by Greg Curtis
He knew that because whatever language the texts had been written in, they all had the same sets of laws. Laws that among other things guaranteed the rights of their people to move freely between worlds. Laws that had to be obeyed by every world that wanted to join. But also, contained in the writings was the fact that it had been a bargain. In return for each world agreeing to abide by those laws, they had been given a symbol. A star perhaps – even with the spells of translation, the sages and scholars had difficulty agreeing on what the symbol actually was. And every person on every world had the right to carry that symbol and use it. It was a key or a source of power – again the sages couldn't fully translate the term – which allowed them access to all the wonders of the realm of worlds.
The writings also referenced when each new world had joined this world spanning empire. And the one thing he had learned from that, was that there were a great many more worlds that had been a part of the ancient empire than the six with ancient temples on them that he had so far visited. There had been hundreds.
But the only thing that mattered to him was that the translations had spoken of the behemoths – although they didn't call them that. They called them forces of nature. Neither gods nor mortals, but something in between. And maybe something completely other as well. They talked about some of the things the behemoths had done, most of which could best be described as catastrophes. It seemed that when a behemoth so much as rolled over in his sleep, the ground shook and the oceans trembled. The one thing they didn't say was how to kill them. Every incident of a behemoth causing trouble that he'd read of in the translations had been accompanied by reports of the people of that world evacuating the region. There were no reports of the people trying to fight them. The basic strategy for dealing with them seemed to be to run and then wait. Eventually they would return to their slumber. It might take years. It might take centuries. But they would eventually settle down.
None of the reports mentioned a behemoth crossing worlds. Although that didn't mean they couldn't or wouldn't do that he supposed. Just that they never had in the histories of the ancients. So why had this one?
“You know Hendrick, some days I do wonder.” Val stared at him with what might have been an expression of exasperation on his face. Or then again, he might just have been suffering from indigestion. “Are you really as slow of wit as you pretend? Is that even possible?”
“I'm here to tell you it is!” Hendrick managed a small smile. “Go and read your writings and make your notes. I have work to do.”
He wasn't actually upset by Val's complaints and insults. For the most part he was pleased that his friend seemed to be in a happier place. Hendrick felt the same. The crisis was, if not ended than at least averted. The bronze people – only now they had a name, the Mythagan or the People of Legend as they translated it from their tongue – had provided the ward stones they'd promised. They were made of black volcanic glass or crystal and seemed quite ordinary though the Mythagan swore that the servants of the behemoth wouldn't come anywhere near them.
His people were safe. They were fleeing the world in ever greater numbers, taking up the Mythagan's offer of sanctuary. Hendrick thought it sad that the only place they could finally be happy and free was in another realm. But at least they were happy and free. And the world was safe from them. Even if some of them did uncover the secrets of the seven great magical engines, they wouldn't use it. Why risk death and the destruction of the world to become unafflicted, when you could simply move and enjoy a better life as what you were? As a mage?
The war between his father and his stepbrother was ongoing. But he wasn't sure that there would ever have been any way to stop it. And now thanks to the Mythagan there would be no afflicted caught up in it. No magic would be used to kill people. The civil war had just become a whole lot less deadly.
And as for him, he was stronger now. His spells were all under control. The voice constantly whispering into his soul about power, had quietened. And he slept more easily. People stared at him of course. He didn't wear the great cloak and gloves around the town, and the people of Burbage had never seen him or anyone else so marked. So they stared, and some of them even stepped back when they saw him. But word had reached them that the afflicted were fighting a war for them, and some of the King's new laws had reached them as well. Few said much to him, and those who did had mostly been the ones who would have done so before anyway. He had learned to ignore them long ago.
“Work? That's not work. Work involves achieving something! A blind mumblecrust would achieve more than you!”
“Really?” Hendrick looked up at his friend. “I had no idea you had experience in building houses!”
“Oh, very droll!” Val snorted unappreciatively at him. “I'm beginning to see why you have no friends!”
“I have you!” It was Hendrick's turn to snort. “Now could you let me work please. This isn't easy.”
It really wasn't. Even though he had a good quality steel chisel and a mallet, the hardwoods he'd used for the uprights refused to yield to them easily. But unlike soft woods, they wouldn't rot over time, causing him to have to rebuild his house in a few years. He could use magic he supposed. But he liked the feel of doing things with his hands where he could.
Blow by blow, he chipped out the last notch, and soon enough it was done. Then came the really hard part of lifting the floor supports into place. When he'd bought the lumber, Big Durnest had asked him why he didn't want the heaviest timbers cut into more manageable lengths. Most people would be happy with ten and twelve foot lengths that they could lift. But he didn't need that. He could use his magic to do the lifting for him, and a single twenty-four-foot length was stronger. Besides, he needed the exercise. His arm was stronger now, though it still ached. And the more he used it he figured, the better it would get.
So, he walked over to the large pile of cut timbers waiting for him, grabbed one of the almost tree trunk sized floor supports from the top, and then started dragging it along the ground.
When it was in position, his magic made short work of lifting it up to the notches he'd cut. He simply used his spell of warp to raise a couple of pieces of ground up to the right height and they carried the bearer with them.
Hendrick was pleased with that. It was all working out perfectly.
“Hendrick! Move!” Val suddenly yelled at Hendrick, causing him to spin around in surprise.
“Dung!” Hendrick desperately threw himself to one side as a ghostly streak of grey rushed for his head. He only just avoided the attack. In fact, as the world seemed to explode and the uprights smashed to the ground, he could feel the rush of the wind as a tail passed swept by, missing him by inches.
“Bastard!” Sana screamed at him, even as her twenty-foot-long tail kept moving, smashing into timbers and spinning her around. There was fury in her face and outrage in her voice. She'd thought to kill him in that first strike and the fact that she'd missed was too much for her.
Hendrick though intended to keep living. Which was why he immediately raised a dimensional barrier around him. It had worked the last time. It should work again.
Sana completed her spin and struck at him again. But this time her ghostly tail smashed into his barrier with all the strength and speed she had. And then she screamed.
Hendrick couldn't hear her scream – the barrier blocked sound as well as her attack – but he could see the pain in her face and he knew why she screamed. Her tail had just been broken. The impact had caused it to bend at a right angle, and he assumed it hurt much the same as a broken shoulder did. But then that made him wonder, how could she feel the injuries to her ghost limbs? A mother couldn't feel the pain of her unborn baby. And a host couldn't feel the pain of the parasite that ate into it. And yet she did?
Then again, he realised, she wasn't the same as she had been. The dead ghost beast that had once lived inside her, had grown some more and was outstripping her body. Now Sana was standing eight feet tall because the talons and legs of the
ghostly beast extended from her own. One as before was emerging from the stump of her missing leg. But the other emerged from the bottom of her remaining foot. There were also talons and arms emerging from her own arms. Stranger still she now had wings. It was as if the woman had somehow become the parasite within the host.
But it was still a host with no head. He could see the ghostly, sinuous neck somehow emerging from the top of her head – but it still had no head of its own.
So it was now dead and she somehow commanded its flesh as her own? Even grew its flesh as part of her? Hendrick didn't understand how that could happen. But then as he regained his feet, he noticed something else about her. Something that might explain something of what was happening to her. Her dress was torn, ripped around the waist, and where the material hung free to reveal the bare skin of her hip, he could see some pale green markings.
She was afflicted!
Hendrick was shocked by that, and before he thought about it he yelled it at her as an accusation. But of course she couldn't hear him just as he couldn't hear her. Still, he understood something of what must have happened. She was afflicted with Illuminium – the magic metal of living spells. Her magic must have given her some ability to fight the behemoth's parasitic offspring as it grew within. But she lacked the spells of mental control it had. It’s thinking would have overwhelmed her. When the creature's head had been ripped off, she must suddenly have found some freedom from the great beast's control.
That must have been horrible he thought. If he had suffered such torment just at having the echo of a long dead wizard's soul in his head, what must she have endured? Then again, she hadn't been able to fight it. The unborn monster had dominated her. Warped her thinking as it had warped space. Her magic may have allowed her to resist some of the things it did to her flesh, but not what it did to her mind.
But though free of its control, she was clearly no longer sane. He realised that when he saw her staring at him with unbridled hatred for him. In fact, he was sure she was snarling like an animal. Then again, he had torn off her arm and leg. And he'd just broken her tail. She had a reason to be angry with him.
“She's brought friends!”
Val's visage floated through the barrier as he yelled a warning at Hendrick.
Pivoting, Hendrick could see that she’d once again brought three of the beast's servants with her. At this point they were still far away. He had to follow Val's eyes to spot them in the sky, and even then they were hard to see. They were in the distance, streaking for the ground. For a moment he felt a sense of relief. They weren't attacking him. Until he realised the truth.
They were attacking the town!
Hendrick panicked. The beasts were going to kill the only people he had ever known as friends. But even as he panicked another part went into high gear. It knew what to do. A heartbeat later he cast the haste spell.
Instantly Sana stopped screaming at him. Or rather she appeared to stop moving. But she was still screaming. Her mouth was wide open and there was a look of maniacal madness on her face as she tried to force air out of her lungs. It was just that he was moving a hundred times faster than he had been. He was going so fast it was as if she was frozen in time, while he had the time he needed.
Hendrick dropped his barrier spell, and summoned a dimensional blade. Then, while she was still frozen, he ran at her, sword in hand.
He was no swordsman, but while she was standing there like a statue, even he couldn't miss. So he took off all ghostly limbs with a few short swings of his blade. It met with no resistance. He could have killed her he knew. But still, somewhere behind those wild eyes and beneath that mass of ghostly flesh there was the soul of a very young woman. And he simply couldn't kill her.
So he swung his blade through her ghostly flesh, cutting it away from her, and then kicking and pushing it away. At the end she was left standing there, one arm and one leg missing as before, still screaming like a mad woman, and very slowly beginning to topple to the ground now that what had held her up had gone.
It had to be enough as Hendrick still had a town to save. So he left Sana where she was and long stepped to the gate and on through to Burbage. He was almost surprised that he could do that. Contracting distance while at the same time stretching out time for himself. It seemed almost like cheating the laws of the world somehow. And the fact that he was also holding a dimensional blade in his hands as he streaked along the roads, surely meant he was stretching his magical abilities. But he was desperate, and if the world didn't care that its laws were being broken, neither did he.
He reached the town in a matter of seconds, though still it had taken too long. People were lying in the street by the time he arrived, hands pressed tight over their ears, little trails of blood coming from their faces, and he knew they were in trouble. The creatures were screaming. But to him it wasn't a scream. He was sped up so greatly that what should have been an ear drum shattering screech was only a very deep thunder. Little more than the sound of the wind rushing past him.
Still, as much as time was his ally, he didn't have enough of it to waste. As soon as he spotted the nearest of the beasts floating in the air above him, he released his dimensional blade and summoned some dimensional arrows instead. And then he sent them flying through the ghostly creature, all but cutting the beast in half as they carried on for the heavens.
He did the same twice more, and the moment he could see the holes appearing in the creatures, and their chests, he knew he was done. Still, he checked the skies carefully, just to make sure there were no more of the beast's servants about, before he let go of his spells. And then he waited.
There wasn't long to wait. The first of the ghostly creatures fell to the ground in two halves, barely fifty feet from him, and when it hit it left a pair of shallow craters in the ground. Meanwhile the other two which had been higher up, were tumbling out of the sky. When they finally hit he felt the thumps through his feet, but couldn't see them as they landed somewhere behind the buildings. The nearest one, had a confused look on what remained of its face and he guessed it would be the same for the others. All of them had died so quickly that they probably hadn't even had time to realise it. But the only thing that mattered was that they weren't shrieking. They couldn’t hurt anyone else.
Hendrick forgot the dead creatures quickly and hurried over to the nearest of the townsfolk – Mena. The seamstress was slumped on the ground, not moving. Quickly he found a pulse which pleased him enormously. Unfortunately, the trails of blood leaking from her nose and ears didn't. Neither did the unusual pallor of her face. She had been hurt. And when he went to the others he saw the same thing. All were alive, but hurt. There was nothing he could do for them however. He was no healer.
He got as many as he could to sit up, and tried to reassure them that it was over and that they were safe. But he wasn't sure if anyone heard him. He wasn't sure if they even noticed him. They scarcely seemed to be aware of much at all.
Fear gripped his heart. He had seen too many others who had been left like that. Broken in spirit and mind by those terrible shrieks. Not all of them had recovered.
But what could he do? He couldn't treat their condition. Even the healers couldn't. He couldn't even check on the entire town. Thousands of people called Burbage home. There were likely many more in similar condition. But while he couldn’t heal the people he could at least take care of the enemy. Their mistress.
Hendrick long stepped back home.
Sana was still lying on the grass when he returned, and clearly in pain. And despite everything, he couldn’t help but pity her. Because while she had become a monster, both in spirit and flesh, she was still a very young woman in terrible pain. Pain that he had caused.
He refused to give in to his pity and try to tend her however, if for no other reason than the fact that he knew she was a hundred times stronger than him, and would probably snap him like a twig if he got too close. Instead he walked calmly over to her until he was standing a dozen feet i
n front of her and did his best to maintain an icy calm.
“Your pets are gone,” Hendrick told her coldly. “You're all alone.”
Sana didn't answer him for a long time. Instead she simply lay there on the grass, holding her amputated ghostly limbs to her with her one remaining arm, and crying as if they were her dead children.
“My master –.”
“– Can't help you now. You're crippled and alone. Far from him. And I'm a lot more powerful than all of his servants. A lot more powerful than you.”
That last was true actually. But he didn't like saying it. In part because it sounded like bragging and that was something he hated. In part because it was a mistake to even think such a thing. In these battles power didn't matter. The thing that mattered most when it came to who walked away from them, was who struck first. But the main reason he hated saying it, was because when he did, he could feel echoes of that ancient wizard floating up from the depths of his being. He didn't like that wizard.
