Gods of Rust and Ruin

by Azalea Ellis

  The Player closest to it jerked, a single sharp spasm, and then screamed. Voice cracking, and then breaking, then gurgling on his own bloody vocal cords.

  Birch grabbed the back of my pants and kept tugging, as if trying to drag me away.

  I’d heard screams like that before, in the Trials. Humans reach a certain point where the thing that separates us from animals just . . . breaks. We lose ourselves. And then, sometimes we scream like that.

  Chapter 21

  Darkness, once gazed upon, can never be lost.

  — John Milton

  The god dropped his snack, and moved to throw the screamer and the others who were still frozen into the chapel.

  Torliam laid a hand on my arm, and the warmth of it startled me out of the trance I’d been held in, as I watched the creature down below so easily conquer the humans.

  My eyes met Torliam’s, and as one, we turned to go. But I looked back.

  Vaughn was running frantically, apparently freed from whatever had been holding him and the other Player, who was still screaming. He saw me. A moment of confusion, then comprehension, then hope. He mouthed “help” at me, the word silent from this distance, though it must have been a scream.

  No. No way was I going down there to try and save them. “Run, guys,” I barked. “Run away!” I pushed off the rock in front of me, moving just a little too high above the edge.

  The god stiffened, even as I turned, as if we were a spider that he had just felt running over his neck, and turned toward us with a speed that would have disabused me of any notions about his humanity, if I’d had any.

  I saw his face for the first time, and it forced that last little bit of fear into me. Except for the nose and mouth, it was a smooth face. He had no eyes. No place where eyes would be. Just smooth, featureless gold. As if whoever sculpted him had forgotten the most important part.

  The light hit me before I could continue my spin. Everything around me grew bright, the colors standing out even more vividly, tinged with a glowing golden hue, and the world slowed.

  The brightness grew, until it overwhelmed my vision, burning into my pupils, and scorching the back of my retinas with cold instead of heat. When I was a child, I touched a piece of dry ice that was making the fog at a Halloween party. It was so cold, the skin of my fingertip fused to it instantly, and it burned me, just as well as touching a glowing hot coal would have. This was like that.

  It burrowed past my retinas, in a scorching path straight for my brain. I had a single moment of panicked rejection, a “No,” sounding in my mind, but then it was inside.

  The brain doesn’t have pain receptors, or so they say. Yet, I could feel the little maggots burrowing through my thoughts, like a physical sensation. They searched, and they found.

  Memory exploded through my consciousness, along with a strange dreamlike understanding.

  I was young, small, and thoughtless. I called another girl stupid when she made a silly comment in class. She clammed up and turned away from me, pointedly ignoring and avoiding me for the rest of the day. I never saw her after that year, because she moved to a lower-income district when her mother died.

  I was afraid, weak, and useless. Chanelle helped me, standing beside me in my first Trial. If she’d never met me, she would not have slipped in the blood. She would not have died with her throat being ripped out by a rabid fellow Player, and would not have left her sister alone to rely on me.

  I was stressed, untrusting, and protective. I told Zed to leave me alone, pushed him away, and did my best to extract him from all the new areas of my life. As the new areas, the ones where I was a Player, took over my entire life, I tried to push him out of that, too. He felt abandoned by the person who had been a best friend and unloved by someone he had thought cared unconditionally. He kept coming back for more abuse, desperately trying to fix whatever problem had caused it. He wondered if maybe he’d been wrong about how close he and I were. He sat in the corner of his room, slumped over, shoving fists into burning eyes in a failed attempt to hold back shameful tears. And then he got up again, and kept trying till he no longer expected a different response.

  I was desperate, and selfish. I purposely took advantage of China, because I wanted her strength to protect me, just as her sister had done. I convinced her to trust me, to work with me, and even rely on me. Then, like her sister, she died. Protecting me. Her hand held out in a vain attempt stop the oncoming threat of the man’s power. Her body twisting, her eyes meeting mine for the last time.

  I was terrified, panicking, and selfish. I twisted the last piece of the puzzle in my hands into place, releasing myself from my cage. Across from me, the girl, who had been just as frightened as me, screamed as the black stone turned to devouring mist, sinking through her skin, and corroding her from the inside. She could feel her bones giving way first, dissolving till they could no longer support her weight, then her muscles, tendons, organs. She screamed until she could no longer scream, watched me until her eyes were gone, too, and was in the end thankful that even with all that, she was thankful she had lost, and not allowed herself to become a monster just because of fear.

  The snippets of memory and understanding hit me, one after the other, an onslaught of the times I’d made the wrong decision, hurt another person, caused pain and sorrow and death. And I was forced to not only to remember, but to understand. I saw the connections, cause and effect, and I knew the pain I’d created as if I’d had to endure it myself. I knew it like a lover, like the feel of my fingers, like my own reflection in the mirror, my ice blue eyes blazing back at me.

  I hurt.

  So bad.

  And it went on and on, until suddenly, I was torn away. I could feel the cold maggots trying to keep their grip on me, but slipping away, back out through my eyes with a ripping sensation.

  My vision didn’t return at first. Wind whipped past my ears, a warm body pressed against me, arms wrapped around me, Birch yowled, and I tasted blood in my mouth. I’d bitten my tongue.

  A loud sound passed through the air, cutting through the sound of the wind, and it took me far too long to process it. It was a roar, sounded in the melodious scream of thousands of smooth voices, too loud to be human. My body vibrated painfully at the sound, and my eardrums pretty much just gave up.

  As my vision returned through bright spots like I’d been staring into the sun, I realized that Torliam had tackled me off the side of the mountain, and we were falling. It was eerily similar to the end of my first foray into NIX, and Adam’s tackle that saved me from the same fate as China. That had happened because I made the wrong choices.

  I had the horrible feeling that something similarly terrible had just happened, but I was too mentally overwhelmed to figure out what had gone wrong.

  Each moment passed at a bovinely slow pace, and I realized finally there was no river to break our fall, and we would no doubt soon crash into the unforgiving rocks below.

  I caught a blurry glimpse of, his claws digging into Torliam’s back, wings flapping frantically, trying to slow us down. It was futile. He wasn’t even big enough to fly.

  Where were the others? Had they fallen? Were they trapped in the light, too?

  Torliam began to glow. It wasn’t like the glow of the golden helixes, rather it was ripples of visible sky blue that looked almost liquid, a physical thing instead of ephemeral light.

  Then, suddenly I was jerked sideways, and then immediately sideways again. He must have been jumping from rock to rock as we fell to slow our fall. Then, a sudden drag had my insides protesting at the change in inertia, I was flipped so I could see the ground instead of the sky for half an instant. One of Torliam’s arms released me and ripped Birch around to my side, on top of him, and then the three of us met the earth.

  The impact almost knocked me out. It did knock the breath out of me, even though Torliam had cushioned the fall with his own body.

  My teeth had smashed together when we hit, and my left arm had been jerked around a little b
it. It ached, from shoulder to fingertip. A horrible sense of foreboding rose in me as the rippling light disappeared. I ignored my lungs’ screaming for air, and peeled my body upward.

  My vision had gone wonky again when we hit, but it normalized quickly when my brain settled in my skull. I looked around at the small but relatively deep crater surrounding us.

  Torliam must have created the hole with his power, somehow, along with slowing our fall. And cushioning both Birch and I with his own body.

  Adam, it had to be, was sliding down the mountainside inside a black ink box with a sled-like curve on the bottom. I hoped Jacky and Sam were with him, because I didn’t see them anywhere else. I would have called out, but I couldn’t talk as my lungs had yet to regain the ability to breathe.

  Torliam’s eyes were closed, his face screwed into a grimace.

  I stabilized myself on his chest with my good arm and used the left to check his pulse at the neck. It was still beating strongly, and another quick check confirmed he was still breathing. I rolled painfully off him toward Birch, who had bounced and rolled off to the side from the rebound of our impact.

  Birch lay on his side, belly rising and falling shallowly as he breathed in and out with quick little pants.

  I laid my hand gently on his side and stretched my Perception out, into his body, looking for what was wrong.

  He had fractured bones in the wing he was laying on, and a good amount of bruising already forming. His eardrums were . . . ruptured? I could feel a bit of blood beginning to seep out of his large, tufted ears. I guess it wouldn’t have mattered if I could speak, because he couldn’t hear me anyway.

  I lifted my hand and placed it gently on top of his furry head in reassurance, fighting to regain my own breath, and take stock of my own injuries. My left arm hurt, deep and aching. There were consequences when humans got turned into hamburger—consequences even miraculous healer Sam couldn’t get rid of.

  My chest and stomach ached, a sour, burning sensation. I realized inanely that it was emotional pain. Guilt. Regret. Uncertainty. I would have scoffed at that, but it truly, seriously hurt to the point it distracted me from my physical injuries. What had the god done to me?

  More blood filled my mouth, and I spat it out, along with a large, jagged chunk of tooth. My eyes caught for a fraction of a second on the white bone amongst the bloody spatter, and moved on. No time for that now.

  Bruised ribs on myself as well, and one of my knees had slipped past Torliam’s side and hit the ground in our fall. Kneecap broken, but not completely shattered. I still couldn’t hear anything, except for a faint, metallic ringing sound.

  I felt a bit dizzy, and wondered if that was because of my ears, or if perhaps I had a concussion. I shook my head to try and clear it, which instead sent a throbbing wave of pain through it. No time for this! How long had it been since we hit the ground?

  I scooted over to the huge man and slapped his cheek lightly. No doubt, he’d taken more impact than either Birch or I, but he was also an Estreyan. I needed him awake, and in commission, if I was going to make it out of this. And I didn’t have time to wait for him. The unjustifiably beautiful monster in the valley behind us could be preparing an attack, either by physically coming after us, or using his golden growths.

  Adam scrambled down into the hole, Jacky and Sam half a second slower than him. Adam threw up an ink shield over the top, drowning out what light remained. Sealing us away from the light of the sentinels.

  That was why Torliam had created a hole, I knew. But in battle, if you couldn’t move, you died. And we were trapped within.

  I felt Torliam’s groan under my hands. I sent a Window to Sam, in lieu of verbal instruction.

  —Torliam is hurt. Prioritize his healing.—

  -Eve-

  While Sam placed his hands on Torliam’s exposed skin, I reached out as far out as possible with my Wraith Skill. It hurt my brain, and I had a sudden surge of nausea, but I could feel the blindingly bright power of the god on the other side of the intervening mountain, along with many other smaller points of power where the helixes burst from the ground.

  The god’s power was surging, probably with anger, but he didn’t seem to be physically coming after us, at least not yet. And the golden light didn’t reach us where we were.

  Torliam’s eyes opened, and I drew back my focus, blinking to clear the blurriness.

  The distinct taste of tears washed away the blood on the tip of my tongue, and that’s when I realized I was crying. I didn’t even try to stop, because I knew I couldn’t.

  He frowned when his eyes met my own, and I said, “Are you okay? Can you move?” He didn’t have a VR chip, so I hoped he could understand me. It was strange to feel my voice box vibrating, and know that I was speaking, but not actually be able to hear myself.

  He nodded, and then immediately winced at the movement of his head, but he rolled over anyway, then rose to his hands and knees.

  I saw his lips moving, and interrupted whatever he was saying. “I can’t hear you,” I said. “My eardrums are probably ruptured. You weren’t out long, less than a minute, I think. I’m not entirely sure. I may have a concussion. The God—it’s not coming after us, yet.” I realized suddenly I was almost shouting, and tried to lower my sound output, which is harder than you think. “We need to stay out of the light.” I shook my head. “You know that already, sorry, I’m rambling. But we do need to move, it’s not safe to stay here. And Birch is hurt,” my voice broke, more tears spilling out of my eyes.

  I used the gauze wrap I’d brought since Sam’s healing ability was limited, and bound Birch’s wings to his body. Only the one was injured, but I couldn’t find a quick way to secure it while leaving the other free, and figured just the one wing wouldn’t be useful for anything anyway.

  Birch woke up while I was doing that, likely from the pain, and I whispered to him, “You’re okay. I’m just making sure your wing doesn’t get hurt anymore. We’ve got to move, soon. Can you walk on your own?”

  He struggled to his feet, and his mouth opened, though I couldn’t tell what type of sound he was making. He touched his nose to my hand, and something foreign flashed in my mind. Two human legs, blurry facial features—blue eyes, dark hair—a strong smell, and the feel of warmth.

  I jerked my hand back in horror, until I realized that it had been Birch behind the images, not the god. The little creature’s “first words.” I regretted that I didn’t have time to celebrate the momentous occasion.

  Then the very ground and air around us vibrated, and my ears screamed again. All of us except Torliam winced bodily and hunched over, me with my palms to the side of my head, leaning over the little creature.

  When the incomprehensible sound ended, I uncurled and opened my eyes to find Torliam crouching over me, just as I was crouching over Birch. He laid his hand on my back, and said something.

  I shook my head silently. “My ears aren’t working,” I reminded him. I considered putting a couple of the Seeds I’d been saving into Resilience, but almost discarded the idea. I had so many Seeds in that Attribute, I doubted a couple more would make much difference to my eardrums in the short term. Then I remembered that those Seeds were there to offset the effects of Chaos, and were most likely busy doing that, with nothing to spare for injuries caused by outside stimuli. Maybe a couple more would help. Besides, I’d probably be putting them into Resilience or Life soon anyway, as Chaos grew stronger. This wasn’t an injury I wanted to waste Sam’s reserves on, especially not when I could use the VR chip to communicate with most of them.

  So I went ahead and dug three out of their secure place in the center of my pack and put them into Resilience. I barely noticed the side effects, except for a vague sense of physical relief.

  Torliam shuddered when I injected them, and I slipped the empty Seed shells back into my pack awkwardly. He didn’t react further, other than a tightening of his lips, so I tried to put it from my mind.

  I was so mentally scrambled,
it wasn’t hard. I couldn’t stop seeing the things the light had pulled from my memory and explained to me in unflinching bluntness.

  Torliam laid his hand on my arm, causing me to jump and bring my focus back onto my immediate situation. Damn, what was wrong with me?

  He leaned forward and placed his lips behind my ear, and I stiffened despite the pain it caused me to do so, freaked out in a completely different way. Then, his lips started to move, and I felt the vibration of it in my skull. He was talking, and with a little push of Perception, I could understand him even without my eardrums.

  “The god said that we might hide from his light until we grew too weak to resist him, or come out when desperation settled heavy on us, and be captured then. I believe he expects us to remain trapped here. I have remembered some of the research I did before, and from what I know of him, he is not one to move from his seat of power in a physical way. He will try and trap us in his light, but if we can escape that, perhaps we will live.”

  I nodded. “But how do we escape light?”

  “In truth, I do not know. His power is made to pierce defenses. It reaches brightest into the darkness, transfixing through any shields of deceit. It speaks well to your underling’s concentration that his constructs were able to shield against it.”

  “But we’re safe here, with the earth surrounding us, right?”

  “In essence. His light travels straighter than most. The . . . bouncing off of things? It does not happen as much. It is not like sunlight, or manmade light. It is meant to travel far and straight. Does that make sense?”

  I nodded again, though I wasn’t quite sure. Maybe the light from the golden columns was like a laser. I sent Windows to the other three explaining this.

  Sam put his hand over my knee, touching my skin through the torn fabric there. My kneecap shifted, and whatever had been broken fused back into place.