by Jean Johnson
(You must answer the Challenge question, leader to leader,) Kierfando finally reminded the younger Meddler. (Or lose in rank.)
His surface brightened, blocking out extra energy. (I do not faction with half-breeds.)
Ia checked the timestreams. That percentage was now lost. There was now only his winning the duel, or her winning, and the future could not afford to allow him the win. More than that, his contempt was going to make it hard for her own cofactions to hold her in high esteem, because she was a half-breed. Unless she defeated him as a half-breed.
(So be it.)
Energy arced inward from the cables and the machines spaced around the room. Bright lines crackled into her darkening sphere a second time as the dynamos recharged. Three siphonings were enough to allow her to pop back into matter-form. She dropped the half meter or so to the floor, knees bending to cushion and steady her landing.
“You’re right. I am a half-breed,” Ia stated openly in Terranglo as she straightened, making the technicians lurking at the edges of the humming machinery blink and stare. “As you insist on viewing my birthright as a weakness, I will destroy you as a half-breed, to prove to all of you that you are wrong. As a half-Human, I am stronger than all of you.”
Lifting her hand palm up, as if inviting him to step down and join her, Ia pulsed the wordless challenge in the Feyori way, the version with the ultimate price for the loser: to the death, either hers, his, or even both of theirs if they both spent too much in the contest.
(Fool!) Belini hissed in her mind on a tight telepathic pulse. (You’re risking everything with that!)
(He can suck your biokinetic energy right out of you in that form,) Kierfando added. (He’ll do it as fast as you can blink.)
“You shouldn’t have forced the issue to make me manifest to prove myself in the first place, Miklinn,” Ia told the sphere floating just a few meters from her, ignoring her cofaction leaders’ warnings. “I have tried to apologize and sought to make amends. You have been rude and uncooperative. All that is left now is for the two of us to fight. Get down here and fight me, or lose all status.”
He swirled his surface in her direction, then swirl-snorted and “looked” away. (Your tele-pathetic powers are weak, and your words meaningless. Even if you were strong, I don’t deal with pawns who cover themselves in shit.)
She’d forgotten she was still picturing herself covered in crysium plates under the loose fit of her now unshredded, whole camouflage clothes. Crysium dust was discarded matter from Feyori who made the transition to solid form and back. That meant she was literally armored in Meddler-made waste, so his words, while arrogant, were undeniably true.
Blinking, Ia belatedly realized she also now had two whole, sound, and perfectly functional eyes, left as well as right. As much as she wanted to touch the left side of her face in absent wonder, she refrained, keeping her right hand lifted toward her counterfaction foe, the other resting at her side. In the seven hours she had spent as an energy bubble, plucking at cosmic strings to get this one silvery-sphered idiot to show up . . . she had apparently forgotten her own injuries. Returning to matter-form had restored her to the way she normally thought of herself, as whole, sound, and strong. Human.
A pity I can’t use that trick on anyone else, she thought privately. I don’t have the time to learn how. Marshalling her telepathy, she projected once more to all the Feyori gathered around her, though her words were aimed at only one. She let her irritation and disdain stain her mental tone as she did so. (I have challenged you to the death, Miklinn. Are you afraid to die?)
He ignored her. Ia felt her jaw tighten, hard enough to grind her teeth. Seven hours of waiting, days’ worth of plans disrupted, untold life-streams altered, and the galaxy at stake . . . and he was ignoring her?
(If you don’t face her, I’ll spread the news far and wide that you’re afraid of a mere pawn,) Belini taunted, speaking for her. The pixie-like overtones in the alien’s mental voice took on a dark tone, the kind found among the cruel, dark Sidhe of the Unseelie Court, not the Seelie.
One of the Human languages had a word for it: Schadenfreude. The enjoyment of someone else’s suffering. Of course, Belini could afford to enjoy the moment; she was merely a peripheral, a spectator. Ia, on the other hand, felt different emotions: irritation, resentment, even a face-heating level of anger rising within her, but she could not afford to give in to rage.
( . . . Hell, even after you lose, I’ll spread it. You’re no leader, and she knows it. That’s why this is a Leadership Challenge, not a mere personal Challenge,) the bubble-shaped sprite added when Miklinn made no move.
(A half-breed has more ability to lead in our Games than you do, child,) Kierfando added, his mental tone soured with disgust. He pulsed an additional thought that was a mental tsk.
( . . . I am distressed to agree.)
The sending came from one of the Feyori on Miklinn’s side of the broken ring. He—or she, the gender was ambiguous—swirled into one of the humming hydrogenerator machines, sucking up enough energy, clearly preparing to depart. He wasn’t the only one. A second one moved.
(Faction yourselves to me,) Ia broadcast to the two of them, (and you will have my assistance as the Prophet of a Thousand Years.)
Her offer finally got Miklinn’s attention. (That will be difficult to do, little molecule,) he growled telepathically, descending in a slow glide toward her still-upturned hand. (As you will be dead.)
“I truly am sorry, Miklinn,” Ia murmured before he reached her. “I did want you to live.”
Massless metallic silver brushed golden tan skin. The moment his sphere intersected her fingers, his outer surface darkened in preparation to suck her bioenergies out of her flesh. At the same instant, Ia yanked both of them onto the timeplains. This time, however, she did not cushion his presence, nor did she shelter his mind as she always did with a guest.
(You made your own mistake, Miklinn, when you forced me to fully manifest,) she whispered in that precious pause between life-beats, hers the pulse of a heart, his the pulse of a spark. She could feel him still straining to gather his energies to drain her, but she wasn’t helping to accelerate his thoughts and reactions here on the unshielded prairie accessed only by her mind. Ia merely sheltered her own, as she always had. (You gave me unprecedented power when you made me unlock my full grasp of Time.)
The timeplains heaved beneath them, bucking them forward even as she snapped the temporal fabric to make sure Teshwun wasn’t trying to interfere. Using the upheaval, she dragged the unsheltered Miklinn into the future, barreling through his own waters, splashing life-energy up and over the banks of his stream.
Sparks flew, burnished off the surface of the darkened sphere touching her fingertips, spewing in a bright shower in every direction. Ruthlessly, she skidded him through the future, ripping him past the streams of everyone he would have touched. Carried him all the way into the barren wasteland that was the destruction of their galaxy, past the slender, green garden that was its salvation. Past a hundred years, past three hundred . . . past a thousand, and three thousand more. As she had told Sunrise, all she needed to do was concentrate, and she had gotten very good at that over the years.
Unshielded, the scrape of Time itself against his senses abraded his energies, wearing them down through sheer frictional entropy. Four thousand three hundred eighty-seven years into the future, into the one future where he would have survived the coming invasion had he cooperated with her, Ia took him past the point of his otherwise-natural death. Forced him to live—or rather, not live—through the last possible point where he would have ever been alive.
Miklinn turned a sickly amber gold in her grip, then to a dark umber. In the span of just a second or so, his sphere shrunk down, darkened—and popped. A fine, faintly glittering mist dropped to the ground, lingering remnants of whatever matter Miklinn hadn’t managed to convert back into energy during hi
s last transformation.
Flicking her fingers to rid them of that dust, Ia checked the timestreams, grimaced, and opened her eyes to the real world. Both eyes, including the left one restored whole after its loss, the least of her recent hardships. There were many shattered lives and vastly altered streams to be paid for, after all . . . and not just by Miklinn.
Her attention had fixed on the two Feyori who had been stationed here. Not just here in reality, but on the timeplains as well. She stared at a smug sonova Meddler, who was boasting that he had bested the Prophet on the timestreams. At the one who gloated over the deaths of her “pawns” . . . her soldiers. Her friends.
Now that she was in their actual presences, she knew exactly which one of the two had the power to disrupt Time itself. The power to undo everything she had fought for since turning fifteen. It wasn’t a guess anymore.
However, she did not act completely precipitously. Acting without any forethought, without checking the timestreams first, was what had gotten her in this Miklinn-Meddle mess. So Ia paused, took a full heartbeat in real time to examine the eons that lay ahead, carefully considered her options and their possible outcomes versus her desires, and only then acted.
Never again, Meddler. Never again.
(I claim the Right of Personal Challenge against Teshwun,) she asserted, letting her anger rise high enough to flavor her projection.
(You might want to quit while you’re ahead, girl,) Kier cautioned her privately.
Ia ignored the advice. If the two percent failure rate she could foresee actually happened, she could regain it later. Right now, she was too angry to play cautious. Not when this would drive home the point to everyone here, and everyone these Meddlers spoke with in the next few years.
It was worth the risk, and then some.
“Teshwun interfered not only with my Game plays,” Ia stated out loud, lifting her hand toward the leftmost Feyori still arrayed on Miklinn’s side of the broken ring. She pointed at the silvered sphere. “But this Salik-factioned Meddler is directly responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of my pawns in the five-hundred-year Right of Simmerings I bartered for, a promise garnered from roughly twelve hundred of your kind. In addition, Teshwun is responsible for the deaths of a handful of my crew, my direct underlings . . . and the deaths of hundreds of good soldiers of the Terran Army who should not have had to die.”
(With the death of the faction leader who ordered those moves, I can claim the Right of Absolution,) Teshwun stated flatly. (And I do.)
Smug, silver . . . !
“I deny you that absolution,” Ia retorted just as implacably, switching back to telepathy to keep the details of the Game from the other matter-based beings straining to listen at what they hoped was a safe distance. (Each Feyori has a territory which she or he holds. Kierfando holds the public interstellar commerce of the V’Dan. Belini holds the Terran entertainment industry. Even “Ginger” over there has had the right to influence the inhabitants of Dabin . . . which currently includes the 1st Division 6th Cordon Army stationed here. My rights cover the monitoring and manipulation of Time itself . . . and you will never Meddle in my territory again!)
Her hand twisted in a snatching motion. Despite the six or so meters of open air between them, Ia snagged him psychically and dragged him onto the timeplains. Dragged him unbuffered through the entropy of Time, far, far into the Future, until he, too, darkened and shrunk in a desperate attempt to suck in enough energy to survive . . . and popped into a fine mist that scattered over the floor. That took over two seconds, not one, since she wasn’t touching him directly . . . but she did kill him in a spark-skittered pair of heartbeats.
The other Feyori swirled and bobbled in shock, eyeing the empty air where their companion had been, and—meters away—the Human-shaped body that had killed him. Without any direct contact.
It felt good to kill him. Disturbingly good, for it satisfied most of the anger that had simmered deep down inside from the first moment she realized Brigadier General José Mattox had not followed her battle plans for this world.
(You didn’t give him a chance to apologize and offer faction-amends,) Belini chided her, the first to recover from the shock of it. (That was not fair of you.)
Most of her anger, but not all of it. Ia unleashed the rest of it on the Feyori around her.
“You’re right. This isn’t fair. This is me being a vindictive bitch. I am done with being fair!” she snapped, staring at the other members of Miklinn’s former faction. This part, she spoke out loud so that the technicians at the station would spread rumors of what happened here, furthering the legend she had to become. “This is me warning you that I can kill any of you, anywhere, anywhen.
“I have tried to be nice. I have tried to be helpful.” She jabbed her finger at the second faint smear of golden dust on the polished beige plexcrete floor. “This is to remind you that I am the Meddler of Time, faction to all of you. You will tell the others that there is no neutral anymore, and that I will not tolerate a second counterfaction!
“Obey me, faction yourselves unto me, and I will be benevolent, both generous and merciful. Counterfaction me again, and I will be merciless in removing all obstacles from my path. You have been warned, Meddlers,” she added softly, so softly some of the Feyori farthest from her swirled and darkened their surfaces a little, just enough to pick up the energy-impacts of the noise she did make. “I will let you know when I need you, and what you will need to do. Until then, you will return to your plays in the Game.”
(You will not dictate the rules of the Game to us, half-breed,) one of the orbs on the other side of the room stated. Named Chule’eth, his mindvoice was masculine, deep with disdain. (One on one against us, you may be strong—)
(I dragged over two thousand of your kind onto the timeplains to show them why you all need to heed me or lose your entire game when the Zida”ya come,) Ia warned him, cutting him off. (That was me being kind. I can just as easily drag two thousand more onto the timeplains to die, just like Teshwun and Miklinn. But do get it through your stubborn, slow matrices: I am trying to help you.)
(We don’t take orders from a—) Chule’eth started to repeat.
Grabbing him with part of her mind, Ia dragged the male-voiced Feyori unshielded through the waters of his own timestream. He screamed telepathically. The other Humans and Solaricans in range clapped their hands over their ears, though it didn’t help. Ia, braced by her anger, ignored it. Ruthlessly, she dragged him up to the desert-dead span where the Zida”ya came and destroyed everything. Only then did she shield him, and forced him to See what his choice of refusing to obey would cost.
She had to hold him there in the desert for a few actual seconds because dragging him unshielded through Time was the equivalent of having three hundred years of his life force abraded off, and had to wait for the shock of it to wear off. She wasn’t fully immersed in the streams this time, either. With her physical eyes, Ia watched the silvery orb vibrate and turn a dark gold, casting off strange dark amber sparks like a manufactory saw cutting through gilded metal. Until they reached that point three hundred or so years ahead, where she held him still, cushioning him just long enough for him to be able to comprehend, before pulling him forward another two hundred years, to when the destruction of the galaxy would be complete if she failed in her task to save everyone. She cushioned him so that he could see what those two hundred years held, but she dragged him forward ruthlessly to the end.
She listened with her mind as he cried out again from what he saw of that ugly, barren, energyless future. Watched with her eyes as his sphere wobbled like a slow-struck bell. Pulling Chule’eth out, she let his sphere return to its normal, if now slightly smaller, silvery state. As she did so, his fear and agony faded, leaving the Meddler a pulsing, dark pewter orb, shaken by the visions and by her power over him. Her words echoed slightly when she addressed him, spoken loudly enough to be
heard over the humming of the generators.
“I have just removed three hundred years of your life, Chule’eth. I would prefer to keep you alive and incorporate you into the new Game . . . but I will not tolerate any more insubordination. You are dehydrated horses, not stubborn jackasses. Drink when I lead you to water!” she said, looking at the others.
Some of their surfaces swirled with chastisement, others with indignation. The movements were subdued, however. Ia softened her tone.
“I am honestly, sincerely, truly trying to help all of you so that there will still be a Game to play, and pawns to play with, in your future. Interfere with that again, and I will have no choice but to destroy you, so that I can save all the rest of the lives in this galaxy. For now . . . For now, what you were doing before you thought up the idiocy of opposing me is acceptable,” she said, looking at the beings floating around her. “I have calculated it into the plays awaiting us, so go back to what you were doing before deciding so shortsightedly to oppose me.
“Go back to being smart Meddlers. Your race lives for thousands of years. If you oppose me again, none of you will live past the next five hundred . . . and all I will have to do is step aside and let you die. On that, you have my Prophetic Stamp,” she told them, her tone somewhere between gentle and implacable. “Cooperate, and you will live for thousands of years more, as you rightfully should. If things change, I will let you know what you must do to preserve the Game, and your roles within it. For now, I just want to help you with what you were originally planning to do, until it is time for you to assist me in saving your damned Game.
“Now, get off the damned planet and get back to work,” she ordered, letting her irritation show through once more. “We all have more important things to do—not you, Ginger,” she added as one of the Feyori off to her right started to move toward the generators along with the others. “You will stay and receive your new position in the Game from me. The rest of you, take whatever energy you need, and go.”
