Of all the Rings that might have answered my call, I hadn’t expected Desire. I’d left it behind on Earth. But somehow, it had followed me here. And it was embodied. Only an Earth native could wear a Ring of Incarnation and claim its power. I couldn’t imagine who it might be, unless it was that woman Katherine Manners? Had she somehow managed to bridge the divide, and bring the Ring with her? But I sensed no hint of the underlying personality, whether it was Kate or someone else entirely. Only Desire burned, dropping like a bomb.
I pushed Siraja away from ground zero with a violent shove. The qephilim went skidding at least a dozen feet on the glass, leaving me directly beneath my prodigal Incarnation. I expected to be obliterated in the blast when she hit.
In a way, I suppose I was.
Maybe she hit. Maybe she didn’t actually physically touch the hard surface at all. It was irrelevant. Her gathering power, as well as her presence linked with the other three Incarnations, ignited an inferno of incandescent energy. The radiance bloomed like a nuclear sunrise. When that light refracted through the glass, it was bent as if through a prism. Color raced out across the Glass Desert. At the intersection, a door opened. The valves parted, swinging inevitably and unstoppably outward. An even brighter illumination shone out from the interior.
I passed within.
It was like a hand clapping in mine in friendship, laughter from afar, the odor of a pig roasting on spits, lights in the distance and singing, and more – a million sensations and emotions poured through me. It was both too much, and not enough. Too much, because my brain threatened to burst with the unending torrent of knowledge. Not enough, because I knew there was an organizing principle within the Hall that would make sense of it all. I knew it. I just had to find it before my brain fried…
And just like that, I had the answer.
I opened myself, and looked out across all Ardeyn, as if viewing it from an infinite height and depth simultaneously. I was in the Maker’s Hall. All things were mine to know. It was merely the way things were.
Where I turned my gaze, I saw a bee sipping nectar from one of thousands of daisies growing in a meadow, an eel angling through the waters of Oceanus hungry for its next meal, a magnificently feathered dragon coming in for a landing on a roost set aside in the Citadel of the Harrowing, and a thousand other events both consequential and not.
If I focused on one thing, my view and knowledge of it expanded like a flower blooming with ever deeper fractal petal layers, revealing more and more about what I examined until no secrets remained. Secrets so fundamental that words could not bound or describe them. But a meta-language existed. Using it, the Maker had named things beyond naming.
The battle raging around me decelerated, as time itself seemed to grind to a halt, for all except me. Knowledge of things great and small lapped across my consciousness like an infinite ocean of cognizance. With a start, I realized that, once again, I was the Maker.
When I described darkness, midnight reigned. When I described a mockingbird, the sweetest birdsong that ever was warbled forth. When I described my mind whole and without distortion, so it was.
So I remembered all of it. Even those things I’d hidden from myself in shame.
What I had done before, and what I had allowed to be done. To save Earth in that first flush of Ardeyn’s creation, I sealed myself and my friends away beyond time and existence in the real world. To keep Earth safe. There had been no choice. They understood that, didn’t they? Was it too much to ask? I simply made their choice for them, a choice all of them would’ve made, if they’d been given a chance.
Jason complained the most bitterly and vociferously. No one else said a word. Everyone else said they understood. That I’d done the right thing. Who could argue with the logic that the good of many outweigh the good of the few? It was the only choice, they said. But I knew, behind their words, they felt betrayed, to one extent or another, too.
Because I hadn’t consulted. I hadn’t given anyone any options. Jason called me a selfish bastard and worse, to my face and behind my back. Later, selfish is what he called me when, in his guise as War, he shoved his flaming weapon through my heart.
My guilty heart. Because Jason had been right.
I was a selfish bastard. Here, in this place where all things were known, I couldn’t evade the truth, or the memory that fell on me like a dead tree, pinning me with regret.
I was a liar. When I’d first taken on the mantle of the Maker, I could have returned all my friends back home, translated them into fresh new bodies. Sure, there would have been questions back on Earth regarding the corpses that resembled them found in the computer lab, but they could’ve at least had a chance to live normal lives.
But to do what I needed to do, to cauterize Ardeyn’s intrusion into the Strange, I would’ve had to stay behind. Alone. And I hadn’t wanted to be alone, had I?
No. Misery loves company. I’d imprisoned my friends along with myself when I’d cut off the Land of the Curse from its initial connection with Earth. I’d trapped them with me, when I could’ve let them go free.
Because I’m a fucking coward.
The Maker’s Hall provided a godlike perspective to truly see myself as they had seen me. What I saw wasn’t pleasant.
Because even though I numbered among the most powerful beings in Ardeyn, save for the kray broodmother that thudded forward, and Lotan who burned under the rocky crust, I had imagined myself a purely moral and unselfish being. The truth was that I had been afraid. In my fear, I’d let logic justify my actions rather than human feeling or true compassion for my friends. I’d thought to conquer my fear through endless plans and contingencies. How much evil would’ve been avoided if I’d thought of my friends first and acted out of human feeling? Though more by inaction and direct decision, I’d kidnapped my friends and kept them here with me. Jason’s betrayal sprang directly from what I’d done.
And what about my other friends I’d trapped here? Had they hated me as fiercely as Jason? Alice, Sanders, and Mel – I couldn’t ask them because they were long dead…
Actually, something was odd. For all my transcendence, I couldn’t find any histories embedded in the world for Alice and Sanders. Jason and Kate, on the other hand, were close, as was Mel’s great-to-the-nth granddaughter, Elandine. Well, War, Desire, and Death were nearby, anyway. The human consciousnesses of the hosts were suppressed, though Elandine seemed to be fighting submergence with a modicum of success.
Wait–
Alarm blazed like an exploding star as I realized War and Desire had rushed into the Hall after me.
Were they… No, they were contained, though it’d had been a close call. If they’d gotten in ahead of me, one of them would’ve been raised in my place, and taken the Maker’s cognizance for themself. The danger of that happening had come and gone. Now they chased down endless corridors of colored light, refracting through an endless maze of prisms. They were caught, until I released them.
The time slow-down was mere illusion, an artifact of my own vastly increased cognizance. In fact, time was slipping by and the planetovore known as the kray broodmother advanced. I had to act soon. Once more, I had to decide.
I focused on the entity that walked in the eye of the storm. She was the same monstrous planetovore that had gazed across the starting grid during our very first trial of the enhanced VR gear. She hadn’t forgotten. She’d bided her time, waiting out the years and centuries, sending her kray through the cracks and imperfections of Ardeyn’s walls, despite how I’d tried to slow the time so precipitously that no contact could occur.
No plan survives contact with the enemy. And with the Maker’s death – my death at Jason’s hand – the broodmother found more and more weaknesses in Ardeyn’s defenses. Exploits mostly in the form of a desperate and reckless Jason Cole, though there’d been others.
I traced every crack, every seam, and every intrusion, from the moment Ardeyn was first dumped into the dark energy network, to now. I held the visualiz
ed construct in my mind as a single hyperdimensional object. From that perspective, the entire Land of the Curse was like a fine crystal vase shot through with fractures. One more solid knock, and it would shatter. And the broodmother was a giant fucking hammer.
Repairing the damage would not be easy, given the timeline. If I couldn’t eject the broodmother and her armada within the next few minutes, I never would.
Within the manifold space of the Maker’s Hall, I had many hands and many mouths to manipulate and name the elements of Ardeyn. Healing the breach in my world would require all that and more. I needed help from the Incarnations. Unfortunately, only Three were manifest. With all Seven, it would have been a tough task, but doable. With only War, Death, and Desire, it would be a gamble.
And sacrifices would have to be made.
“Some Maker you are,” muttered one of my mouths. “Not even willing to admit that you’re getting ready to do it again. Sacrifice others to save yourself. Making a logical plan because you’re afraid to do the human thing.”
I paused. Was it true?
Yes, there was a chance that by tapping the full efforts of War, Death, and Desire, the underlying human minds and bodies would perish. Jason’s mind might be burned out of War, leaving the original entity behind. Or maybe not even that much would remain. Maybe only the Ring would be left behind. I wouldn’t feel that bad if that happened because Jason, despite that he’d arguably been driven to it, still needed to be put down.
“Katherine Manners and Queen Elandine face the same risks,” another me reminded myself. “You’d feel bad about killing them, right? Though if you do nothing, it’ll be out of your hands. They’re already starting to fade away with the Incarnations riding them so hard. They’re giving it their all. And the longer you sit in here dicking around, rationalizing the easy path, the more likely it is they’ll never come back. So really, Carter, what do you want?”
“I want to save Ardyen, and Earth with it! Sacrificing a few people to save everyone else shouldn’t even be a choice.”
It was an agonizing decision. But, yes. Sacrifices had to be made. The good of the many outweighed–
“Don’t give me that bullshit, you self-centered fuck! Jason was right! You can fix this by yourself. You’re just afraid.”
Of course I was afraid; it would kill me if I tried it. I’d die. I–
Oh.
The admission shocked me. I hadn’t even considered the one other option on the table.
“Because you’re a fucking coward.” Fear was the antithesis of War, or at least I’d always assumed. But fear was also the antithesis of humanity, of doing the right thing, for me. In a way, I’d been seeing what I hated most in myself when I saw Jason. Jason was kind of like my dark reflection – he was just as afraid as me. We were not so different.
Shame burned through me, all the many instances that multiplied throughout the Hall. Yet again I’d considered sacrificing my friends in order to assure success. A tactical impulse designed to hide from myself what I was actually doing.
“Not this time,” I promised myself. As I decided to save my friends, even Jason, uncertainty tingled through every micron of my being. Was I brave enough to throw myself in front of the bus to save Jason, Elandine, and Kate? Doubt was a stone in my heart. Trepidation dragged like an anchor. I feared what I would decide. Even though I was the Maker, I was also Carter. Self-sacrifice wasn’t really my thing.
But damn it. For once in my life, I wanted to do the right thing. That wasn’t too much to ask of myself. And the fact was, technically I could leave everyone else out of the process. Instead, I could meld myself – my will – and my existence into the cracks. That would work.
And it would certainly be my end.
The Maker would once more be absent his creation. Without him, the Rings would recede to their earlier, minimum functions. War would go back to being merely the Betrayer. Elandine would have the Ring of “Peace” not of Death. And Desire wouldn’t swallow up Katherine Manners whole.
But I was the Maker. In naming my weaknesses and failings, I laid them bare. Seeing them exposed for the mean and pathetic things they were, I cast out doubt and fear.
Warmth like sunlight stroked my face. Light filled my eyes, so that I had to blink back tears. I could do this.
How many people ever get the opportunity to correct their biggest mistakes? If the Maker – if I – force someone into a role they don’t want and thus stifle their free will, who’s to blame if they act out? Me, that’s who.
I stretched out my many hands to touch each and every crack and tear in Ardeyn’s fabric. I cried out with all my mouths with words that seared like a welder’s flame. I did what had to be done. Without doubt or fear.
As before, all things were mine to know, as I turned my multi-faceted gaze across, under, and through Ardeyn. A child lost in the meadows above Ardeyn was shown the way home. The broken leg of an explorer lying alone in a qephilim ruin was mended, a warrior on the Glass Desert succumbing to a kray wound was healed. Minor miracles spread across the Land of the Curse so that for a time it was the Land of the Blessing.
But this was only me stretching my powers, limbering up. To save the world would require more.
So more I gave. Feeling myself fall into smaller and smaller pieces, with godlike cognizance falling away like all the stones in a bridge tumbling into the dark water below at once was both terrifying and exhilarating. The layers of fractal blooms closed, one by one, obscuring their meanings from me, robbing me of the Maker’s knowledge of secrets both deep as the true significance of the dark energy network and mundane as the color of a newborn baby’s eyes in Mandariel.
Everything was stripped from me, and I poured it all into the fracture Jason had created, welding it shut with my own continuity of being.
In the end, it was easier than I ever expected to lay down the heaviest burden of all: my ego. And so Ardeyn was made whole again.
38: Recognition
Elandine, Queen of Hazurrium
Lantern in hand, Elandine walked the Path of the Dead under the light of the Seven Moons. Their cold radiance splintered on the raised road that wound for miles through the queendom. Crypts honeycombed the rampart beneath their feet. In those metal-clad and lightless cavities, the dead of Hazurrium were interred, from the lowliest beggars to royalty. According to tales told over campfires, the souls of the dead sometimes ventured up from the Night Vault to walk the Path of the Dead, looking for their loved ones to bid them goodbye.
“You won’t find her, Your Highness,” murmured Navar, who followed a few paces after the queen. Behind the First Protector, what remained of Elandine’s forces were arrayed in a line stretching back along the otherworldly route.
“I know,” the queen replied, her voice almost too soft to hear.
After a minute of silence, Navar said, “Forgive me for saying this, but… are you all right?”
“You mean, why am I not biting your head off for mentioning my dead sister Flora?”
Navar coughed. “Yes, my queen.”
Elandine nodded thoughtfully. It was a good question.
“Being Death meant I had to come to terms with a few things.”
“Imagining you giving up your free will, even to an Incarnation, is a difficult task.”
Elandine chuckled. “That was the least of what was required of me.”
They walked without words for several long minutes. The queen thought she caught a glimpse of two spectral figures gliding along the path in the moonlight, but she wasn’t sure. A heartbeat later and they were gone.
Elandine rubbed at her eyes, then sighed. “To summon Death – to become an incarnation – I had to stop running from the sorrow, and accept that everyone dies. Everyone. Even Flora. Burying my fear of grief under a royal tantrum, or running away across Ardeyn to challenge some other threat, wasn’t going to work. I had to stamp out the hope that I could avoid that heartache if I just kept ahead of it.”
“And so you walk
ed as the Incarnation of Death. Had I not seen it myself, I wouldn’t have believed it. As it is, I almost wonder if it wasn’t all a dream.”
“It was no dream. Death came, and I was Her.”
“Will you do so again?”
Elandine cocked her head. Was it possible? “I hope not. I almost lost myself. Drowned in the Incarnation’s dominion. The Maker saved me from that. When Carter Strange did whatever he did inside the Maker’s Hall, Death blew like a leaf in a gale, lost. And I’m glad. The Ring is back to what it always was. It’s mostly powerless once more.”
“I’m sorry that your plan to use the Ring to return your sister has failed.”
“Seeing Flora alive again was always a fool’s hope.” The words out of her own mouth sounded strange, not like something she would’ve ever admitted. But they were true. Flora was gone, and there was nothing she could do about it.
“You have my deepest condolences, Your Majesty.”
Sorrow trembled on her cheeks like warm rain. It wasn’t the heart-rending grief she’d always feared to face. Though she felt as if a hollow in her chest filled with cold water, it was bearable. Fresh tears smeared the star and lantern light. She mopped at the moisture with her sleeve.
When was the last time she’d cried?
She remembered Brandalun comforting her when she was ten years old. Her mother had just informed Elandine that her father the Royal Consort had been lost in a border skirmish with Mandariel. Brandalun had been stern and stiff-jawed as she relayed the news, but Elandine was shattered. She wept for five days. She’d been useless. She hadn’t taken in any of the instructions provided by her tutors. She could barely mount the will to eat.
When her grief finally broke, Elandine had vowed never to let sadness pull her down again. As she’d grown older, she’d learned that fury was the answer, to many things, but especially whenever anguish threatened. In anger’s narrow certainty, there was no room for heartache. Her mother had seemed to approve.
The Myth of the Maker Page 33
