by Holly Lisle
The well-known and once-beloved face of Gellas Tomersin filled the display. “Solander gave us the magic to end the evils of the Dragons, and the god Vodor Imrish has given us the power to do in one night what would have taken mortals with only magic to aid them days or weeks. But Vincalis the Agitator gave us the words by which we have gone forth to destroy that evil which has rotted the heart of the empire. Vincalis said:
Each of us is in part a god. We are each Masters of our souls. Others hold rights to the flesh of our bodies, others claim the effort of our backs, others own the fruits of our labors—but each man’s soul is his birthright, his stake in immortality, his foothold to imminent godhood.
Yet the Dragons above you claim flesh, bone, blood, will, and thought from men, women, children, babes in arms. And beyond, they claim their souls. They claim them, they burn them, they destroy that which they can never own—for convenience, for art, for their own power.
No more.
“There is no easy path to honor,” Gellas Tomersin—Wraith the Warrener—said, and tears glistened like diamonds on his cheeks. “There is no soft path to freedom, no good road to what is right. No painless way to truth. What we have done will hurt innocent people even as it frees innocent people. The Dragons cannot continue burning the souls of the Warreners to give you flying cities, cities beneath the seas, aircars, star-yards. They have gone beyond the right of a government, have claimed more than they can own. We each have inalienable rights—the right to our own thoughts, the right to our own bodies, the right to our own souls. The Empire has claimed these rights as its own, has stolen them from its most helpless citizens. But we have taken the souls of the Warreners away from the Empire tonight—and, in the weeks of the next month, will take away all flesh and bone, all blood and will. By the end of this month, if the Dragons do not use new sources of power, all magic in the Empire of the Hars Ticlarim will die. The cities of the air will topple to the ground—even now, they are sinking lower. The cities beneath the sea will flood or be crushed—even now, pressure on them begins to increase. Aircars will not fly, ships on the sea will have to navigate by the stars and sail by the wind, for their engines will fall silent.”
He bowed his head for a moment, and a small sob escaped him. Then, straightening his shoulders, taking a deep breath, he lifted his head and said, “We have made the end of magic gradual to give each of you time to evacuate. If you live beneath the sea, leave. If you live in the air, leave. If you live in a city beneath a city built on air, leave. You will need food, you will need clothing against weather that, without magic to temper it, may become harsh. You will need a way to protect yourself and your family—you should band together with people you trust for your own safety.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and he sounded like he actually meant it. “If we had been able to find any other way, we would have taken it.”
The Landimyn of the Hars crooked his index finger, and his servant switched the display unit off. “If you didn’t see it live, now you’ve seen it.” He leaned back and stared at them. “I want this fixed. I want it fixed now. I will not have this Empire destroyed by these fanatics. These lunatics. This will not happen on my watch. Tell me—how are we going to render these criminals and their spells impotent?”
The Master of Research, Zider Rost, tapped the table in front of her to signal that she had something to say. The Landimyn acknowledged her with a nod.
Zider rose and said, “Within five minutes of leaving here, I can launch the first twenty spell-birds that will turn the Warrens and everything in them into a liquid fuel that we will be able to use to power this Empire for the next generation. Within a day, if I push my people, we can have the hundred-plus others ready to go. We may have to cut corners to get them out the door in time, but any corners we cut won’t be in effectiveness. I recommend, however, that we do this immediately, because the longer we tarry, the less power we’ll have to deliver them to their targets.”
The Landimyn looked pleased but startled. “I’ve heard nothing of this plan.”
“I’m sure it was working its way up through your underlings to you—I sent you the complete information on it the day the Council voted to develop this weapons system.”
The Landimyn nodded. “It’s safe?”
“Not for the Warreners.” Zider Rost grinned around the room at the other councilors, and a few managed appreciative if strained chuckles.
“It will eliminate the spell these … monsters … have cast?”
“It is the most powerful spell-set that has ever been developed by the use of Dragon magic. We have had to create an entire new system for rewhah-handling just to accommodate the power that this spell will generate. I promise you on my life and soul, there is nothing those petty bastards can have thrown around the Warrens, in the space of the few minutes they would have had to cast before our people spotted them, that will stand against what we have created.” She waved her right hand over the band she wore on her left wrist, and in the air above it, the face of a young man appeared. “You have the information for me, Rohn?”
“I do.” The young man smiled. “I can find no evidence of an actual shield around any of the Warrens, other than ours. And all of ours are still intact. We do show minimal energy loss, but we suspect some sort of leaching device implanted to make us think that these people have done what they said. Our teams have been able to enter test Warrens across the Empire without difficulty, and report no changes in the behavior of any of the units.”
“They were lying?” The Landimyn looked relieved.
“Perhaps.” Zider Rost held up a hand. “They use a system of magic foreign to us, and it is possible that they are telling the truth, but that we won’t see the effects of what they’ve done for several days. I strongly, strongly recommend that we not give them the chance to bring the Empire to its knees. I advise we strike now, while we know we can end this.”
Around the Council table, silence. Doubt on the faces of the Masters who had not had the chance to inspect the spell-set. Concern over taking such a drastic, irreversible step.
And then Grath Faregan rose.
“Two points,” he said. “First, you cannot show weakness in the face of the threats of rebels. Doing so only encourages more rebellion. If the bastards have done what they say they have done, and if you don’t act, the Empire and all that is good within it will die by your hand, and yours will be the names reviled in history for all time. And if they have not done what they claim, and you don’t act, every Empire-hating lunatic from here to Strithia will swarm the Hars, and the Empire will die anyway.
“Second …” He paused and smiled. “Second, I’ve located the rebels’ hiding place. By the time you’ve turned the Warrens into liquid, they should be back to their base. And when they return, you can drop a spell-bird on them.”
The table erupted with demands that Faregan divulge the location, but he just shook his head. “First things first. Save the Empire’s energy. Then we’ll go after the rebels. I want to be on hand personally to watch their destruction.”
The Masters looked at each other, and then, one by one, said, “Second …” “Second.” “I second as well.” “Second.” No one abstained, no one disagreed.
The Landimyn looked from one councilor to the next. “These spell-birds have been checked by others at this table? You are all satisfied that they will do what they are supposed to do, that they will do it correctly?”
The Master of Energy said, “I vetted them myself. They’ll work. They aren’t pretty, but they’ll work.”
The Landimyn sat still, eyes closed, for just a moment. Then he nodded. “Master of Research. Go immediately. Launch every spell-bird that you have ready. Have your people prepare the rest to launch at the soonest available moment. Do what you have to do to make this happen.”
Zider Rost, Master of Research, smiled coldly. She rose, bowed to the Landimyn and to his colleagues. And then she left the room at a run.
“We have to get back in
the aircars now,” Wraith said when he’d finished the transmission.
“Obviously we need to get out of here,” Patr agreed.
“No. Not just out of here. We need to run. And we need to take the men here with us.”
Patr blanched, but then smiled slightly. “You’re talking about taking hostages? I didn’t think you had it in you.”
“Not going to be hostages. Going to be survivors. Something is wrong.” Wraith pointed to the transmission operators and shouted, “Take them with us. Run! Back to the aircars!” Then he grabbed Jess and, with his hand clamped around her wrist, bolted for the exit. Behind him, he could hear the four employees protesting. But he heard the pounding of many feet behind him, too—and as he alone spoke for Vincalis, damnable Vincalis, they’d do what he told them. He didn’t need to look back.
He jumped into the first aircar and dragged Jess in behind him; she smacked a shin going over a door he could have opened had he taken more time, and yelled, and he could feel her glaring at him. Patr, whom Wraith had heard running and swearing right behind him and Jess, had one of the employees in tow—and that man was in a frothing rage. Patr shoved the transmission operator into the aircar and jumped in with him, and instantly the vehicle lifted off the ground.
Patr was panting. “What’s going on?”
“Something terrible. I’d no more than finished the transmission when I got the image of disaster. The collapse of the city, I think.”
The employee glowered at the three of them and said, “You’re causing the collapse of the city, you cretin—you amoral son-of-shit-weasels. You’re going to murder the city in a month, and now you’re having second thoughts.”
“Not in a month,” Wraith said. He stared down at the other aircars. The lights on the landing pad of the transmission building lit them well enough that he could make out what was going on. The aircars were filling and soaring into the air as fast as the one he was in. The sense of urgency, of terrible, oppressive, impending nightmare clogged the air.
Why? What would happen? He’d told the people of the Empire what they needed to know. Hadn’t he? What more was there?
But the god Vodor Imrish was pulling them out faster than anything Wraith had ever seen—and the panic almost felt to him like it emanated from the god. But why would a god panic?
He watched the last of the aircars lift off of the landing pad. And then, from last to first, they began winking out like stars, simply vanishing from the sky. His mind had only an instant to register what it had seen, and then the colder-than-death cobwebs that moved him from his world into the darkness beyond brushed his face and his skin, and all of life and light fell away. He hung in the darkness, wondering what was at that moment befalling his world, his home, and the people he had left behind.
Luercas and Dafril made it out of their aircar and into the temple first, their frantic charge scattered the priests and set all within the temple into panic. But not so much as their instructions to the priests, given as the rest of the Dragon plotters began to arrive.
“We go to join the god, who has summoned us,” Luercas told the head of the priests. “When our spirits have left our flesh, you must clear our bodies away from this place. Burn them or bury them, whichever is more convenient to you—they have no importance, and must not be permitted to become a source of disease for you or your priests.”
The head priest nodded. “Will the god summon us to his side someday?”
Luercas shrugged. “I cannot speak for the god. Perhaps. Perhaps you will serve until you are an old man—perhaps you will join us with the god soon. But never question; if the god summons you, you will have no doubt in your mind that you have been called. And if you are called, you must come immediately.”
“I serve with joy and reverence,” the priest told him. “We all do. Whatever the god may command of us, we will do.” He looked somewhat askance at the number of people filing into the temple chamber that housed the Mirror of Souls. “All of these have been called?”
Luercas said, “The god has need for servants in the beyond, as well as in this realm. We have been called to serve, and we do not question. And neither should you.”
Chastened, the priest hung his head.
“Everyone who’s coming is here, I think,” Dafril whispered in Luercas’s ear. “Or if not, we at least have enough to put together a full government when we return.”
“Is the Mirror ready?”
“Waiting only the final button combination.”
Luercas felt an edge of dread. They knew the Mirror would take them in and hold them, but had only the promise of untried numbers and equations that it would release them when the time came. So many things remained untested. But the faction of Dragons in power was about to make itself hideously, hellishly unpopular. He and his people could wait no longer. They could not afford to be associated with the debacle of wizard war and wizard resistance that was about to ensue. He guessed that in five years, much of the Empire would be a shambles, and would be ripe for the arrival of heroes who could set things right—but if things became entrenched, ten years could pass.
“The priests must guard the gates of the temple now,” Luercas said. “You are sworn upon threat of death never to touch the receptacle of the god; swear each of your priests to this same oath, or surely the god who summons us now will destroy you totally.”
The priests were bound to the site by magic. And their fervor would bring new acolytes—new men and women who wished to serve a living, present god. Luercas had to trust. In this moment, he had to have faith: that the thing would work as he planned, that one day he would have a body that truly belonged to him and only him, and that he would stand at the head of his own Empire.
The priests left, closing the doors behind them. They would return later and remove the bodies. He shuddered a little, thinking of leaving his flesh behind in a cooling heap on the floor. Nevertheless, he acted for the future.
“Ready,” he said. “As ranking Dragon, I will operate the Mirror and pass through last.”
Dafril said, “It’s set to take us all at once. With our concern for time, I thought we did not dare a slower course of action.”
Luercas felt ill. “Reset it, then.”
“We would have to power it completely down and bring it back up again, and then put in the new commands—that alone will take nearly an hour. And the process of moving people through individually will take more than a minute apiece.”
Luercas backed away. He could still flee. He could change his mind—and those who stayed behind would know his shame. But what would that matter if, once they were inside the Mirror of Souls and he alone remained outside, he destroyed the mechanism? They would never be able to tell anyone of his cowardice, or his treachery.
But if he didn’t go, he would lose his chance to be Master of the Empire. And that was not a chance he would throw away lightly.
Luercas stood before the Mirror of Souls. It was a thing of tremendous beauty—a column of glowing blue energy surrounded by a tripod of the purest cithmerium, the best of all metals for magic work. The energy flowed upward into a basin of six curved cithmerium petals, and swirled smoothly within the basin. Carved gemstone buttons, their meanings carefully disguised by the use of wizard glyphs, looked more part of art than of function. The Mirror of Souls looked like a huge metal flower—half the height of a man—but a metal flower alive and alight with power.
It was a thing of beauty, but, too, a thing of terror. Of death now, and death to feed its power, and death in the future to give those within it new life. If he used the Mirror, he would die. Die. How could he let himself embrace physical nonexistence, even for the promise of future power? How? But how could he bypass potential ascent to virtual—or even actual—godhood? Survival now? Greatness later?
He rested his fingers on the buttons that would transport everyone in the room into the realm of death. He looked into the eyes of those around him, and saw his own fear reflected a hundredfold.
&n
bsp; No warning, he thought. No good-byes—no see-you-on-the-othersides—no chances for second thoughts. He pressed the button, and radiance red as arterial blood rose from the column and billowed from the central pool like bread risen beyond its pan, and then the light embraced him and everyone with him.
He felt a sharp snap.
He felt a single moment of nightmarish pain, and fear that eclipsed anything he had ever experienced before, including taking the rewhah from Rone Artis’s failed power spell.
He felt cold. With the horrible finality of death, darkness descended, and silence, and senselessness. If he could have, he would have wept, but all the functions of body were gone. He hung, abandoned and alone, in the infinity of nothingness, and he understood for the first time the absolute magnitude of the error he had made.
The spell-birds flew, or were flown, according to their nature. The first to land was the massive bird built for the Warren of Oel Artis—delivered personally by the Master of Research herself, who carried it through the gates of the Warren, which still permitted entrance to those with appropriate passes, and laid it in a stairwell out of clear view of the street. How unfortunate if some guard, doing rounds, discovered it, guessed its nature, and tried to disarm it or remove it from the Warrens. She checked its timer—the spell-set would activate at naught-and-one by Pale, the first minute of the first hour of new day.
Satisfied that the spell-bird would perform correctly and at the appropriate time, the Master of Research left the Warrens.
Liquid, she thought. They would all be liquid—and when they were liquid they would be no more trouble at all. She could hear them moving around, crying out as if they were lost, as if they were in pain—making sounds within their buildings for the first time. Animal noises. Horrible, sickening animal noises. Perhaps, then, the rebels had managed to free them from the blessing of numbness in which they had lived their lives, into the pain of captivity in their flesh, in these Warrens, in the vacant spaces of their lives. If so, they would not suffer long. Or at least they would not suffer in human form for long.
