by Azalea Ellis
I gestured forward with a clawed hand, as if drawing something from my chest, and a mass of Chaos parted the impenetrable forest like a beam, cutting a tunnel straight forward.
My awareness swirled out, and I took stock of Adam lying trapped within the sentinels, too far away to reach with Chaos. He was badly injured, one of them having punctured right though his back, from side to side. Basically, a chunk the size of his arm was just . . . gone from his lower back. His spine was definitely severed. If not for the sentinel still pressing into him, he probably would have bled to death already.
Gregor was cutting his own path through the sentinels toward Adam, in direct violation of my prior orders. Three of his sister’s summons escorted him.
Sam was . . . melting a path of his own with his bare hands, moving toward me.
I could feel the effects of Black Sun on him through my Wraith Skill.
Jacky was almost as noticeable as the god, her Struggle Skill still in effect, though one arm hung limply, blood dripped from her head, and she looked like she could barely keep her balance in the fighting stance she’d taken. Her visor was gone, so she was fighting with her eyes closed, and that was even more impressive. She was half as big as Knowledge, far bigger than any Estreyan I’d ever seen.
Torliam’s blue mist lashed out from beside her, giving her a moment to recover while he harried the god with enough force to make Knowledge take a step back.
A ship zoomed past overhead, shooting two missiles at the god as it passed. They folded inward and outward simultaneously in a familiar manner, and when they hit, Knowledge was blown completely off his feet, tumbling through the air and smashing through his sentinels, snapping them to bits in a huge swath.
I should have known Blaine would be coming, with the kids here and in danger.
The ship came around for another pass while the god was down, this time smashing straight into him in an even more spectacular explosion, while two small forms were expelled out the back.
A flying Estreyan streaked by, catching the bigger form, and carrying Blaine away from the battlefield.
The smaller form, Birch, flew down to one of the people trapped within the sentinels. His fur and feathers bristled up, and he let out a wave of wind that carried a black-tendrilled power I certainly recognized. It cut right through the sentinels, and the Estreyan fell free. How much of my blood had Birch consumed, even back before he’d even hatched? I hadn’t even considered what it might be doing to him.
I formed a plan in my head, and I hoped that I had the power to pull it off.
The long range and flying Estreyans still able to fight took the opportunity to lay down a barrage on the god, keeping him down.
I sprinted forward, creating a tunnel through the sentinels at the same rate I sprinted forward. I passed a couple Estreyans along the way who weren’t dead, and I let out pulses of Chaos to help free them. One of them still had the visor on, and seemed to realize when she was released from the sentinels, though she moved slowly, as if fighting against her own body. The other stared into nothing, trapped within their own mind.
I reached Sam, and he turned without hesitation, running with me. I overtook Gregor along the way, wishing I could spare a moment to glare at the boy.
At some point, Adam’s blood had bubbled up around the sentinel. He took advantage of it, using his own blood as ink, which formed into bandages to staunch his wounds. He let out a shuddering gasp, the air rattling in his lungs. Punctured by his broken ribs, probably.
Sam didn’t hesitate.
I left Adam suspended, because he might bleed out too quickly even for Sam if I didn’t.
Adam lifted a hand, reaching for me.
I stepped forward. “I don’t have much time—”
His hand touched my forehead, the blood on his fingers spreading onto my skin. “Kill him,” he whispered.
I grinned. “Okay.” I ran away, requesting a pickup for Gregor on the comms system.
Jacky had shrunk, the break in the pressure of the fight while the god dealt with Blaine’s attack removing the necessary conditions for Struggle to stay activated.
I ran toward her and Torliam.
She was still conscious, and had turned to make her way toward the god, good fist still clenched as if she were ready to fight.
Torliam turned to me as I neared, and when Jacky saw me, she let out a shuddering sob.
I slipped under her good arm, helping to support her. “I still need your help,” I said. “So I hope you’re not too tired.”
“We don’t get tired,” she lied with an ironic grin. “What’s the plan?”
“Get me into position, save a bunch of people, then get the hell out of here. Far enough that Knowledge can't reach you. I am going to kill a god. Chaos seems surprisingly effective against it. I'll just need to use more of it. A lot more. My power isn't controllable in large amounts. I don't want you anywhere near when I unleash it. Grab a long-range extractor, if you can. Maybe . . .” Maybe there would be something of me left to save, afterward.
Knowledge rose to his feet, roaring. His main body was very much worse for wear, but most of it was scratches, sometimes gouges, and other than his knee, which he braced with a quick growth of sentinels in the eroded area, none of the injuries were even enough to slow him down.
I explained the plan to Jacky and Torliam as quickly and simply as possible, and then the three of us ran forward.
The God of Knowledge knew we were coming, obviously, and it was turned to face us by the time we arrived. “Your power is impressive, Eve,” he said, his voice conversational, as if we were having tea instead of a fight to the death. “Quite different—amygladin—those of the others. It reminds me of . . .” He looked down and away for a second, as if he’d been reaching for a word, or a memory, and had just forgotten what it was. He looked back to me. “I will add that power to my own strength.”
I gave him a feral grin. Perfect. “My power will never be yours,” I yelled, loud enough that he, along with anyone who might be trapped but still conscious within the growth of sentinels, could hear me.
I rushed forward, a boost of Torliam’s power behind me pushing me faster. I moved close to the god, but shot past him, with a lash of Chaos to the back of his bad knee along the way.
He swiped for me, but was just slightly too far away to reach me.
There was a puddle of blood on the other side of the clearing his tumble had created, and a couple of my fighters were trapped beyond, alive.
I pulsed a wave of Chaos their way, weakening the sentinels around them.
I turned abruptly, body tilting low to the ground as my toes dug in for purchase, and sprinted back toward the god. This time, I aimed Chaos at his pelvis on the way by.
He was prepared for it. He took one smooth, sliding step in my direction to cover the distance between us, and reached for me.
A blue, misty light slammed into me from between the god and I, and tossed me aside, to safety.
It was a bit painful, but I twisted easily in mid-air, landing half-sideways on the wall of sentinels. I let out a bit of Chaos around my lower body to stave off their attempt to grow around me, and jumped off at an angle, making it into safe range once again.
Jacky pulsed, growing larger, and then larger again. She jumped high and dropped down with a punch so forceful she cracked a sentinel with her bare hands. She spun, throwing the chunk at the god like he had been doing to others earlier.
I shot past the god again, attacking like a dog nipping at his heels, with Torliam acting as my safety net, protecting me when Knowledge got too close to catching or hitting me. When it was feasible, I aimed my trajectory so that I ended near someone who was trapped within the sentinels. Slowly, I freed people, and if they were uninjured and still aware, they struggled their way out.
The remaining fighters converged on the god, doing their best to cover me, to distract him, to stay alive for just a little longer.
“I see through your plan, tiny one,�
�� he said, his voice seeming to come mainly from behind me, though I was facing him. “Did you—trickle—you could hide, within my light?”
The hair on the back of my neck prickled, and more cold sweat dripped down my back, under my armor. Shit.
“You cannot save them. When you are dead, I will capture them again, and they will become part of my strength as well.”
I exhaled, and turned to Jacky. We sprinted toward each other. When we got close enough, I jumped, she grabbed both of my hands in her one good one, and used her Skill to root herself to the surface of the planet. She turned our combined momentum into a spin, so fast that I felt like my shoulders might pop apart as I flew through the air.
She released me, mid swing, throwing my body like a discus at the god.
In this way, my direction changed in an instant. It was almost enough to catch the god off guard. But he slid his foot forward like a dancer, and lifted it, slamming the top of it into me relatively gently, like I was a ball.
The abrupt change in momentum hurt. My internal organs protested, and my bones creaked.
Torliam threw up a shield for me.
I jumped sideways off of it.
The god's hands were too quick, and I was caught inside gigantic bands of gold as he wrapped his fingers around me, once again almost gently.
This was the moment of reckoning. If he squeezed me, it was all over.
But I was guessing he would want me to fear, and scream. I struggled, clawing and letting out ineffectual, random bursts of Chaos that intentionally didn't do much damage, staring in my best imitation of terror at his mouth.
Sure enough, he brought me close to his mouth, almost in slow motion, opening wide so I could see the tombstone like teeth that would be grinding into me in a moment.
I waited till the very last second, then released the huge breath I'd been holding along with a whispered, “Animus,” and relaxed my slightly angled arms and legs, using the same trick he'd demonstrated earlier to create space.
Blood wings snapped to life, a single great flap and every bit of strength I had in my legs shooting me straight forward into his mouth, with a little swirl of Chaos around my body to grease the way.
His teeth snapped together halfway down my armored feet, biting through the metal.
I scrambled, losing some skin and the claws off my toes. But I was already inside, and I wasted no time being surprised, or disoriented, or focusing on the pain. I scrambled forward, down his throat, stopping myself with claws and spread-eagled limbs pressing against the walls of his golden esophagus, just before the opening to the stomach. The stench hit me first.
The god's internal design had abandoned all resemblance to mortal biology. A ball of light sat on a small pedestal at the bottom of the stomach chamber, with little glowing sparkles flowing in and out of it like a swarm of ever-glowing fireflies around a nest. His Seed core. It was significantly bigger than Behelaino's. My muscles clenched in a subconscious desire to retreat, as I realized once again how strong he was. I also felt a hint of greed. Power like that could do so much for me. But I wanted no part in it. Both because my body would probably just burst apart if I put any more of the gods into it, and because it was Sickness-tainted.
The assaulting stink came from the pieces of bodies scattered about. Some were well-chewed and soupy, while I recognized whole limbs in other places. The light particles swarmed over them, growing brighter before returning to the main ball. Like bees collecting honey.
I growled angrily at them, and dropped down to the bottom of the chamber, wading toward the Seed core through putrefied human flesh, sliding off their bones. I resisted the urge to throw up, once again. Breathing through my mouth didn't help. The taste of death and disease coated my tongue and throat, and I gagged, so hard I couldn’t breathe past it. I reached the sphere, and took the two cartridges of meningolycanosis from their spot at my waist. I injected both of them into the sphere, hoping that it worked as we’d anticipated.
The light of the sphere pulsed strangely, as if it the Seed substance was spinning in every direction at once, and had become unstable. The little particles of light swarmed out of it, dipping in and out like bees disturbed from their hive.
An overwhelming feeling bubbled up from my stomach, and I let out a gleeful laugh that echoed off the walls of the stomach chamber, making me sound crazy. I ignored the little voice in my head that was telling me it wasn't the echo that made me sound crazy.
I opened the door to room of serenity, then lifted the lid of the box of silence, and unlocked the chest of stillness. Chaos shattered outward, tearing at me from the inside. I turned it on the core, and the god screamed.
That was the key, it seemed.
Chapter 41
He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.
— Friedrich Nietzsche
Knowledge was a terrible, beautiful thing. I could feel it flooding me, changing my brain with a physical sensation. Synapses fired, pathways of thought and knowledge forming. I found myself knowing things in a way that seemed like I'd known forever, memories and understanding from before I was born. Some of it, relevant in the moment, came to the forefront.
"Knowledge of a thing truly is power over it," I whispered in a voice so low even I could barely hear it.
Little eddies of Chaos swirled over me, around me, for the first time like a caress instead of a burning lash. I clenched my hands, then flicked those clawed fingers forward.
Dark flames, almost identical to those I'd seen from Behelaino, flashed to life in my palms. It burned.
I ignored the pain. My mortal body would not channel the power needed without being consumed. It was going to hurt a lot more. But that was okay. This was a pain I could find some peace in. Fear of death had kept me alive. But to live a worthwhile life, there have to be some things worth dying for.
I threw the almost solid flames at the core. They ate at it, disintegrating pieces of it in flashes of blinding light.
The chamber bucked around me as the god did, throwing me and the other contents around within his stomach cavity.
I shuddered as a half-digested eyeball slid out of my hair. I was alright, but I knew I couldn't take my time with this. I didn't have the power to draw it out, and the god would find a way to stop me if I tried.
I unleashed more of the flames, letting them spill forward from me, building upon themselves, multiplying under my direction. They were a wild, feeding mass that I would never be able to create piece by piece, or without the aid of the uncorrupted piece of Knowledge.
The god screamed, loud and animalistic, and began to rip his own stomach open to get at me.
Too late, I hoped. I lifted my arms and let the fire wash over my skin. I threw all my power into it, watching idly as the first layer of my skin peeled away and disintegrated immediately within the grip of my power. I closed my eyes, then. Because it was disturbing enough to be distracting from my task. It kept hurting, as I raised the firestorm higher, feeding it with my power and unintentional pieces of my own flesh. At some point, it hurt too badly, and I was too weak to continue, but by then it didn't matter.
Chaos knew what to do.
My eyes burned away, shortly after the lids protecting them disintegrated. But I didn't need them. I watched with the last bit of my power as the storm consumed the God of Knowledge's corrupted manifestation.
The towering cone of black fire grew from within, as if from nothing, and then expanded, exploding outward into the valley, burning and eating away.
"Don't hurt . . .” the living, I finished silently. My lips had gone, and it hurt too much to talk with a ruined neck.
The fire ate through the gold, and the dirt and rock, deep into the mountainsides all around. An unparalleled force of destruction.
Then, Chaos turned, and moved beyond destruction. Oh, how little I had understood it, before. The fire died out, smokeless, and left b
ehind something new wherever its devouring tongue was felt.
It pulled inward, back towards the center. Towards my meaty stump of a body, which was barely hanging on to life. I was stubborn.
Then, it was gone. And with it, the pain.
Chapter 42
I rise.
— Maya Angelou
I rolled onto my stomach, gagging and coughing up blood. Despite that, my brain was bursting with chemical euphoria. I had almost died. I had felt myself dying, my consciousness partially slipping away, and partially fading out of existence, while my body ignored its wounds, slipping into bliss.
I touched my face, my eyelids, my lips, whole once more. I stood up, looking around in disorientation. Something was wrong with me. Things moved too fast, and too slow. I stumbled forward, catching myself on one of the new trees.
My left arm caught my attention. "Well, that's weird." I flexed my six fingers, and then looked up slowly, interest drawn away from the strange way my body felt and moved, to the land around. I stood in a weir wood.
It reminded me of the exact opposite of that horrible forest from my very first Trial. The angled sunlight of dawn shone sideways through the widely spaced trees. I walked up to another one, almost stumbling at first, seeing the wood, grown into the shape of a warrior. He had the semblance of a sword in his hand, which grew bright leaves at the end of the flat branch of wood. I looked up to his face, and vaguely recognized the features replicated in bark. Golden threads ran through the wood, veins that sparkled slightly when the sun hit them through the leaves. It was beautiful.
But I didn’t want everyone to be trees.
I sobbed, once, and turned. An Estreyan was standing in the midst of the newly created wood, watching me. She looked shaken, to say the least. Pale and wide eyed, and a bit bloody.
I laughed with relief. “You’re alive!” Voice pulsed out of me, sharing my joy. Hopefully the others would be alive, too.
When our eyes met, she dropped to the ground, pressing her face against it.
