Gods of Rust and Ruin

by Azalea Ellis

  The goddess raised her hand. “Let us perform the story of exodus, tribulation, and the . . . spark-of-hope.” She ran the last words together, and I realized it was once again a missing word in English.

  I asked Torliam what she meant.

  “It is a children’s story about our history,” he said, “one every Estreyan child knows in some form or another.”

  I didn’t have a chance to ask him for a deeper explanation, because the goddess directed all those participating to stand in various places around her. Torliam and I were placed closest to her, and the non-Players and Chanelle were farthest away.

  “I know you do not know the way of this dance,” she said in her fractured voice, “so I will lead your movements as we perform the story together.” She lifted her hands, and the crystal ground separated and broke outward en-masse, the forms of thousands upon thousands of tiny little fish swimming through the air. Though our footing was gone, we floated.

  My eyes widened as I watched the coral-shaded, translucent fish swarm around me in an almost solid wave.

  “Begin,” she sang, her voice echoing out, seeming to bounce off and through the crystal so that it originated from everywhere, like the best surround-sound system ever invented.

  The fish closed in on me, and I jerked when their fins brushed against me and sliced shallowly into my skin. They darted in and scraped up the blood that welled up from the cuts. I quickly learned to avoid their fins, and in doing so, realized they were guiding my movements. I sent a Window to the others before my full concentration was taken up, explaining the concept in case they hadn’t realized it for themselves.

  “Before there was Estreyer,” her voice resounded, “our people lived in another place. All lived happily, and in harmony.”

  The crystal fish guided me in smooth, graceful movements. I felt kind of like a ballerina, or an interpretive dancer. I couldn’t see the others, and the goddess power shone so bright and pervasive in my awareness that it blotted out my teammates like the light of the sun might blot out a lightning bug.

  “Then, the unmaking came. It is known by many names. The greater-death, the end, the abhorrent. It began to destroy us all. We could not hold it off, though our champions fought with all their strength, and many died before it, some falling to madness. So, the people petitioned the gods and the forces-of-existence, and left to create a new world.”

  I was forced to change my movements, jerking faster, in jagged motions that felt awkward and uncomfortable. The fish got some more blood out of me, and as I watched, they began to shine with it in blurry patterns.

  “We traveled far and long, hoping to escape the abhorrent by moving beyond its reach and knowledge. Our people voyaged through the breaks, and eventually came to this place.”

  I split some of my attention away from the strange dance being forced on me and saw images take shape in the light of the swarming crystal. My focus was drawn irresistibly to them, and I watched as people and creatures I’d never imagined left a planet, moving in ships the likes and size of which were almost incomprehensible. I couldn’t quite comprehend what I was seeing, as I had no reference for the all-encompassing appearance of space from a wider perspective, and the anomalies which they traveled through. I was sure “break,” was another concept that humans had no word for.

  “The great champion, enemy of the abhorrent, formed Estreyer of the gods, and we exist in and of the world. But then came knowledge. We would be followed by the darkness, for it was part of us, and we had brought it with us.”

  I was gazing into the crystal-bright images when a drop of blood fell into my eye. It startled me enough that I withdrew some of my attention from the story and narrative. I realized I was bleeding pretty badly. The dance had progressed, and I wasn’t keeping up properly. The fish around me gulped up the thin lines of my blood with their little puckered mouths. I tried to concentrate on their movements, following them so I wouldn’t be sliced, but it was hard to concentrate. Something about the images and the sound of the goddess’ voice resounding in my head demanded my attention.

  I concentrated on the fish anyway, forcing myself to split my attention and follow along as their guiding movements became increasingly difficult to follow. I felt like a puppet on strings, or maybe it was the fish that were puppets, and I was the one developing the story.

  “We began to search for a way to defeat it, and we built, because we knew we could not run forever. We traveled far and wide, searching for others like us and sifting through the paths of possibility. For a long time, we found nothing significant, and no force stronger than our own which would aid us. Then, there was a glimmer of hope in the paths.”

  I couldn’t keep up, especially not without my full focus. I couldn’t even see all the fish! The more blood the fish took into their bodies, the more all-encompassing and imperative my need to concentrate only on the narrative and mesmerizing images became. When I realized the solution, I felt like smacking myself. I pushed my awareness out again despite the almost blinding nature of the goddess’ power, letting the Skill observe my body from every direction.

  “The glimmer was small, twinkling and weak, and so far away it would be almost too late before we could meet it. Eight would accompany it, completing the Seal of Nine, one for each of the greater Trials.”

  My part in the dance slowed for a while, thankfully, allowing me to grow accustomed to this new method of following along, and to catch my breath. It also allowed me to faintly catch some sounds of the others, doing dances of their own.

  “The Summoner, the Gale, the Gifter. The Tracker, the Struggle, the Shadow. The Black Sun, and the Veil-Piercer.”

  I could hear the others, faintly. Jacky cursed under her breath in between gasps for air. Someone cried out in pain and surprise. I found it hard to worry despite that, because the crystal fish were showing me things I couldn’t even describe. It was like a dream, or a vision. Somehow the words and the images made sense in the moment, but I knew that when I awoke, they would slip from my grasp.

  “But as such things happen, misfortune must accompany hope, and the greatest opponent of the abhorrent, our champion, disappeared.”

  My own movements were forced to quicken again, even faster now, after the brief respite. Even with my awareness extended, I couldn’t keep up with the fish. Before, they had been opening a path for my limbs and body to move, but now they sliced into me, though I seemingly had nowhere to move. Greedy bastards. The only areas that were safe were those protected by my armored vest. As I instinctively jerked my cheek away from an almost seamless wall of extended razor-edged fins, the other side of my face pressed against the mass of fish, but pushed them out of the way without being cut. And I understood the way the game had evolved.

  I needed to force my way through the correct path, as it would no longer be opened helpfully for me. I panted as the fish drove me to bend and reach and spin in ways that the human body normally never moved. I was more grateful than I thought I’d ever be for China’s yoga stuff, and Torliam’s training. At least I had some experience with something similar, or I’d have probably fallen and sliced my throat open by that point.

  “We searched for our champion and molder of the resistance, but the champion was not to be found. And so, time passed, and the abhorrent caught us, trickling into our midst once more. It poisoned us till flesh turned against flesh, till it seemed that the end was near. The path of deliverance was shrouded, until it seemed to have been snuffed out. Many believed that it had been.”

  My body shrank inward in sadness, curling and twirling over like a streamer in the wind, in moves I’m pretty sure no human was ever meant to perform. My legs shuddered with the fatigue of forcing my way through the syrupy mass, and my arms went numb. Still, I couldn’t quite keep up, and the fish took more of my blood, and the story took more of my mind.

  “Then, the inkling of hope drew near, born in ignorance and awakened in pain. Its spark was small, and weak, and many times seemed like it would be sn
uffed out. And yet, it grew, and grows.”

  I jumped, stretching like a light that had been revealed in the darkness, if that even made sense. It didn’t, really, but it was the image forced into my brain from the crystal fish. My body was nearing true exhaustion, that point from which willpower no longer has any effect on performance. If I didn’t fear death, I would have collapsed on the floor in a quivering, bloody heap long ago.

  “Our future lies in the spark, in the hope that it will grow into a raging inferno and eat up the abhorrent. And so we nurture the glimmer, which struggles in darkness, known to us by the signs and the blood. Such is our work, and our path, to fight against the abhorrent. Only by this may we one day prevail.”

  And with that, the swarm scattered, and I was left reaching toward the sky, body stretched out and upward to my absolute limits. The others, except for Blaine and Chanelle, were gathered around me in a circle, each in their own pose. I held the pose for half a second, just long enough to be sure that the goddess was finished with me, then crumpled to the floor like a used tissue, gasping for air.

  Sam reached me first, whatever wounds he’d gotten in the course of the Trial already healed. He placed his own slightly bloody hand on my slippery cheek. “Crap,” he said. “I can’t do much about the cuts. I’ve got some healing saved up, but I think this is one of those things the village healer was talking about. It’s resistant. But it’s okay, I’ll help your blood clot.” He was already doing it, making my skin itch in waves. “It won’t be pleasant. Once you’ve scabbed over, your body can do the rest over time. Thank god none of these are that deep.”

  Blaine rushed over to Kris and Gregor, flailing his way through the air, all four limbs working to help him move faster. “Are you alright? All I could do was watch as you were stuck in those . . . torture devices,” he spat. He picked them up gently, and moved them further to the back of the group, away from the goddess’ physical manifestation.

  They were alright, though a little cut up.

  The horrible itching that spread over my skin everywhere that Sam touched distracted me. Whatever he was doing, it had to have been from the destruction half of his Skill, the itching so intense that it felt like burning, and I bucked to get away without even thinking about it.

  Torliam and Zed held me down. The former looked like he’d been in a blood-filled squirt gun fight against three or four other people, but Zed was okay, mostly. No serious wounds, just like the others.

  “You are the first creatures in a thousand years to petition me and receive the chance to experience the Lore,” the goddess said. “It is unfortunate you are so weak. I honestly wondered if you might all die. What has happened, since I have been removed from the mortals? Is this really the best champion the worlds could field?”

  I wasn’t sure if I should be offended. We were alive, and that was deliberate on her part. Hopefully, if we could avoid offending her, we could remain alive.

  Of course, Jacky decided differently, on her own. She’d fared better than Torliam or I, but had taken a fair bit of damage. Her clothes hung off her in tatters, almost completely covered in blood. Without Sam, she might end up passing out from blood loss soon. “Well, you can do something about that, right? Make us stronger, if you’re so upset about how weak we are,” she said loudly, fists clenched.

  I’m pretty sure the entire rest of the team froze in horror.

  The goddess’ mouth fell open for a second, and then her brows drew down in a frown. The crystalfish that had receded swirled up again in agitation. Several shot forward from the storm with such speed I couldn’t even see them move. Obviously, she’d been holding back on us before. One impaled the base of my throat, but almost all the others were shot through the hand. At my feet, one shot Birch in the forehead and knocked him off his feet with a silent puff of air.

  I struggled to move, to attack, or defend, or something, but the rest of the swarm was on us already, holding us in place. I pushed against them, heedless of the sharp fins, but didn’t get anywhere. It took me more than a few seconds to realize I wasn’t in pain, and in fact wasn’t being harmed at all. It was more like being constrained in a crystalfish straight jacket than an attack.

  I stopped struggling, and the fish released me. “Be still, guys,” I called out, my eyes still trained unblinkingly on the goddess.

  “You’re all quite excitable,” she said with a raised eyebrow. “No harm was done to you, except perhaps a little pain. That one,” she pointed at Jacky, “asked for your Bestowals. I gladly gave them.”

  Torliam shot a glare to Jacky, who flexed her hand and pointedly ignored him.

  “A seal of nine,” the goddess said, waving her hand to the teammates who’d participated in the Trial.

  I reached up, touching the base of my throat where I’d been hit. My armored vest rippled away from the spot as if repelled by it magnetically. I couldn’t see with my eyes, so I looked at myself with my Wraith Skill, and “saw” the dark scales of armor glinting in the light of the fish that was writhing around under the skin. That was extremely creepy, but it only got worse as the places it touched morphed into faceted sparkles that matched the substance the goddess’ own body was formed from. It burned like a brand, forming one line at a time. My body buzzed like I’d mainlined caffeine into my veins.

  The fish burst back out, and my armored vest formed back around the crystal so that the symbol it had created was visible.

  “With a mark of Testimony,” she said, placing extra power into the last word, so it seemed to thrum in the air. “The mark will draw both favor and ill-will toward you. You will be recognized by beings of power, your presence imposed on the book of existence. So I proclaim, as the physical manifestation of Testimony and Lore.”

  Torliam made a small sound, looking with wide eyes between the crystal in his own hand, the goddess, and me. He had a clear, faceted symbol etched all the way through his palm to the other side.

  I opened my mouth, though I wasn’t quite yet sure the words I wanted to speak. A question, surely.

  “I am eager to end my stay in this place,” Testimony and Lore said, before I could say anything. She waved a hand. “I am not meant to exist in solitude.” And with that, she left, taking all the crystal with her in a surge that swept past us like the wave of a tsunami, leaving us in foggy half-darkness.

  Kris whimpered in pain, and I turned to see the mark etched into her hand, and Gregor’s.

  YOU HAVE GAINED A NEW SKILL: VOICE

  I wasn’t the only one to be temporarily distracted by invisible Windows in front of their face.

  “She’s not even a Player,” I said, the words both strangely muffled and echoing. “And I’m pretty sure that just gave her a Skill.” I didn’t need to state the obvious. If the kids didn’t have the gene, something bad was about to happen. Even if they did, they’d never gone through the assimilation sickness for that first Seed.

  “I’m going to need to find something to hurt, and quickly,” Sam said.

  Adam gave us fins on our arms and mermaid tails, and Blaine forced the hoverboard thrusters he’d built into his suit to work even in the damaging environment. This time, there was no playing as we raced back the way we’d come, fighting against exhaustion and worry.

  It was easier to go down through the currents than it had been to rise, and we arrived back at our bird-steeds quickly. By that time, the kids’ temperatures had risen to fever levels.

  “I don’t want to die,” Gregor had said, his hands clenching Blaine’s. “I don’t want to die. I want to live.”

  Blaine turned to Sam, and by the flickering movement of their eyes, I knew they were communicating by Window.

  Sam paled, then shook his head. “It won’t come to that. I’ll be able to offset enough through the animals. And if I need more, I’m sure the others will be able to capture some monsters and bring them for me.” He untied one of the birds and led it off away from the others, so they couldn’t watch what he was doing to their companion.
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br />   He placed his hands on its head, and it slumped to the ground, senseless. Then he crystallized its windpipe, so that it couldn’t scream out, if it awoke. It didn’t even twitch. From there, he moved to the feet, shuddering as pieces bubbled or melted or hardened like stone under his hands. The wings were next, and when the bird twitched, he put it more deeply to sleep. He stopped to throw up before he continued torturing it to death.

  I pulled my focus away from him, and turned it to gathering more information. Once again, things had changed.

  PLAYER NAME: EVE REDDING

  TITLE: BEARER OF TESTIMONY

  CHARACTERISTIC SKILL: SPIRIT OF THE HUNTRESS, TUMBLING FEATHER

  SKILLS: COMMAND, WRAITH, CHAOS, VOICE

  Then I pulled up my Command Window, checking the new Skills of the others.

  PLAYER NAME: ADAM COYLE

  TITLE: ONE OF NINE

  CHARACTERISTIC SKILL: ELECTRIC SOVEREIGN

  SKILLS: HYPER FOCUS, ANIMUS, BESTOW

  PLAYER NAME: JACQUELINE SANTIAGO

  TITLE: ONE OF NINE

  CHARACTERISTIC SKILL: GRAVITATIONAL AUTONOMY

  SKILLS: STRUGGLE

  PLAYER NAME: SAMUEL HAWES

  TITLE: ONE OF NINE

  CHARACTERISTIC SKILL: HARBINGER OF DEATH

  SKILLS: BLACK SUN

  PLAYER NAME: ZED REDDING

  TITLE: ONE OF NINE

  SKILLS: VEIL-PIERCER

  PLAYER NAME: KRIS MENDELL

  TITLE: ONE OF NINE

  SKILLS: SUMMON

  PLAYER NAME: GREGOR MENDELL

  TITLE: ONE OF NINE

  SKILLS: SHADOW

  A little basic deduction told me that Adam was “the Gifter” Testimony and Lore had mentioned. What others remained? The Gale and the Tracker.

  One must be Birch, and the other Torliam.

  “Hurry!” Blaine yelled, placing one hand each on Gregor and Kris’ forehead to gauge their fevers.