Dark Immolation

by Christopher Husberg

  “You’ve mentioned chaos,” Winter said after a few moments, her mind mulling over Galce’s words. “More than once…” How to put this delicately? “What are you talking about?”

  Galce laughed again, the sound rising up from his belly. “Chaos rules the Sfaera,” Galce said. “Chaos is my master, just as it is yours. There is no escaping it, and no manipulating it. Chaos simply is.”

  “That seems a bleak way to look at the world,” Winter said. Though she was one to talk.

  “Quite the contrary,” Galce said. “Chaos is a comfort, garice. Could you find more comfort in Canta? Chaos will guide us every step of our path; has your goddess done that for you? Have the Scorned Gods done that for Roden?”

  “Canta is not my goddess,” Winter said.

  Galce merely nodded, and continued measuring.

  “So… Chaos is your religion, then?” Winter asked.

  “Chaos is Chaos. It is what it is. One does not worship Chaos, but we do live our lives according to it. Everyone does, whether they know it or not. Those who believe, like me, simply acknowledge and embrace it. We are all leaves on a great river. Sometimes we flow along easily on smooth waters; sometimes we encounter rapids and barely make it through—or not at all. Sometimes we find eddies and a moment of brief reflection; other times low-hanging branches catch us, we find ourselves stuck in rocky outcrops, and our progress stagnates.”

  “And Chaos is the river?” Winter asked.

  “Chaos is everything. The river, the rocks, the trees and the weather. Chaos is the leaf itself, it is us, and all things around us.”

  “If you’re a leaf on the river,” Winter said, “how do you make any decisions? How do you do anything in life?”

  “We do as Chaos directs.”

  “But what does that mean?”

  “It means we live our lives, and trust,” Galce said. “If an opportunity arises, we take it. If that opportunity pans out, we continue. If it does not, we return to what we were doing before or take the next opportunity.”

  “What you’re describing doesn’t sound very much like freedom.”

  “What is freedom other than what we want from it? If I feel free, if I have all I need, what more can I ask?”

  “But there has to be something you do when you make decisions. Some kind of system. What if more than one opportunity presents itself?”

  “Forgive me, garice, I’m being somewhat facetious. We do have a system. You see, as much as we see Chaos operate and work outside of ourselves, each of us has Chaos inside us as well. It is only a matter of looking inward, and we find the guidance we seek.”

  Winter frowned, unable to hide her disappointment. “That’s it?” she asked.

  Galce laughed. “That is only the beginning. Chaos manifests itself differently within each of us, but it is impossible to define, and that’s the point. Everything we know, everything our world has become, began with something very simple. We call it the Prime Order.”

  “Chaos began with order?”

  “Absolutely, garice. Chaos is not random, though it may seem that way to us, because we can never have a perfect knowledge of the Prime Order—the way things were in the very beginning. Because we can’t have that perfect knowledge, we can’t know anything. No matter how much history I learn, no matter how much I study the mind and how we make decisions, I can’t know how you will respond to what I say or do, let alone how the world will respond. That is why we give ourselves over to Chaos.” Galce jotted down one more measurement, and then put his measuring tape away. “You may get down.”

  Winter stepped down from the pedestal and Galce placed his hands on her shoulders. “What I’m about to tell you is something special,” he said. “We don’t often speak of this to people outside of the creed.”

  Winter stared at him. Then why was he telling her?

  “You are right, garice. Sometimes, we are faced with decisions. But there is always a way to give ourselves up to Chaos, and to trust that Chaos will lead us to the best possible choice. Now, close your eyes.”

  Winter, overcome with curiosity, did so.

  “Envision a perfect sphere, its surface smoother than anything you could imagine. It is large, it encompasses your whole vision. Now… what color is it?”

  “Black,” Winter said, without hesitation.

  “Ah… that is unexpected. Black, then. That is your Chaos, Winter. This sphere can be two colors—black, as you see it now, or white. It can only be one color at a time; it can never be both. All you have to do is close your eyes, and you will see it. The color manifested each time you see it will indicate what you are to do.”

  Winter opened her eyes, more than a bit skeptical. “I just imagine that sphere, whenever I need to make a decision?”

  “Call it Chaos, garice. Give it the deserved respect.”

  “Of course,” Winter said. She doubted it would work. It seemed the sphere—Chaos—would manifest itself as black every time Winter saw it in her mind. That was how it was conceived—how could it possibly change? Or what if it appeared blue, or green? Confining choice to two options seemed needlessly limited.

  But Winter did not have to tell Galce that. He had been kind to her, and apparently revealed to her something very dear to him. “Thank you,” she said. She truly meant it.

  “You are welcome, garice. I can tell that you are an agent of Chaos. I can tell that you will use this gift wisely.”

  * * *

  Later that night, after taking a frost crystal, Winter traveled to the Void. It was time to search for her tendra once more.

  Kali was waiting for her.

  “I’m ready,” Winter said.

  Kali grinned—no, she’d already been grinning, the moment she materialized in the Void. The grin looked strange on her shifting face.

  “No small talk? You don’t want to ask how my day went?”

  Winter scoffed. “Don’t much care. Let’s find my tendra.”

  “As you wish,” Kali said, still smiling.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Relax,” Kali said. “We’ll do what we tried before. Remember, this will not be exactly the same process as when you found your telenic tendra. You’re a variant telenic, but an actual acumen. There are differences, so reset your expectations now.”

  Winter nodded and closed her eyes. She steadied her breathing—if she was even breathing in the Void, she wasn’t sure—and relaxed.

  The moment she shut her eyes, the dark sphere was there, looming in her mind’s vision.

  Winter’s eyes snapped open. She had not been asking for the sphere—for Chaos. She had not even encountered a decision she had to make, yet.

  Winter took another deep breath. It didn’t matter. Chaos was not important to her right now. Her tendra were. She closed her eyes, ready to—

  “For Canta’s sake.” Chaos was there once more, waiting for her, black as pitch and smooth as silk.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Fine,” Winter said, too quickly. “I just—tell me what to do. What am I doing?”

  “Concentrate. You’ve obviously been using your acumenic tendra, somehow. You just need to see them. What happens when you’ve ‘sent your mind out,’ as you’ve stated?”

  “I just… I just…” Winter closed her eyes again. Chaos could not be there again, there was no reason to—

  The black sphere waited for her in her mind.

  Fine, Winter thought, to Chaos. You obviously think I need to make a decision. Fine. I’ll make it. Just leave me alone so I can do this, it’s important.

  When Winter opened her eyes, Kali’s stupid smile had finally faded. Instead, her mouth was open, jaw slack, eyes wide as she stared at Winter.

  Or, more accurately, as she stared at Winter’s tendra—dozens of them, luminescent, multicolored tendrils of smoky light, branching out from her.

  “Is this… is this normal?” Winter asked, looking around herself in awe.

  “This many tendra are not norma
l, no,” Kali said, her eyes flickering around Winter. “But you aren’t exactly a normal psimancer, are you?”

  A few of Winter’s tendra snaked their way towards Kali. Winter was about to stop them, when the thought occurred to her. Why not? Why not see what she could see in Kali for herself? At least then she might know for a certainty whether Kali was lying or not—what her true motives were. In time, Winter realized, she might even be able to shape Kali’s motives herself.

  To destroy, I must first know love.

  Winter frowned. Could she ever love Kali? Someone who hated her race, who had tried to kill her and her friends? To love someone was to know them, accept them. Perhaps, if she could delve the woman, learn more about her, Winter might be able to accept Kali.

  “What are you doing?”

  Winter’s tendra stopped moving. “What do you mean?”

  “What are you doing with those?” Kali asked, pointing at the tendra that had been moving towards her.

  “I need to practice, don’t I?” Winter asked. “I need to learn how to use them, to learn how to delve, or whatever it is you call it. Shouldn’t I practice on you?”

  Immediately, five or six tendra appeared from Kali. They moved towards Winter’s tendra and sliced directly through them, evaporating them instantly.

  “Hey!”

  “You will not start with me. We start with others. We start with some of those,” she said, indicating the stars in the Void.

  Winter nodded. Kali was right. Winter wouldn’t have wanted Kali to delve her, so why should she expect Kali to let Winter invade her mind?

  And yet… when Winter closed her eyes once more, Chaos was still waiting for her, black and foreboding. That was that, then. Chaos dictated.

  With all the strength Winter could muster, she sent her tendra towards Kali.

  Kali reacted quickly, and her tendra sliced through her attack, but Winter just sent her tendra again. The woman obviously had fewer tendra than Winter did, and the sheer volume of the onslaught pushed Kali back. Winter saw panic in her eyes.

  “I’d like to know what’s really behind these efforts of yours,” Winter said, trying to sound as calm as she could as she sent attack after attack towards Kali. “I suppose I have the means of finding out, don’t I?”

  “You don’t know what you’re doing,” Kali said through gritted teeth. Kali was straining, too. That was a good sign.

  “You’ve taught me well enough,” Winter said, sending another volley of tendra towards her. “I can figure out the rest.”

  “You would betray me, Winter? You would do exactly—what—you feared—I would do.” Each phrase was accented with another defensive slash from her tendra. Each time one of Winter’s tendra was severed, a haze of color burst in the Void.

  “I only fear it,” Winter said, more tendra springing forth from her mind, “because you’ve already betrayed me once before. Now, I’m returning the favor.”

  * * *

  Kali’s first instinct had been to attack Winter’s tendra at the source, but she quickly decided against it. She still needed Winter; she did not want to destroy this girl’s potential.

  And as Kali’s tendra interacted with Winter’s, she felt something she had never felt before. A connection—not with the girl, but with the tendra themselves.

  An image flashed through Kali’s mind: Winter, lying prone on a large bed, eyes rolled back in her skull. But it wasn’t just an image, Kali realized. It was real; Kali was seeing Winter’s form as if she were actually in the room with the girl. It was a connection, Kali realized, to the Sfaera.

  Kali logged the information away. No, she couldn’t destroy this girl. She might be Kali’s only hope of getting out of the Void. But Kali had had about enough of Winter’s petty attack. The girl had insane talent with her tendra—and an insane amount of them—but she was not a fighter, not yet. And Kali had been trained by the best in the world.

  Kali stopped her retreat and stepped forward in the Void, dodging and parrying a few of Winter’s attacks with her tendra. Then, she punched Winter in the side of the head. Winter stumbled backwards, her onslaught temporarily over. Before Winter could recover, Kali punched her again. Winter fell to her knees.

  “Attacking me was a bold move,” Kali said. “But it was foolish, too.” She reached out with one of her tendra and jabbed it into Winter’s brain. Only too late did she notice Winter’s doing the same, moving towards her.

  Immediately, Kali was back in the room—a large bedroom, by the looks of it, with expensive-looking wooden furniture, dressers and a mirror and desk, at one end. A room in the imperial palace. This time, Kali was lying on the bed, looking up at the canopy above her with her own eyes.

  Kali was in the real world.

  Then, just as quickly, the real world was gone, and Kali was back in the Void, Winter cringing at her feet.

  “What was that?” Winter asked.

  “I… I don’t know,” Kali lied. She wasn’t sure, but she might’ve just unlocked a clue on how to get herself out of the Void. But she wouldn’t tell Winter. Not right now. Just like she wouldn’t tell Winter that her husband was still alive. After Winter’s betrayal, it was something Kali might never tell her.

  “We are done for today,” Kali said. She needed to think on what had just occurred.

  Without a word, Winter’s figure blinked out of existence, and Kali was incorporeal again.

  At least now, however, she had new information to keep her going.

  41

  Harmoth estate

  “ASTRID, COME OUT OF there! The ceremony is about to begin!”

  Astrid moaned, rolling over in bed. She did not sleep—or she did not need to, anyway. But that did not mean she didn’t enjoy being a lazy little girl from time to time. What was Ader doing knocking on her door so early, anyway?

  “Just a bit longer,” Astrid muttered into her pillow.

  “We don’t have any longer! If you don’t come out now, Jane said I have permission to come in there and get you.”

  Astrid’s eyes snapped open. Quickly, she leapt up from the bed. It wouldn’t do for Ader to come in and see her room like this. No, it wouldn’t do at all.

  The blood was the first thing to cover up. Astrid had fed recently; she had not been able to resist the urge any longer. She’d made the mistake of bringing the remains of her meal up to her room, and now one corner of the floor was stained a dark reddish-brown color. Astrid grabbed a rug from the foot of her bed and threw it over the stain. It was an odd place for a rug, but she figured Ader wouldn’t notice. He was certainly less likely to notice a strangely placed rug than he would a giant bloodstain.

  “I’m coming in if you don’t say anything!”

  “Just a moment, I’m not decent, Ader!”

  Next were the weapons. Ader still had no idea who Astrid was—what she was—and she was not about to be the one to spoil things for him. That meant the daggers, the throwing knives and shurikas, the armor-piercing hammer, and the short curved sword resting on the end table had to be hidden. While Astrid had her claws, they only came out at night, and even then only offered her limited range. She liked to be prepared.

  She swept the weapons to the floor with a series of clangs and clatters. Astrid swore.

  “Are you all right in there?”

  “Fine, I’m fine! Just knocked my toe against one of the bedposts, that’s all.”

  With a few kicks, Astrid pushed the weapons under the bed. Then she took a deep breath, looking around. She did not think anything else would be too conspicuous. She exhaled.

  “All right, Ader. You can come in.”

  The moment Astrid said it, she realized she was completely naked.

  “Shit.”

  Astrid whipped the sheet off her bed and wrapped it around her, just as Ader walked into the room, a wide grin on his face. The grin faded the moment he saw her, and his face turned bright red.

  “Uh… I… I thought you said you were decent… I’m so sorry, I…” />
  Astrid cleared her throat. “Um, yes, sorry, I… I forgot… I forgot I wasn’t quite decent…”

  Ader stared at the floor as if his life depended on it. Astrid could have laughed if she were not so nervous about completely traumatizing the boy. His ears were more red than the blood Astrid had drunk the night before…

  Astrid’s eyes widened. She saw that one of the daggers she had kicked underneath the bed had slid a little too far and now protruded from the other side—now in Ader’s view as he looked at the floor. Astrid edged around the bed awkwardly, careful to not get the sheet tangled in her legs. Unfortunately this meant she was edging closer to Ader, too, who glanced up at her, his face even more red than before, and then back down at the floor quickly.

  Ader took a step back. “I think I should leave, until you’re decent.”

  Astrid finally reached the dagger and kicked it back underneath the bed.

  “What was that?” Ader asked, looking up at her. He immediately looked back down.

  “What was what?” Astrid asked.

  Ader shook his head. “I’ll see you later.” He walked out of the room and closed the door behind him.

  Astrid fell back on the bed with a deep exhalation. She liked Ader. He was a nice kid, and not boring, which was a quality Astrid always appreciated. But she and him had about as much in common as a rose and a wild boar, and Astrid knew exactly who the wild boar was in that comparison.

  She had indulged him up to this point, but this encounter made her realize how silly the game was she’d been playing. Goddess, she had not even realized she was naked until he was practically in the room. Ader was a few years her senior, physically speaking, and he wasn’t likely to take that sort of a thing lightly if he was like most twelve-year-old boys she knew. She didn’t know many, admittedly, but still. Astrid sighed. Sometimes she wondered what in Oblivion she was doing here, with this batshit-crazy family.

  Then she heard the tug on her mind that told her she was being voked. “Oh, for Canta’s bloody sake.” The Black Matron. No one else had reason to voke her anymore. Astrid reached to her bedside table and picked up her voidstone.