He Who Crosses Death

by Isaac Hooke

  But before it became an all out rout, two particularly large Amaranth emerged from the treeline next to Tane. Towering above him, like the other aliens they wore no environmental suits, and instead relied upon the protection of Dark energy spheres, which enveloped them. And they both wielded black pole-axes generated from Darcanium beam hilts.

  Tane rolled away as one of those axes came bearing down on him. It easily cut through the log behind him.

  He scrambled to his feet, drawing his own beam hilt, and letting the Essence ax explode into existence. He used it to parry the next attack from the closest Amaranth.

  Beside him, Lyra held her own beam hilt, the Essence ax fully extended, her Chrysalium scepter gripped in her opposite hand. She occupied the second dweller.

  As Tane and Lyra fought their foes, Chase and the others protected their flanks.

  Tane struggled against the powerful attacks launched by his opponent. He kept expecting the Amaranth to freeze him in place, or to launch a close-range Fingers of Ruin that he could not hope to block, but the attacks never came. He realized that either Chase or Lyra had placed a Disrupt work on the alien, preventing it from launching any Dark works for a short time. But that didn’t stop the creature from attacking with that dark pole ax.

  Tane continued to remain completely on the defensive. Backing away. If he didn’t have Essence Sight, he would’ve likely tripped on the gnarled foliage directly behind him. As it was, he barely remained on his feet, and narrowly dodged or parried the incoming attacks.

  And then he ran a quick ID on his attacker.

  It was S’Wraathar.

  He couldn’t see for the sudden red haze that consumed his Essence Sight.

  S’Wraathar.

  The dweller that had killed Sinive.

  An inhuman howl emerged from his lips, and he hurled himself at his opponent with such intensity that S’Wraathar was taken off guard. Tane released several powerful Essence Missiles in rapid succession, along with Persistent Flame. S’Wraathar had a high Dexterity, and he managed to avoid taking the impacts head-on, but the works struck him in several glancing blows. S’Wraathar lost a tentacle, and the outer part of his right leg was blackened from the stream of flame.

  Tane swung down with his ax and unleashed Melt Metal at the same time: he was close enough to S’Wraathar for the beam hilt to fall within the Dark work’s radius, and the weapon melted away, causing the enemy’s pole ax to cease to exist.

  Without the ax for protection, S’Wraathar had no way to stop Tane’s weapon, and Tane was able to slice through the Dark sphere and into the front portion of the alien’s carapace—Tane caught the dweller as S’Wraathar attempted to leap back.

  The stricken creature scrambled away, and a pair of dwellers—these two wearing environmental suits—cut in front to protect S’Wraathar. Those two had energy launchers pointed right at Tane, but he hewed them down before they could fire.

  He stepped over the corpses to follow S’Wraathar, but more Amaranth had emerged from the jungle to block Tane’s path.

  He released Essence Missiles at them and the Amaranth launched the dark smears of Fingers of Ruin in return.

  His body froze, and Tane could do nothing as those black curls of unreality made their way toward his body.

  At the last moment the blows were Deflected, and he was freed: Lyra stepped in front of him and launched an Essence Missile at the enemies. Chase was at her side a moment later, also shielding Tane.

  Tane felt exhausted, but sheer rage drove him onward; Essence ax in hand, he started to go around Lyra and Chase, but Lyra caught his arm, her hand passing through his autogating shield.

  “Let him go!” Lyra said. “There are too many with him! Already we’re nearing exhaustion. I know you can feel it! We must leave now, while they regroup!”

  Tane fought against her grasp, and in his rage for a moment he considered striking her down.

  She must have seen the struggle for control in his eyes, because she said: “Tane!”

  He shook himself, and broke free of the anger that had gripped him.

  My shadow rises once more inside me.

  He took two deep breaths, forced himself to look away from Lyra, and then shouted: “We retreat!”

  Tane went to the stasis pod, activated the remote interface, and enabled levitation. When it floated into the air, he grabbed the handle and dragged it away, dashing toward the ruins of the artifact, intending to continue past the remains in the opposite direction of the dwellers.

  G’allanthamas stood up from behind the ruins and extended a tentacle of his environmental suit: the fingers at the tip gripped a small pyramidal object. It was the same object Tiberius had shown Tane in the memory, the relic that would take him and his companions to the Khaeota.

  “Where did you get that?” Tane asked.

  “It was buried inside the artifact,” G’allanthamas replied. “I saw it protruding from the dusty remnants.”

  The object would have probably appeared when Tane commanded the artifact to shrink. Assuming he had been able to, considering he had drained the dark artifact of all its power.

  Tane snatched away the pyramid and tried to ID it, but got nothing. He shoved it into his storage device and continued running past the destroyed artifact.

  Positron joined him. “I got her.”

  The robot reached toward the handle of the stasis pod, but Tane refused to give her up.

  “I got her,” the scepter insisted.

  Tane reluctantly released the pod, and the robot wrapped steel fingers around the handle, dragging Sinive’s stasis chamber along behind.

  With his free hand, Tane lowered the D18 from his shoulder, setting the rifle to smart targeting mode. As the others retreated through the foliage beside him, he held the D18 behind him and squeezed the trigger—it wouldn’t target any of his companions, as he had already programmed them to be “excluded.”

  He gripped his beam hilt in his other hand, hewing through the thicker foliage in his path with the Essence ax. He kept his shield in autogating mode so that when the slower moving branches got too close, they passed through without causing damage to the energy field.

  That’s handy.

  He smiled wanly. That was something Sinive would have said.

  He dismissed the thought. He wasn’t going to linger on her death and fill himself with sorrow. He wasn’t here to mope around, after all, but to revive her.

  And he would not fail.

  He swore he wouldn’t.

  4

  Tane glanced at his overhead map and saw that Jed was bringing up the rear. Tane glanced in the rear view feed his helmet provided, but couldn’t actually see the man: the Volur was probably still invisible. The red dots representing the enemy units remained frozen past the artifact site, which meant the dwellers weren’t yet pursuing. Or at least, none of his team members had yet spotted them if they were, because a sighting would have triggered an update to the enemy locations.

  “I was surprised at how quickly their attack ended,” Positron commented.

  “Essence attacks are not prolonged affairs,” Lyra said. “We don’t have the stamina for it on our side, while the dwellers don’t have enough Dark works in reserve on theirs. They will return when they have recreated their reserves, don’t you worry. While the White wins when it comes to creating spontaneous works, the Dark has the advantage when it comes to stamina drain. They’ll be back sooner than you expect.”

  Tane knew exactly of what she spoke: the Dark taxed him far less than the White, and when he used both together, the Dark acted as a buffer, preventing him from becoming as tired as he did when using the White alone.

  He began a new Fingers of Ruin timeline as he ran, while Siphoning some of the Dark into the Finger of Malevolence ring, which gave it a fifty-five percent chance to emit Fingers of Ruin every two minutes.

  He heard a crashing through the foliage ahead, and swung his D18 forward.

  “Wait, it’s Nebb,” Positron said.r />
  Tane glanced at his overhead map. Sure enough, Nebb’s indicator had appeared, as had Gia’s.

  “What happened to you two?” Tane asked over the comm. “You’re supposed to be in orbit!”

  “We were ambushed by a pair of dweller ships,” Gia replied over the comm. She was still currently out of view. “They quickly overwhelmed both our ships, and damaged our engines in their surprise attack. They came out of nowhere at the same time… almost as if they were able to jump in to our precise location with an unerring degree of accuracy, but we all know that’s impossible. Probably just got lucky. Either way, we were forced to land nearby. Nebb picked me up in his shuttle, but the aliens shot that down, too. We crash-landed as close to your position as we were able. Though because of damage to the shuttle, we couldn’t contact you, not until we were closer.”

  Lyra nodded. “They probably destroyed the shuttle we took here.”

  “That would make sense,” Jed said. “Seeing as its repeater served as our only link to the ships in orbit.”

  Gia and Nebb emerged from the foliage.

  They both wore spacesuits, and carried sawed-off plasma rifles—two in the case of Gia.

  “Boss,” Positron said.

  “Good to see you,” Nebb said. The smuggler paused reverently beside the stasis pod the robot dragged, and teared up when his eyes rested on the glass portal and Sinive’s lifeless face beyond it. He quickly looked away and bit back his emotion. “So what do we got?”

  “Dwellers are pursuing us,” Tane said, dashing past the man. He was afraid of his own emotions rushing to the fore, and knew he couldn’t afford to stop in that moment.

  “Amaranth, to be precise,” Positron said.

  “Wonderful,” Nebb said. “But I guess that can be expected. If you’re going to hang out with the Whorl Bender, you gotta be ready for the occasional odd bedfellow now and then.”

  “I’d hardly call an Amaranth a bedfellow,” Gia said, falling in beside Jed, who had become visible once more.

  “No, I suppose not,” Nebb said. The smuggler had taken up a position next to Lyra.

  “And did you just call him the ‘Whorl Bender?’” Gia said.

  “Yeah,” Nebb said. “Little insider joke.”

  Essence ax in hand, Tane continued past them. He finished his dark timeline and put Fingers of Ruin in his reserve slot, and began another. He decided to stop Siphoning into the ring, since it seemed the dwellers weren’t going to attack for a while, and it wouldn’t do to randomly launch darks smears of unreality every two minutes at nonexistent opponents.

  “So this is an interesting scenario,” G’allanthamas said. “We’re pursued by Amaranth, who are currently recuperating and preparing new timelines. We can’t stay here, and yet we’ve lost our only means of escape. At least until the ships are able to effect any sort of repairs.”

  “It is a bit of a quagmire we’re in, isn’t it?” Tane said.

  The alert window was flashing in the lower right of his display, and he enlarged it as he walked.

  Level up. Your overall level is now 12! Neural pathways have been enhanced and reinforced! You now have an attribute point to allocate.

  He placed his point into Endurance, bringing his total to twenty-two. He knew he’d have to keep increasing his Endurance, essentially for the rest of his life, otherwise he’d be useless in battle, growing tired after launching a few works, especially now that he was reaching the higher levels in the different skills. Sending out those level-four-equivalent Essence Missiles had certainly taken a toll on him.

  “How did they find us?” Tane said, glancing at Lyra. “We made multiple jumps getting here, changing our heat signature each time. And you scanned each of us for hidden tracking devices. Jed, you, and Nebb also reviewed the codebase of the AIs for viruses, both ships and robots. Everything was clear.”

  “Stop,” Lyra said. “Stop right now.”

  Tane did so. She held a gloved hand to his chest assembly. “You have a tracker inside you.”

  “Again?” Tane said in disbelief.

  Tane realized immediately what had happened. The dwellers had made him inhale nanotech at some point, micromachines that were designed to form a tracking device only after a certain period of time had passed, in order to avoid detection.

  “It’s gone,” Lyra said. No doubt she had used Deactivate to eliminate the tracker. “It’s my fault. I should have checked you before we left for the surface.”

  “No,” Tane said. “You already scanned me multiple times since we left Xalantas. You couldn’t have known.” Xalantas. That was the planet where Tane had fought S’Wraathar. The planet where Sinive had died. Xalantas. A name forever engraved in infamy within his mind.

  “Even so, I should have performed the scan yet again, to be on the safe side,” Lyra said.

  “Well, we can’t change that now,” Tane said. “But the question is, which of the aliens put it in me? And why? S’Wraathar or his minions wouldn’t have done it. They would have used any inhaled nanotech to kill me immediately.”

  “There must be at least one member of the competing alien faction among his minions,” Lyra said. “A member he no doubt discovered and interrogated before execution. Likely the traitor revealed the tracking device he had planted.”

  “It’s a good theory,” Tane said.

  “It’s also possible the tracking device came from another source,” Lyra said. “Outside his minions.”

  “Another source?” Tane said. “Who?”

  “Remember the rock creatures that fought against the TSN while you were inside the terminal on Xalantas?”

  “Of course,” Tane said. “I saw S’Wraathar create them. He used some kind of relic made of black rock. You recognized them?”

  “Not particularly,” Lyra said. “But I recognize the power from the Volur archives. A power that comes from rock and stone. The creodenti live inside the sub-universe formed by the molecules of said matter. In any case, it’s possible one of the rock beings you faced launched the nanotech you inhaled. Though why they wouldn’t have programmed the nanotech to kill you outright, I have no idea.”

  Tane pondered her words. “The creodenti. So S’Wraathar has allied himself with some extra-dimensional friends.”

  “Either that, or stolen their power somehow,” Lyra said. “Or at least some of it. That would also explain his ability to jump his ships with an accuracy that seems impossible, as the creodenti had such distortion tunnel technology.”

  “Well it’s a good thing we’re seeking out the archaeoceti,” Tane said. “If only to balance things out again between us. Assuming they’ll actually help us…”

  “The scales are already tipped in your favor, Engineer,” Jed said. “You wield the White, and the Dark. Not to mention a combination of the two.”

  Yes, and perhaps a third power soon, if Tiberius was right.

  “What did the artifact teach you?” Lyra asked. “Any new Essenceworks? Something that could help us in our current predicament?”

  “No new works,” Tane replied. “It held only memories.”

  “Anything we should know?” Lyra said.

  “Only that the archaeoceti may not be all that happy to see me,” Tane said. “Tiberius thinks they’re going to test me in some way.”

  “And what about the relic your dweller friend gave you?” Lyra pressed.

  “What relic?” Gia said.

  “Yes, what relic, Engineer?” Jed said.

  Tane paused in his retreat to glance at them. He stepped out of the Essence and allowed the White ax to vanish. He holstered the beam hilt and felt the Endurance loss keenly, then reached into his storage pouch and produced the pyramid.

  “Ah,” Gia said.

  “What is it?” Nebb said.

  “I get nothing when I try to ID it,” Jed said.

  “As do I,” Lyra added.

  “With this, apparently I can open up a gateway to the universe known as Khaeota,” Tane said. “A one way portal.”<
br />
  “A gateway to another universe, even if one-way, sounds like a good idea right about now,” Gia said. “Given the alternative.” She swiveled in place, scanning the trees, ready to fire her two sawed-off weapons if any attackers appeared in the thick undergrowth. “You’ll be able to find us a way back, right?”

  “I don’t know,” Tane said.

  “I believe in you,” Gia said, though the doubt was obvious in her voice.

  “I, for one, don’t,” Nebb said. “One way. I have a particular dislike for portals that are one way. Especially when they lead to another universe!”

  “When we find the archaeoceti, assuming they still exist, I’m hoping they’ll have a means to send me back.” Tane gazed at the mysterious pyramid. He noticed that the surface seemed to undulate in places, as if something alive moved inside of it. “I can’t force any of you come with me...”

  “You know we’re coming,” Gia said. “I’m not staying in this jungle while there are Amaranth out there.”

  “There might be worse things where we are going,” Tane said.

  “We’re all coming with you,” Lyra said. “You don’t even have to ask.”

  Tane glanced at Chase.

  “I’m with you of course,” the Mancer said. “Here lies only death. At least with you, even if only more death awaits, we have a chance.”

  Chase hadn’t returned the Restrainer to his helmet, Tane noticed. He had given the Mancer a standing order that the device was to be applied whenever the team wasn’t in any danger. Tane decided to let it slide for now, since they weren’t out of danger yet: who could say when they would need the Mancer to strike? The time taken to remove a Restrainer could mean the difference between life and death.

  “We have to stick together,” Jed agreed.

  Tane glanced at Nebb, who sighed. “Well as much as I don’t want to go, I’m obviously not staying here alone. I never did make good dweller bait.”

  “Use the pyramid, Doomwielder,” G’allanthamas said. “Take us to the universe of the archaeoceti. Take us to Khaeota.”

  Tane sighed. “I hate putting the lives of my friends at risk. And understand, I consider all of you friends. You’d have to be, to stay with me through all of this.”