn the sky island, not to mention overheating his glass of fine pinot, he engaged both of them with these words: