The Myth of the Maker

by Bruce R Cordell

  On the other hand, a little insurance couldn’t hurt. Maybe trying to call them was exactly what I should do.

  “Carter, are you–”

  “Hold on,” I told Siraja.

  Would it work? Probably not. On the other hand, if I didn’t try, how would I ever know? Maybe I could even tune the entreaty to exclude War from hearing. Last time Jason saw me, he’d been happy to see me shot.

  Concentrating on images I’d just glued to the inside of my brain, I whispered, “Come, Rings of Incarnation. It is I, your Maker, calling. Return to me, in my hour of need. If worn, then I command you, the wearer, to find me. The Ring will know the way. If I speak instead to a mute band – find me. Find a wearer, and lead them to me.”

  I was pretty sure nothing was happening.

  Screwing my eyes shut, I meditated on all seven implements at once, and called again, repeating my message silently in my mind. I imagined the Rings, or whoever held them now, or anyone who had once held or would hold the rings of Incarnation, receiving my summons. Unfortunately, I couldn’t exclude War after all – it was one of the Seven, and couldn’t be ignored.

  The strength of my hope pulsed away like a shock front, shattering the heaped glass around me and pushing Siraja and Mehvish back a step. Mehvish would’ve fallen into the crater if a braid of her hair hadn’t snaked out steadied her.

  “What in the name of the Lotan’s burning scrotum was that?” Siraja yelled. “Are you trying to get attention of every soul sorcerer and glass dragon in the entire desert?”

  Oops. “It was an accident,” I said.

  “Your accident could mean all our deaths,” said Mehvish.

  My face warmed. She was right. I didn’t really know what I was doing. If there were any enemies in the crater below, then they probably felt my fumbling attempt at magic, and now knew we were here. Although the blandly white fog remained as enigmatic as when we first saw it.

  Sadly, no Rings had dropped out of the sky or appeared in my waiting palm. If they had, I would’ve shown them to Mehvish and Siraja and been vindicated. As it was, I decided to study my boots.

  Siraja tapped me on the shoulder. She’d said something in a quiet voice, but I’d been too absorbed in feeling bad about myself to catch it.

  “Sorry?” I said.

  “The musicians are back,” she whispered. The sound floated up from the crater softly, with just a bit of echo. Quick and sharp, I heard strings, both played and plucked, drums, and the same flute from before fluttering up and down the scale. No voices. Though I tried, hearing the sound without visual cues apparently wasn’t enough for me to name it with my residue of Maker’s ability.

  We just listened. The music continued for several minutes, then died away.

  “I’m no expert,” I said, stowing Jushur again, “but that sounded sad.”

  Mehvish nodded slowly, her eyes downward. Siraja’s ears flicked and she said “I’ve tied off the rope. Let’s descend and see for ourselves. I’ll go first. Carter, you’re next. Mehvish, bring up the rear.”

  Siraja was braver than me, that was obvious, and I was glad not to be the first down the rope. Ashamed at the thought, I vowed to see things through, whatever we found.

  The qephilim put together a sort of harness using a long scarf. Watching her, I realized I needed something similar. I fashioned something I hoped was workable from extra rope in my own pack. I checked the knots twice. If I screwed up, I’d have no one to blame but myself. It occurred to me that maybe I should try to enchant the makeshift harness as I’d done to Jushur. But the idea of a talking harness was too bizarre. One semi-sentient found object with unknown capabilities was probably one too many to carry around already.

  Good as her word, the qephilim descended the rope first. After she was a good ten feet down the line, I tightened my makeshift harness, secured it around the descending rope, and put my weight on the line. Too bad I was fresh out of carabineers.

  Mist closed in overhead as I descended, until Mehvish, silhouetted by the bright light as she stared over the edge, faded in the pearly whiteness. Just as I lost sight of the strange woman, she raised her hand and waved at me, as if in farewell. Damn it, was she backing out? If so, I prayed she would just walk away and not cut our rope out of spite.

  Siraja’s occasional sharp breaths, grunts and clack of boots on stone rose from beneath me. My own hands grew hard to see as the mist thickened the deeper I went, so applied myself to paying attention to the small details of my descent, putting Mehvish out of my mind.

  Finally, my feet touched down on dark stone and a thin layer of broken glass. Untying the rope from my makeshift harness was a moment’s work, and I stowed it in my pack. Even with the harness, ascending was going to be a lot more challenging than coming down. Something to worry about later. The mist was less thick at the bottom, but still prevented me from seeing more than a dozen yards in any direction. Siraja had moved just far enough from the end of the rope to give me room to come down.

  When Siraja saw I was finished stowing my gear, she pointed to the crater’s center. A collection of heaped boulders, rounded and obviously artificial, resolved from the fog. The nearest one was only a few feet away.

  “Where’s Mehvish?” she asked quietly.

  “Should be right behind me,” I whispered, deciding not to tell her about Mehvish’s odd wave in case I’d imagined it. I shuffled to the nearby boulder heap, which turned out to be farther away than I’d realized, and larger. The fog was screwing with my perceptions. Close up, the pile I’d approached reached a good hand span over my head.

  A figure in a white cloak and hood stepped around from behind the boulder heap. I stifled a yelp.

  “Who are you?” I asked, my voice a fair impression of not sounding like someone who’d almost crapped his pants.

  The figure threw back his hood. He was well into his seventies. The hand he’d used to reveal his face was covered in tattooed swirls and loops; the other held a flute the color of bone.

  “I am the one who watches for intruders,” he said in a weary voice. “Call me Greeter. Who are you, and why are you here?”

  “That’s our business,” Siraja snapped.

  “Rude,” sniffed Greeter. “You hope to pilfer the Maker’s vaults. Unless you’re complete fools, you have a new strategy, one that hasn’t been tried a thousand times before. Tell me, and perhaps together, all of us can succeed. My brothers and I will share with you what we find. Keep silent, and die here.” The old man finished with a disquieting croaking noise. Laughter?

  “So the rumors are true,” said Siraja as she moved up to stand next to me. “Soul sorcerers infest the crater like roaches in a roadside inn.”

  Not the honey-sweet diplomacy I would’ve chosen. I jumped in, “Cooperation is possible, Greeter…” I trailed off as I realized that, actually no, I really didn’t like the idea of allowing a pack of limb-severing soul sorcerers into the Maker’s Hall, assuming Siraja’s earlier story had been true. I needed to know more about him.

  “But?” prompted Greeter, the ghost of a smile on his lips.

  What was his name, I wondered, and focused on his lined, haggard face. His eyes were a faded blue like old denim. Greeter flinched, but a backwash of psychic energy slapped me like an open hand across my face.

  I staggered, but didn’t quite bellow in surprise. Was he warded somehow?

  The old man’s smile was gone. “I suppose we’ll have to kill you then.”

  Siraja charged Greeter. Her sword stroke missed, but he retreated a step. As he did, his white robe, hood, and wrinkly skin of his face inflated, puffing out like pale balloon. Shaggy white fur sprouted everywhere as he grew taller and taller, until he towered over us. It happened fast, too fast for me to do more than gape and blink. Instead of a man, something like a giant gorilla with white fur stared down at us. White, except where its fur was stained red as if with gore from previous kills, especially around its mouth and clawed hands.

  The white ape kicked Siraja
out of the way like she was a straw-stuffed puppet with straw. Holy shit. She rolled to a stop and didn’t move. Had the ape thing just killed her?

  Then it came for me. I ducked under a massive fist and ran between its legs. The mist was clearing, which was the only reason I saw something dart toward me from the side. I dived sideways, just avoiding an attack from…

  Fuck. One of the piled rock heaps stood up, a slab of animate stone about the shape and size of a person, and tried to sucker punch me. The second I saw it move, its name blazed in my brain: it was a golem. This one had once been a soldier for the Incarnations during the Age of Myth–

  “Rauwr!” screamed the transformed Greeter, who hadn’t forgotten about me. Seeing it had my attention, the ape’s bestial features stretched into a horrible grin.

  Siraja was probably dead and Mehvish had never come down the rope in the first place. I was faced a huge hairy gorilla and a stone-cold killer alone. Yep, I was gonna die.

  “Greeter!” I yelled, deciding to use the name he’d given me instead of trying to dig deeper again. “Your name is now mine. Stand quietly, or lose it forever.” I was bluffing, of course. I still felt the pain from the first time I’d fished for his true name.

  Puzzlement scrunched the ape’s face, but Greeter didn’t immediately attack me again. Surprise that my ploy had worked at all kept me mute a few moments. Stumbling over my next demand would erode my claim.

  Siraja, battered but still kicking, raced out of the mist and stabbed the ape in the back. Its shriek was deafening. I wanted to clap my hands over my ears.

  A stone fist clipped me and I stumbled back from the golem, forgetting the ape and qephilim. I gazed at where eyes would’ve been on a living creature. A horrifying expanse of blank stone stared back. I desperately wished it was gone. A name occurred to me, and I said it, stuttering over the syllables in my fear. A name antithetical to animate stone, like antimatter to substance; I un-named the golem.

  It exploded.

  I lost at least a few seconds in the flash and roar. When I blinked back to the moment, the ringing in my ears drowned out whatever Siraja was saying.

  “What?”

  “Get up, Carter!”

  I pushed myself upright, wincing at the oozing cuts the broken glass covering the crater floor had inflicted on my palms and fingers. Most of the mist was gone, maybe blown away by the golem detonation blast. I saw Greeter was back to his old shape: a trembling old man in bloodied robes. Maybe the golem blast had destabilized his spell.

  Of Mehvish, there was still no sign, though the rope we’d used to descend dangled down the crater wall. At least she’d left us a way to escape.

  “Behind you,” said Siraja. I glanced round and saw the retreating mist had uncovered a dark crack in the crater floor. I wasn’t sure if the three additional golems and at least twice that number of soul sorcerers, all wearing white like Greeter, had just emerged from the crack, of if they’d been standing in the mist all along, watching the fight.

  As I opened my mouth to lie, plead, or say something – anything – to deflect what I feared was going to be my end, the fist of a fresh golem pounded me into the glassy scree.

  25: Translation

  Katherine Manners

  Kate passed through nothing. For a moment she was nothing, except need. She wanted form again, substance, and purpose. She flailed, but without limbs. Screamed, but had no voice. Discordant clanks and bangs pelted her. Distant and faint at first, they grew louder and more insistent as she focused on them. Then a sound like an avalanche vibrated through her, and just like that, Katherine Manners stepped into Ardeyn.

  She knew she was in Ardeyn, just like she knew her name was Kate. Memory unfurled, as if she’d always known that spirits of the slain are drawn to Ardeyn’s subterranean Night Vault, that the Maker and his Incarnations were dead, and that magic came as naturally to some people as weaving did to others. After all, she herself could shepherd the dead, calming spirits and guiding them–

  “What the hell is wrong with me?” she whispered.

  “You translated,” said a large man standing next to her. A large man, but somehow also Raul. A Raul about half a foot taller and wearing altogether more colorful clothing than a few seconds earlier, including two matching short swords with scarlet hilts. Before they’d stepped through that blurred continuity hanging in the computer lab of the Brazilian university…

  “I’m dreaming. Or I hit my head,” she proclaimed. Kate glanced down. The gun she’d almost shot Coleson with had become the hilt of a slender blade. Bracelets adorned her wrists, rings her fingers, and in place of her jeans, boots, and top, she wore glistening yellow robes stitched with elaborate symbols.

  “You are neither dreaming nor mentally damaged, mi chula,” said Raul. She concentrated on him, wondering if he was a dream, soon to fade away with the rest of her delusion. Nope. And he really had grown in height and width. And gained two swords and elaborate leather armor that looked like it was right out of a movie set.

  Raul held out his hand, and after a second, she took it. “It can be a shock the first few times. As it happens, this is the first time I’ve been to Ardeyn myself. In fact, it’s so new, I’m probably the first from Ruk to come here…” He trailed off.

  “New? It’s hundreds of thousands of years old!” she countered.

  He cocked his head. Kate realized she was drawing on memories, the same ones that’d trickled into her consciousness the more she looked around. She knew Ardeyn had been created who knows how many millennia ago by the Maker. But of course she also knew that Carter Morrison claimed to have seeded Ardeyn just a few years ago.

  “I imagined everything would be more like a video game,” she said. “Blocky and maybe even pixelated. Not… like this.”

  Raul nodded solemnly and squeezed her hand. “Integrating the reality of a recursion takes time. You need to acclimate to the idea that this is real. Judging by the glyphs decorating your shawl, I’m guessing that you’ve developed a knack for, mmm, calming spirits?”

  Kate’s eyes were drawn to the largest ring on her left hand. Unlike the rest of her jewelry and belongings she’d left behind on Earth, the ring Jason Cole brought to Earth had followed her back to Ardeyn. It had translated, too, taking on a new context. Whatever else it was, it also now served as her spirit focus.

  “Spirit focus,” she whispered, the words both familiar and new to her. Of course! She could shepherd the dead. In fact, the ghostly soul of a long-dead warrior now resided within the Ring, waiting for her to call it forth…

  “I might be going crazy,” she said, her voice matter-of-fact.

  “No,” Raul said, and patted her shoulder. The way her sudden familiarity with Ardeyn slipped into her brain was almost more unsettling than the content itself. It was unbelievable. At least, it would be unbelievable, if she hadn’t called on similarly crazy abilities even before leaving Earth. Like when she’d jolted Coleson with energy that’d left him dazed, which was right before they’d stepped through – translated to – this new place.

  “Stop,” said Raul. “Breathe. Stop fighting it. Just concentrate on your breathing.”

  She did as Raul suggested, taking five long breaths.

  “Better?”

  “Yeah,” she said as much for her own benefit as Raul’s. Saying it out loud would make it so. “I’m done losing my shit.”

  They stood in a metallic alcove. The cavity opened directly on a wide, but dimly lit industrial catwalk that circled a metal-sided pit. Purplish light leaked from whatever lay at the bottom.

  Along the catwalk opposite the pit, wide arches opened on a dozen or more separate chambers at semi-regular intervals. The distant buzz of what sounded like table saws, the glittering flash of welding torches, and a low-level murmur of many voices reminded Kate of a factory floor. Figures moved along the catwalk and between the various doors, but none had taken any interest in Kate or Raul. She wasn’t sure why they hadn’t raised a hue and cry when she and Raul appe
ared, but she was happy to let the status quo roll along a while longer.

  The ring that had come along for the ride from Earth tingled on her finger. Not unpleasantly. Maybe it was reacting to coming home again?

  “I have a question, Raul. This is the ring Jason first sent across, the one I found in the BDR server room. It came with me from Brazil.” She showed it to him. “It’s a spirit focus, here in Ardeyn. But it’s also the original ring. What does that mean?”

  Raul took her hand and squinted at the piece of jewelry still fitted to her finger. He frowned. “I don’t know. Some artifacts can translate, but they’re so rare I’ve never seen one. Usually only cyphers move between worlds with recursors.”

  “You can explain cyphers later. For now, tell me about this.”

  Raul made a tsking noise. “It must have serious power of its own. I guess I didn’t think about it before… I mean, Jason originally sent this ring from Ardeyn to Earth. Which is actually sort of amazing. Even Ruk science would be hard pressed to duplicate that, had we been somehow cut off from Earth.”

  “Do you think it’s a problem? What if this thing has magically clued in Jason that we’ve invaded his base?”

  “It’s possible,” said Raul. “So let’s move quickly. We need to locate the other half of the gate.”

  “Good thing everyone’s ignoring us,” said Kate.

  Raul nodded.

  “And why is that?” she said. “Isn’t this supposed to be Megeddon, the heart of the Betrayer’s evil… -ness?” She gestured to the two nearest vaguely illuminated figures walking along the catwalk. The figures stopped short of their alcove and turned into an open doorway. The two workers looked oddly similar to each other. And familiar.

  Raul explained, “We’ve taken on Ardeyn’s context. And we’ve translated directly into Megeddon, so we’ve taken on the veneer of those who belong here.”

  “Really? Then why don’t we just walk into–”

  “But only for as long as we do nothing to draw attention to ourselves. The second we do something disruptive, everyone will know we don’t belong.”