One double-pupilled, amber eye appraised Berun. The other was a smoking pit.
Unnoticed at first glance, a gray-skinned, naked woman lay crumpled at his feet. Her chest rose and fell in fits. Blood leaked from her left ear.
The elderman stretched his arms lazily, like a man recently woken.
“Get up,” he said.
Hello, Orrus, Sradir responded.
‡
Berun did not question if Orrus was an enemy. He did not need to.
Without a word exchanged, they began circling one another. Berun expected Sradir to take control, but it seemed content to let him lead. He remained aware of the god within him, of course. He felt the strength of it at his fingertips, a potential violence he knew had only been hinted at with Omali. The spheres of his left forearm shifted, sprouting outward from his palm, pushing Weither into his hand.
Orrus’s right eye widened at the sight of the whip. Smoke poured in gouts from his left. With a muscular twitch of his shoulders, his wings snapped wide, lifting his feet briefly from the ground. The black images spun faster upon him, ripping themselves to shreds only to re-form in other shapes. He bared small, sharp teeth.
Berun refused to be put on the defensive. He coiled his legs and jumped forward, closing the distance between them by half. Lengthening his right arm into a hook, he swiped at Orrus’s chest, making minimal contact but still managing to spin the elderman to the side.
He ducked as the elderman’s wing hissed toward his head and continued moving toward his opponent. Just as Orrus turned fully to face him, Berun’s right shoulder plowed into Orrus’s lower belly.
His arms wrapped around Orrus’s hips, trapping the elderman’s left hand in the process. Causing the spheres of his feet to flatten and broaden, he prevented himself from tumbling to the ground and arched backward, lifting the flailing elderman into the air before slamming him into the earth.
A second time. A third. Orrus snarled and struggled to break free.
Watch his hand! Sradir shouted. If he gets it loo—
Orrus pulled his hand free as he rebounded against the ground a fourth time. More rapidly than Berun could properly register, the elderman gestured with both hands.
A violet light erupted and Berun was struck, thrown forty feet into the air. He spun end over end, spraying uncoupled spheres from the gaping hole in his left shoulder, roaring in the only sensation analogous to pain he had ever known.
Hold on, Sradir said just before he hit ground. He felt the god enter his limbs, forcing him to deform slightly to absorb the impact. Nonetheless, more components shot from his wound.
He growled into the soil and levered himself up, spheres flowing from his chest and back to mend the hole in his shoulder.
Orrus stood before him, ink-covered arms crossed.
“Should have had your puppet use the whip,” he said. “He’s quicker than I thought. He could have had me with that first blow.”
Berun sensed Sradir’s question before it was spoken, and relaxed his jaw.
“He’s no puppet,” it said. “Can’t say the same about yours. Who are you, brother?”
Orrus—or the elderman Berun thought of as Orrus—grinned. “Who are you, brother? What a wonderful thing it is to be asked such a question. Two days ago, I was a rather charmingly awful young mage named Pol Tanz et Som. Now, after a tangle with a rather temperamental dragon, not to mention the burning of a city, I’m still him.” He shrugged. “Him, and not him. I’ve taken the best of what I found in his mind and incorporated it.”
Berun’s mouth drew into a sneer. “You’ve become a talker in your old age. Oh, and a fool. We were not enemies. We need not be enemies.”
“Much has occurred since the death of my original body. This is an understatement. Had you returned to existence before now, like Evurt or Ustert, perhaps you’d have become something more interesting than the sorry, sentimental thing I see cowering in this …” Orrus chuckled. “Pile of rubble. Adrash favored you above us all. To see you now, like this—well, it’s satisfying, is what it is. Almost as satisfying as replaying Bash’s death. She, like you, had no true resolve.”
Berun’s brows drew together. “What of Bash?”
Orrus waved his hand dismissively. “As I said. Dead, at Pol’s hand. Her puppet had her way with him. Instead of taking the opportunity in two hands, Bash simply watched. She always was too seduced by pleasure. You need an appreciation of pain to truly make something of yourself.”
Sradir pointed to the woman, who still lay crumpled on the ground. “And her?”
“A key to this place, no more.” He shook his head, an expression Berun could not name altering his features. “I’ve never had the benefit of being one of Adrash’s pets, privy to all the secret words.”
Sradir stared at the woman, intensely curious but unwilling to say more.
Instead of speaking again, she chose surprise. She caused Berun to lunge forward, arm raised to slash downward with Weither.
Just before the weapon made contact, Berun’s body collided with a spell neither he nor Sradir had seen, a piece of the night distilled and propelled so slowly that all Orrus had required was a target unobservant enough to walk into it. He had found that target, and once struck by the spell Berun’s body ceased to move. He struggled against it, but it was as though he had been encased in concrete. Only his eyes remained under his control.
Fuck, Sradir said.
At his back, a shout. He recognized the voice as Churls’s immediately. He concentrated and heard the pounding of three sets of feet.
Orrus took a step to the right to look past Berun. “Too late, fools,” he said, and reached up. Taking Weither in his right hand, he snapped his wings open to their full width. The muscles in his legs jumped as he crouched to leap.
Oh, no, Sradir said. He doesn’t have the strength. He’s not about to try—
Orrus left the ground, dragging Berun into the air with him.
‡
I feel I’ve underestimated him.
It was expressed with a trace of sad amusement, but Berun could not bring himself to see any humor in his situation. Orrus had lifted him far above the earth—so far, he could not conceive of a way in which he might survive the fall. He watched the moonlit ground below, looking for a last sign of Churls, Vedas, or Shavrim, but they had risen to too great a height. He imagined they would near surface of the dome itself soon.
I’m sorry, Sradir said. Again. It seems I’ve let you down.
He could not bring himself to be angry with the god. It had allowed him to attack on his own.
It had been he who failed, ultimately.
No. I won’t hear anything about failure. Sometimes, you’re simply not strong enough. There’s no shame in fighting and losing. Everyone must experience it at some point.
Sradir spoke quickly, aware of the time. How little time.
I remember the moment of my death. I struck Adrash only once, merely scratching his armor. He laughed at me and then, as easily as a man swats a fly, killed me. I was no failure in death. The moments where I failed had all been in life. I didn’t even recognize them as failures. That took many thousands of years to see.
He took little comfort in this. No second life awaited him beyond the veil.
Sradir, now fully inhabiting him, made yet another attempt to break free of Orrus’s spell, flexing her own phantom limbs in time with Berun’s efforts. Nothing gave, and they both collapsed inward upon the other, their consciousnesses co-mingling. Together, he felt an immense weight lift from him.
Will you let me say something to you, Berun?
He would, but before anything could be said Orrus cursed.
A white light bloomed above them, and the elderman swerved suddenly, rocking Berun from side to side beneath him. For a moment, he imagined he would be dropped, but Orrus held firm. As Berun swung, he lifted his eyes to the light.
Sword in hand, she hovered above Orrus in full armor, flapping wings to match her opponent�
�s, blindingly white to his depthless black. He could not see her face, but he assumed it held the same expression of grim determination he had often seen grace her mother’s.
Behind her, he saw her reflection in the dome. They had nearly reached it.
Before Orrus could move, Fyra dove downward, her blade arcing into his left wing where it joined his back.
He shrieked and dropped Berun.
Sradir, sensing the failing of his spell, lengthened Berun’s left arm, reaching.
She wrapped his fingers around Orrus’s ankle and dragged him down.
‡
Wrapped in Orrus’s wings, they fell. Stunned by Fyra’s attack, Orrus quickly lost any advantage he might have gained.
Berun bound his hands. He flowed into the form of an iron manacle and enveloped the winged god’s body, crushing it until he and Sradir felt the give of his spine.
It snapped.
Orrus screamed and they formed an arm with Weither gripped at its end, drawing the weapon savagely across his throat, severing skin and cartilage, setting his blood free to the wind.
Next, they ripped his wings from his body and let them flutter away.
Orrus’s mouth gaped open. His one eye rotated backward into his skull. Still, they would see him not mortally wounded—they would see him dead, never to return.
Small spheres flowed from Berun’s body, swarming over Orrus’s face. They entered the elderman’s empty eye socket and made jelly of the interior of his skull. Neither Berun nor Sradir relished the task (he keenly sensed Sradir’s regret: it and Orrus were not true family, no, but they had not hated one another in life), yet they would not be dissuaded.
Blackness emerged from Orrus’s nostrils and reached toward Berun’s face. Understanding Sradir’s intention—the nature of its grisly talent—he did not object when his mouth opened to drink the essence of Orrus and his puppet, Pol Tanz et Som.
Neither would live on, but their memory would exist in whatever remained of Sradir after Berun’s death.
Berun envied them all their legacy.
Finished, he and Sradir pushed Orrus’s corpse away and aimed toward the earth. Berun’s body became a teardrop shape, his two eyes at its leading point, watching the darkness approach.
How long could they fall?
Soon, now, Sradir said. Goodbye, Berun.
“Goodbye,” he said. He could not hear his own voice, yet it hardly mattered. Sradir had always heard him, regardless of whether or not he spoke.
‡
A breath before impact, she appeared below him.
Unarmored, smiling, arms reaching out to him for an embrace.
Not goodbye, she said.
He hit the floor of the world and shattered into a thousand pieces. Housed in each component sphere of his body, his consciousness was thrown upward and outward.
Thoughts skittering into dissolution—
—he felt himself coming down as a shower of stones—
—and then felt nothing more.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE 7TH TO 9TH OF THE MONTH OF FISHERS JEROUN ORBIT, THE ISLAND OF OSA
Adrash drifted in a slowly decaying orbit above the surface of the moon.
Every muscle stood out in tension upon his tall, broad-shouldered frame. Twisted by grief and anger, the features of his face were made ugly even under the flawlessly smooth exterior of the divine armor. The light spilled from his eyes as his passion crested and broke, again and again. Now and then, he reached up to press his right palm flat against his chest.
To count his heartbeats, as though seeking to confirm his own existence. As though fearful of losing the one link tying him to reality.
Orrus died.
Sradir died.
He forced himself to relive the moment of their deaths, saddened by the loss but more stunned by his ignorance. Only in their final seconds had their identities been revealed to him, had the full implication been apparent. The fact of his children’s existence—how could such a thing have been hidden from him for so long? How could he have heard their voices, killed their hungry avatars on so many occasions and still failed to recognize them? Pol Tanz et Som had come to him, fresh from the murder of his mentor—an elderwoman who must surely have housed the soul of Bash.
Adrash had stared the ascendant god in the eyes, yet had not truly seen.
Clearly, his mind had blunted over the course of his long life. Perhaps he had never possessed an intellect equal to his godly pretensions.
His right hand returned to his chest. He pressed fingertips against the heavy muscle of his left pectoral, testing its firmness. He prodded the ridges of his belly as a coldness settled in his gut. His fingers slipped over his genitals. He squeezed, grimacing at the thought of his impotence and only releasing his grip when the pain became too much.
Turning away from the moon, he let his gaze fall frustrated upon Jeroun.
Just before Vedas Tezul’s party left Danoor, a void had opened. Once as easily read as words printed on a page, Vedas’s mind and those of his companions had become all but impenetrable. Adrash could still observe their actions while under the open sky—just as he could for all men, no matter how talented at masking themselves.
He could do this, but no more. Not any longer.
The near perfect recollection of their minds remained, however, and it pained him to realize how obvious their inhabitation should have been to him. Mere mortals did not think such thoughts, or come to know one another so thoroughly despite their insecurities and moral divisions. Regardless of the arcane magic he had assumed existed at their disposal, they could not have developed advanced martial skills so easily.
Most tellingly, they could not have found themselves under the dome of Osa, holding the marvelous weapons he himself had crafted for his children.
As he watched Vedas and Churls mourn for their fallen comrade on the floor of Shavrieem, he was shocked to discover they had come to resemble Evurt and Ustert. Both were considerably thinner, hardened to familiar blades. The woman had even begun shaving her scalp.
Had he really been so blind as to ignore bodies … faces?
It spoke of more than a faltering mind. It spoke of a willful disregard.
And yet, surely, he had needed a period to recover after Pol’s attack. He had expended much of his strength keeping the spheres of the Needle from spinning out of control. Was it not conceivable that exhaustion had kept him from the revelations that now struck him as plain?
No, he thought. No excuses.
Another concern nipped at him. For the first time, he found his interest aroused by the third remaining member of Vedas’s party—the wyrm tamer whose name had never been spoken, who confounded analysis by appearing as a blank in Adrash’s mind, defying curiosity with his frank lack of distinguishing features. Individuals such as this had been known to exist. They cropped up now and then, though rarely in positions of influence.
But this one? He had ruled over a portion of Danoor. He had sought out Vedas and Churls, and thereafter held his ground during their encounters on the way to Osa. At times, he appeared to lead. What had seemed to Adrash the simple effect of an opportunistic individual, one seeking to take advantage of Vedas’s fame after the tournament in Danoor, suddenly seemed noteworthy.
He focused on the broad, ugly tamer, and discovered he could see no further than the first layer of the man’s swarthy, sun-reddened skin. The harder he concentrated, the more the man’s mind slipped from his grasp.
Even the man’s appearance was an assumption: it too could not be focused upon. The second his attention was elsewhere, he fought to remember the man.
Adrash’s brows knit together as he poured his strength into the effort of seeing.
‡
The tamer helped Vedas and Churls gather what spheres they could from Berun’s dismembered body, but did not otherwise interact with them. When they stood around the pile they had created, he said nothing in remembrance. After several minutes, he left them to their sorrow
, returning to the temple Shavrim had built in adolescent protest so many thousands of years previously.
Passing near the entryway, he retrieved a dark, indistinct object he had set against one of the temple’s columns. A moment later, he returned from the building’s interior and sat on its front steps, running his right hand along the length of the object positioned across his knees.
No. He was not running his hand along the object’s length. He held two objects, one applied to the other. Ignoring the man, Adrash concentrated upon the longer object.
When it suddenly swam into sharp relief, he nearly gasped.
The man held a blade as black as night, whetting its constantly renewing edge as gently as one stroked a lover’s thigh.
Sroma.
Less a fabricated thing than a creature in its own right, an elder-artifact outdating humankind’s habitation of Jeroun, it was the one weapon Adrash had not created for his children. In the earliest days, when he alone had stood upon the surface of Jeroun, recovering from the long navigation between a home he had never known and a place he had been created to rule, it had called to him.
It had called, and so had another—a four-fingered glove, whiter than snow.
He had weighed both in his hands and chosen the divine armor, thus eschewing the knife. Each would not inhabit the same space as the other. No, not even to be held. Eventually, Adrash had bequeathed the knife to Shavrim, creating a name and lying about its provenance. His first child had never known the value of the thing he held, had never known he alone had been created to wield it.
Adrash returned his attention to the man, imagining his gaze as the searing tip of a poker, fresh from the fire. He slammed his focus into the shield protecting the man, willing it to fail.
‡
The man paused in his task and looked up, expression unreadable, head cocked as if listening. He then stood and shrugged the illusion away.
Adrash’s heart stuttered. It quaked, painful in its intensity.
The man could be no other than Shavrim.
The seconds lengthened as Adrash realized the depth of his first child’s deception. How it had been accomplished did not matter. All that mattered were the millennia that had passed.
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