by John Daulton
God roared and mashed into the skies even as Gromf’s vision began to dim. He heard sounds like running thunder and saw strange shapes shooting by in the air above, black shadows like birds flying, but far too fast, their passage marked belatedly by the thunder that they made. They spat the red fire at God as they came on. They sprayed him with the fire spray that punched holes in steel. They flew by and went away and came back and spit their foul weapons at God again and again.
God swatted at them but could not hit them all, and then a streak of smoke drew a line in the air from one of the passing dark things, these birds with impossible speed, and some long, slender object struck him, some arrow-like thing of the new god with a little fire burning behind it as it flew in. The smoke line crossed the space, fire erupted and then God’s reach was lost, falling out of the clouds like a broken spear, falling down to crash in a long line across the orcish host.
It fell so close to Gromf that the impact rolled him away from the dancing feet of the elf, away from the sounds of the orcs the elf was killing so expertly.
Gromf rolled over on the wave of the impact and lay staring skyward again. The dark birds of the new god still streaked across the sky. Another of them painted a band of smoke against the clouds, and the gleaming tip of its fire-feathered arrow flew into God’s roaring mouth. God’s head exploded and rained down in a hail of gravel. Some of it fell upon Gromf where he lay. Feebly he tried to reach out and take a piece, to touch it, to see what God was made of. But he could not touch such a thing, so he pulled back his hand. His last act would not be sacrilege.
He fought to stay awake. He fought for consciousness. He wanted to see God regrow his head, perhaps two this time. He waited for God to send forth another arm, to grow it like a root, an upthrust root sprouting instantly into the sky, even longer and more twisted than the first. He waited for God to drag the new god down from the sky and strangle him.
But God stood motionless instead. He stood on his many-joined legs and teetered there. He teetered and teetered and absorbed blast after blast from the weapons of the new god’s children as they flew by. He teetered and spewed out the gravel rain. He could not even roar his outrage now that his head was gone. He swayed for what seemed all of time, leaning to and fro in glorious defiance, until finally, bested it seemed, he fell like any mortal might have. At first he staggered, stumbled, crushing orcs beneath his feet, but then he pitched forward into the Palace wall, crashing into it like a falling tree. He had not even the last gasp of greatness in breaking it with his fall. The wall held strong, and instead, God slid down it ingloriously, crumpling against it and coming to rest a ruin of himself, his great body bent backwards and twisted oddly against the Palace gates. Gromf could not keep watching, and so he looked away.
He saw a dragon flying by. A bad sign. An omen.
He recognized the frightful cry of Warlord then, wondered if Warlord had seen the dragon too. He wondered if Warlord believed in such a thing. He wondered that he did. He wished he had Kazuk-Hal-Mandik here to ask.
He lay there listening. Unable to move. His breath came in wet rasps. He fought to stay awake. He wanted to die hearing the sound of Warlord crying victory. At least that to send him on his way. He kept forgetting to listen. He forgot to see sometimes. But always he came back with a start, fought to hear.
The battle went on. Warlord pushing to get in. The skies filled with smoke. The ground thundered physically beneath Gromf’s back, tremors that began to grow. Gromf thought the vibrations must be Warlord filling with the spirit of God, God who gave himself, his strength, to Warlord who now shook all of Kurr with his might.
But then the children of the new god came. All of them.
He rolled his head to the side and saw them coming in a great metal wave. Their heavy arms of steel raised together, pointing accusingly, spitting their short fire and punching holes in everything. The demons roared and fell all around him. Orcs howled and fell all around him too.
They fell for a long time.
Gromf listened for the sound of Warlord calling victory anyway. He clung to consciousness, waiting and hoping.
For a time, Warlord’s fury did grow. Gromf heard it dimly, increasingly muffled as the bodies of demons piled up. Blood began to pool around him, rising high enough to fill his ears. He fought for the strength to raise his head. Managed it even. Only to hear Warlord’s voice break, his strength crack as if with some horrible blow. Warlord let go a long raspy shout, indignity and outrage. The sound came in staccato thumps, the notes pulsing with the rhythm of one of those human weapons ringing its metal ring, its unseen projectiles slamming into Warlord’s lungs, piercing his flesh and rending his triumph to nothingness. Warlord cried out once for God. At God. And then he fell silent. Other orcs cried out his name. “Warlord!” they shouted in unison, sounding like younglings in Gromf’s sodden ears. “Warlord, no!” they cried. He heard the courage leave them just as he felt it leave himself.
His head fell back into the rising ooze. He thought dimly of the human who had drowned in the water of the artificial pond, could see the human’s face and hands pressed against the transparent cover of his strange armor, his mouth carping for air before he died. Then Gromf carped for air too. He carped and gasped, tried to raise his head again as his mouth filled with gore. He tried, but he could not. And then, at last, the light left his eyes. He fell back and worried no more. Discipline had abandoned him, left him with worthless God Stones, drowning in the mire.
Chapter 51
After the initial joy of victory, the time of sorrow was long. The cleanup process after such barbarism and brutality was exhausting and heartbreaking both. Two worlds laboring to remove the carnage, two worlds mourning for what was, between them, well over a million deaths. The losses were staggering and seas could have been filled with the tears that flowed from the bereaved like blood from inconsolable wounds.
The names of all who had been lost were written upon monuments on both planets, every single name, every single man, woman and child, all the Joneses, Moraleses and Xiongs of Earth mingling with the Sawblats, Hotsands and Steepleworths from Prosperion, two monuments precisely the same, sprawling across capitals in recognition and declaration of mutual apology. The cost of learning trust had been grotesque. Unspeakable. Beyond recovery for millions more. Mothers so broken there was no hope for them even in newfound interplanetary peace. The cost was simply too high for rejoicing, even for relief. Suicide alone added over ten thousand names.
But in time, four months perhaps, something that started to look like normalcy began to show itself again. In places, anyway. Not much, not in large ways, but sometimes, in glimmers. In laughter rising on a breeze here and there, like new shoots in springtime, as if human spirits began once more to grow, to hope, to give signs that life, as always, goes on. The scars would remain forever on the trunks of those trees, but the forest would rise around the remains and, someday, would be whole again. Someday.
One of the first official recognitions of this on Prosperion was the dedication of the Fire Fountain on the plains beyond Crown City, the first ceremony since the defeat of the orcs and demons, and one that marked the full recovery of Her Majesty, who, like so many others, had spent long weeks in the care of healers.
She limped out to the front of the stage, a wide platform ten spans in the air, upon a scaffold covered with the crimson banners of the kingdom. With the Fire Fountain’s concrete walls at her back, a great gray block nearly four hundred paces on a side, she looked out over the crowd and smiled. She raised a hand and waved to them, the bright morning light gleaming spectacularly from her golden armor, giving her the aspect of a risen sun.
“People of Kurr,” she said, her voice enhanced by the illusionist sitting at the far end of the high stage, chanting quietly. “And people of planet Earth. I stand before you in great awe, humbled by the scale of your courage and the scope of your strength. In all the times of strife and war that this world has known, none have seen the magnitude of
the conflict you have just come through. No time in history has known such calamitous barbarity, such unchecked and ravenous evil, evil that spanned worlds. Evil that spanned a galaxy. And yet you, all of you, from Earth and Prosperion alike, stood before that great evil and did not flinch or falter. You stared straight into its eyes. You leaned into it, your hearts as your weapons, your will sharper even than your blades, and you defied it. You defied it and you knew victory.
“You knew that victory at great cost. You lost friends and family. You lost ships and homes. But you did not lose yourself. That held through it all as you held to right and truth and dignity. And, in doing so, in holding to faith in yourselves and your fellow humanity, to all of our humanity, you triumphed. We triumphed. And so here we stand today, united, united as humans in a vast galaxy filled with hope and menace, with opportunity and danger, a great vast future for us to challenge and explore. We stand united by common cause and mutual need. By respect. By humility. By love. And by the mutual debt of blood.”
She turned then and looked behind her at the people seated along the back of the stage, and inclined her head to the dignitaries assembled there. “We are all so bound,” she said. She had a smile for the new leader of the Northern Trade Alliance, Director Bahri, a wizened older man whose dark, sad eyes still reflected the apologies and shame he carried on behalf of his predecessor and perhaps his entire world. He’d spent a long time in private council with the Queen. She was sure he’d do his best to make amends, despite his refusal to hand over the deposed Director Nakamura that he might meet his fate at the edge of her headsman’s axe. Still, she could smile at him as he sat amongst the many world leaders from Earth and numerous officers of the fleet, the lot of them mixed among the notables from Prosperion, the dukes and duchesses of Kurr, the marquis and marchionesses, earls, barons and a few minor lords. The assemblage represented a collection of power upon two planets the likes of which had never been gathered before. A first in the known universe for either world. Most of the gathering smiled back at her, warmed by and welcoming her words.
She turned once more to face the crowd. “I stand before you now to acknowledge that friendship formally. To declare the unwavering promise of this kingdom to fight alongside planet Earth whenever she may call, to aid her with my own steel if I must, my own magic and my own blood if needs be. That is what friends do. We must all pledge it. Promise to aid and protect. We must promise to work together through all things. Including working through ourselves and our human failings. We must never again let grievances escalate to war. The cost is too great, the opportunity to eradicate our species too high. And so we must protect one another, with arms and with diplomacy. We will repel all enemies together in war, but we will resolve all differences in words and in peace. This is my promise. This is the promise we must all speak, for it is the only way.
“And as I look out over this place, this battlefield where so many of us have known misery and loss, I see the faces of my people shining up at me. And I ask them, I ask you all, who here will swear upon their lives the promise of friendship that spans the stars? Who will stand for honor and peace in this great and vast universe with me? Will you join me? Say it now with your words and forever after with your deeds. Long live the alliance of—and more importantly, the friendship between—Earth and Prosperion!” She drew the broadsword from her back and thrust it skyward at the bright sun, where the light struck it and flared like a great spark sent by Mercy herself to relight the flame of hope. “Long live the alliance! Long live friendship!”
The sound of well over a hundred thousand voices rose as one, all in echo of the Queen. Long live the alliance! Long live friendship! Swords and spears and even small children were hoisted on high, the chants of the people raucous and wild. The War Queen saw blasters raised up as well, Earth weapons pressed into the air as fleet people joined in. “Long live the alliance,” they cried. “Long live friendship.”
The Queen turned back and saw that the Earth folks behind her had risen as well, and they came forward to stand beside her, her own nobles following their lead, all but the Marchioness of South Mark, who sat glaring at the Earl of Vorvington who had joined them as well, and, in that way, she glared at them all. For a full five minutes the crowd chanted and cheered, and the words became the general cry of glory and the release of pent-up anxiety. Soon hats were flying and hugs abounded. Strangers shook hands with aliens who were now friends. The Queen could hardly stop the tears that burned in her eyes.
She turned to the director during the storm of sound and leaned near his ear. “My people will never deceive you, Director. I will never deceive you, just as we never have.” He smiled, and once again she could see the fleeting shame in his eyes. She touched his arm. “He did what he thought he had to do, as did Captain Asad and the rest. Egregious errors on their parts, but that is the past and cannot be undone. Punishments have been handed out where crimes were committed, and there is little more to be done. Such is the unsatisfying flavor of justice sometimes. You and I are friends. We move forward from today.”
He nodded. “Yes, all is past. You are a rare woman to allow it. But yes, we are forever friends.”
“Good. Then as my first official act of friendship, let us get this Fire Fountain dedicated and get to the food. I haven’t had a good meal since they put my leg back on. I’m sure I need the sustenance or I’ll be forever with this limp.”
He smiled. “Yes, and I could use something to divert me from guilty thoughts. Being out here … seeing what I saw when I first arrived. This is such a dearly won place.”
She patted him on the arm. “You must not dwell on it today. At least today.”
“I will do my best, Your Majesty.”
Eventually the crowd simmered down, and the Queen could get on with the dedication ceremony.
“As you all know, inside this vast concrete box that our Earth friends have built for us, lays an open demon gate. To date, we have no known means of closing such a thing, though our diviners are working on it night and day, and of course, so is our heroic Galactic Mage.” The crowd began cheering and shouting Altin’s name, a great chorus of Sir Altin, Sir Altin, huzzah! Over and over they chanted it, and Her Majesty let it go for quite some time, sparing a glance over her shoulder at him as he sat blushing amongst the other notables. She winked and beamed proudly at him, then turned back and raised her hand, bringing them to mostly quiet again. “Together they will seek a way to close that foul portal forever. However, until such time as that means is found, and as a way of symbolizing our trust and our mutual dependence upon our sister world, planet Earth, the fleet has agreed to install and forever operate this Fire Fountain with us.” She turned to another illusionist sitting beside the one amplifying her words and nodded. “Behold,” said the Queen, pointing into the sky. “This is what goes on inside this plain gray box.”
In the air above the crowd appeared an enormous illusion, providing a view of the interior of the Fire Fountain. There were several piles of something dark and smoldering laying about on what was otherwise a plain concrete floor. The walls were plain as well, very tall, but unadorned for the most part, no attention to aesthetics wrought in. Only the long, narrow strips of clear glass that ran the length of each wall broke the monotony of those mighty walls, narrow strips, barely six Earth inches wide, though several Earth feet thick. Only those windows and, of course, the guns and cameras that hung about the ceiling high above.
The guns were monstrous, nine-foot-long Gatling canons with seven barrels each, all of which fired rounds nearly as thick as a man’s wrist. There was a gun turret in each corner and one mounted at even intervals all around the high ceiling, placed with enough frequency to have one to cover every twenty-foot square below. While few of the Prosperions assembled knew precisely what they were, there was a deadly aspect to their alien construction that few failed to recognize. They might not know specifically what those things were, but most could fathom what would be the end result of standing in front
of one. And the Earth people in the audience knew exactly what they were, and to the last of them they began to grin appreciatively. There was a lot of firepower in that massive concrete box.
Just as the crowd managed to take it all in and marvel at both its size and even at its conspicuously bare and bland design, which for some seemed something of an anticlimax, a huge black demon appeared. It simply popped into view standing on the ground, its seven long limbs already clawing for something to kill. The illusionist conveyed the sound inside as well as the view, and the moment it appeared, the air filled with its roars just as three of the guns went off. The flash of their barrels and the thunder of their fire carried over the crowd and out across the plains as a spray of supersonic bullets pulverized the beast below. The demon twisted and raged and lashed at nothing, gore oozing from holes that opened in its body faster than could be accounted for, until it finally broke into pieces, flames ignited in its joints and steam hissing from the cracks in what remained of its hard armor shell.
Then new fire came. The whole of the scene consumed by it. The Prosperions knew what this new inferno was. It was the activation of some powerful enchantment Her Majesty had arranged. And for a long time there was nothing to see in the illusion but a bright yellow box of flames hovering above them all, fire raging violently and looking as if it had been locked up in a cube of glass high above the crowd.
When the flames died away, there was once again nothing in the room but a smoldering pile of something black upon the floor.
The crowd cheered as one, and their noise filled the air again, just as another demon appeared in the box, followed immediately by two more. Their fates were the same as the one before.
The crowd cheered and shouted even louder, joining their noise with the raging ruckus of the demons as they died and the glorious roar of the Gatling guns. The demons writhed in agony and with every contortion the people purged themselves of more and more pent-up rage. It was an orgy of bloodlust and revenge. The people purged and purged as they watched ten more demons die.
