The day Dams the Gate was conceived did not require many pages be flipped back. A little over a decade had passed since he had given in to a moment of weakness. When Malkier had found the Feroxian instincts of his host’s body in alignment with the desires of his Borealis nature he’d entered the gates, brought back his trophy, and found himself in consonance with Burns the Flame.
His recall of their intimacy was still vivid. As though he’d touched his tongue to sugar for the first time in millennia. Malkier was temporarily able to savor a taste of what it was to be young and mindless, unable and unwilling to derail his attention from that one physical act. That day, he had felt a certainty about Burns the Flame. The sort of certainty he’d never experienced before and suspected he might never again.
He’d dropped the man’s body at her feet and Burns the Flame had accepted. Of course, she’d believed him to be Ends the Storm, that she was the first mate chosen by the prophet of their gods. More, that she would be the first woman to bear the child of an Alpha since a time long before her own birth. Had she still held any reservations, she knew that the trophy set down before her was none other than the most prolific abomination to her gods. The man, cocooned within the prophet’s pheromones, was legend. None would refuse the offering of such a trophy. Echoes the Borealis—the greatest abomination her tribe had ever known—had been brought to her.
Burns the Flame had every reason to think a great glory was being bestowed on her that day—no reason to foresee any harm befalling her after being chosen by their prophet, and after all, she felt the consonance. Malkier, likewise, had foreseen no harm coming to her. He didn’t believe his desire to have a child amongst his beloved Ferox could possibly be wrong.
But, he’d not been blind. He’d feared the risk he was taking. That, to his people, their prophet would seem to have gone against his own decree that no Alpha enter the gates. That he, Ends the Storm, had trespassed against one of the very commandments he’d proclaimed to be the will of their gods. Then, of course, there had been the matter of his brother. Malkier’s actions had betrayed their contract as well. He’d believed, or perhaps hoped, that Heyer would forgive him this one trespass.
Malkier soon learned that he had miscalculated. His people had little will to question their prophet, believing that he and only he possessed the wisdom to know when exceptions could be made to the laws of their gods. It had been his brother that could not forgive. Learning of Echoes the Borealis’ death, that Malkier had taken on the role of assassin himself, and that Burns the Flame was to bear a child from the transgression, Heyer had never looked at him quite the same. A rift began to form between them. In time, Malkier saw that it was a rift he could not bridge. Malkier came to think of this falling out with his brother, and the scar running down his face, as the debt he’d paid to be a father. Nothing he could say would change how Heyer had reacted, and Malkier would simply have to wait for his brother’s anger to subside. After all, they lived indefinitely, and with that sort of time, any trespass could eventually be forgiven.
Malkier’s claw stopped as he realized he’d taken to stroking his scar once more.
Some argue, that while there is no good moment to lose a child, there are ages that do more harm to a parent than others. For the Borealis, the most painful age to lose a son or daughter was at the brink of the child’s sexual maturity—just as they reached an age when they might soon desire a mate of their own.
Ferox males seldom felt fatherly attachments. Each took part in raising the tribe’s children, but they rarely thought of any particular child as their own for the same reason they never chose an offspring’s name. Rather, the males had favorites, protégés—but not sons or daughters. For that matter, many Ferox mothers had found the bodies of their slain sons upon the gateway’s platform. The Ferox did not grieve for fallen warriors—not precisely. It would be best to say that the Ferox, male or female, did not regret a child lost to the Arena in the same way they might if that same child had never reached the Arena at all.
Through his host, Malkier shared a great deal with the male Alphas of his adopted species, but his Borealis nature superseded the Ferox. So, he had no such circumstantial immunities to his grief. Malkier gained no relief knowing that Dams the Gate had died in combat. He’d known with certainty who his son was—and given the circumstances, so had his entire tribe. Malkier had watched the child grow, and all around him the tunnels he called home were littered with those memories. The Borealis in him was hardly willing to leave Cede’s boundaries knowing he could look down any corridor and be assaulted with visions from when Dams the Gate lived. Malkier wished the Borealis in him could, just once more, allow his Feroxian nature to have control.
Cede interrupted his thoughts again.
“Sir, please indicate you have understood. Two of your lieutenants are approaching.”
Finally, he replied that he’d heard her, and Cede went silent before the sound of footsteps approached the chamber. Malkier stood, facing the two with a knowing patience, so they would know he had perceived their approach long before they had gotten near. He saw their uncertainty immediately.
Buries the Grave and Sleeps the Dream were nearing full maturity—verging on their transition from red to Alpha. Soon, they would no longer be allowed entry into the gates, and would take places of leadership in the tribes. The lieutenants knew not to bother their prophet after he’d commanded that he be left to his solitude. Though neither of the Ferox could say what it was that plagued his spirit, both understood that as prophet, Ends the Storm carried burdens outside their comprehension. Nevertheless, the two were capable leaders. If they were willing to interrupt Malkier despite his orders, it was not a trivial matter being brought to his attention.
Since finding his son’s body on the gateway platform, Malkier could imagine no reason that would drive him to step into the daylight and follow the path toward the ravine. Yet, before Buries the Grave finished explaining why they had summoned him, Malkier was moving, and both lieutenants had fallen in to follow.
When Malkier reached the ravine, he found the tribe crowded in a ring around the gate. They were like spectators staring at the unprecedented, most remaining oblivious to his approach. When he caught sight of her in the crowd, he could not quickly remember when he had last seen her join a gathering at the gateway. Burns the Flame studied him with a blank apathy. The female Ferox possessed what a human might mistake as a type of hair. Like the males, their outer armor was covered in a chaotic web of black tar-like strands, but in the female, this also grew long from the back of their skull and down their back. The sight was not unlike that of a horse’s mane, though the thickness of the tar-like strands was more like looking at shiny dreadlocks. Burns the Flames’ skin was black and red, like the coloring of his lieutenants. As others became aware of the prophet’s presence, the crowd began to part, and when she should have joined the rest in clearing a path for their leader, Burns the Flame lingered a moment. Malkier suspected that she did this willfully, waiting just long enough that the insubordination would only be noticed by the prophet himself.
For the Ferox male, combat was a way of life. From birth, all headed for the fire, none ran from it. When an abomination of their gods sent back many casualties, the males of the tribe did not fear being the next selected by the lottery, but coveted the privilege of slaying a worthy adversary. A tribe began to take notice when a gate sent back a string of casualties. When a combatant refused to fall, and if it went on long enough, other tribes began to hear of him, if that man’s legend spread far and lasted long enough, a Feroxian pilgrimage would begin. Males seeking their chance at glory would leave their own gateways and tribes, traveling across the planet to seek their chance to slay a legend.
As prophet, Malkier lived amongst the largest of the Ferox tribes, but his gateway had not been the center of a mass pilgrimage in over a decade; not since the time of Echoes the Borealis.
Now, the system by which the males were awarded access to the gates w
as a lottery, and Ends the Storm had made a promise to his people that the lottery would never be rigged. However, this was never a complete truth, as the lottery itself was being manipulated by Cede in an effort to deepen the Ferox gene pool. The A.I. selection favored males with unique genetic markers to enter the gates over those with more common traits. Of course, this was done with discretion; occasionally Ferox lines with more common genes were randomly selected in order to keep the population from ever becoming too suspicious that the lottery favored certain males.
When Cede selected a “winner,” the prophet awarded that male a portal stone. A process usually carried out by the Alpha of each tribe under Malkier’s command. Since, all Ferox males wanted to be awarded a chance inside the Arena, no selection went by unnoticed. Though not statistical geniuses, the Ferox were quite capable of recognizing trends. This meant that Malkier could not show favoritism. He could not openly select a champion—or perhaps more appropriately, an assassin—if a combatant on earth refused to die. Now, an experienced Red verging on alpha-hood, a male the likes of one of his lieutenants, would be an easy solution to removing a man who was killing too many of his people, but Malkier made every effort to avoid such manipulations of the lottery.
The reasons for this were many. Heyer had felt that stacking the odds against a man for the simple crime of surviving wasn’t right, though Malkier had given no weight to the sentiment. His brother was splitting ethical hairs while standing on a foundation void of morality. Nonetheless, Malkier had agreed to his brother’s rule of nonintervention because as prophet, he saw that there were political advantages that would strengthen his leadership.
If a specific gate’s combatant became a coveted adversary amongst the Ferox males, two factors always came into play. The first was the question of how many males were being lost. However, with each of that combatant’s survivals, he made himself a more fearsome trophy. As such, each Ferox male grew more eager to make a name for himself by ending a legendary affront to their gods.
So, while the elders of the tribes had humbly disagreed with the prophet’s decree that a seasoned Red would not purposely be sent in when a combatant showed himself resilient, the adolescent Greens rallied in support of it. Now, should a younger warrior, a Green eager to prove his honor, be chosen to enter the gate, his opportunity could not be stolen from him by an alpha or a red who had already proven himself in battle and sired many children. Every male had an equal chance in the lottery.
Between him and his brother, the rule had been observed more as a guideline. However, after the prophet had taken it upon himself to rid his tribe’s gate of Echoes the Borealis, the guideline had become a hard line in the sand. A law, and one of many trusts that Malkier knew never to betray again if his relationship with his brother was to ever be kept from unraveling completely. All that said, from time to time, the lottery had to be rigged to remove a man from play. In most recent years, Malkier had done so with great care, eliminating potentially problematic men before they became prolific.
Heyer was hard placed to keep track of this for each gate, some after all, saw far more traffic than others. Perhaps there were even times when his brother turned a blind eye because the spirit of the rule remained intact. No Alpha, especially the prophet himself, was ever allowed to risk wasting a man’s life for his own unnecessary desires—his own ego. The truth was that Alphas were unlikely to achieve fertility. Their biology required an opponent to provide a degree of threat most of earth’s combatants could never offer given the meager compatibility he and his brother were allowing the humans to have with their devices.
This—and not fear of their gods—was why the Alphas themselves had not risen in protest to the prophet’s ruling. Alphas had already born many children, and like the eldest of most species, they had more dominion over their instincts, more discipline at their disposal, and were more capable of selfless sacrifices in times of inadequate resources. If obeying his laws meant their prophet would deliver them to the promised land, they would wait.
Regardless, when Malkier needed a solution to a troublesome man on earth, he would send a near alpha who had not been selected for a long while. Taking care to give the appearance the selection had been made at random to the tribe. This solved the issue, if done with care, but predictably brought suspicion to the youth of the tribe regardless if it was warranted. After all, every Green was eager to prove himself to their tribe, and any time that opportunity seemed denied, they quietly questioned the legitimacy of the lottery.
It was with a begrudging respect that Malkier thought of Echoes the Borealis. The name his people had given to the abomination that had broken all the safeguards in his system. The man had sent back staggering losses long after Malkier rigged the Ferox lottery to send in ringers to remove him. Echoes had been the cause of the last great pilgrimage, bringing males from all over the Feroxian Plane to his tribe’s territory.
At the time, Malkier had grown fixated on bearing a child of his own. It was a notion he should never have entertained. As the prophet and an Alpha, his own decree forbade his entry into the gates. Nevertheless, the idea took root in him, and made the instinctual desires of his Feroxian host’s body more and more difficult to ignore. When the Reds failed, and the growing issue of Echoes the Borealis left him no choice but to consider sending an Alpha assassin, Malkier believed he had found providence. He had finally seen a vindicating reason for the prophet to make an exception to his own rules.
So, Ends the Storm trespassed through the gates. He bore his child—he gained his scar.
The legend he had confronted on the other side of the gates was no echo of a god—but just a man. Malkier had always felt a lingering sense of injustice on his conscience. After all, he was thousands of years older, a Borealis contained inside the most powerful device his species had ever created, and implanted in the body of a Ferox Alpha. He was as close to invincible as his people’s technology could make him. Echoes should have been near incapable of doing him any real harm. He had cheated that man in every sense of the word—yet, the prophet still bore the man’s scar.
That man had been the first time he felt true physical pain in centuries, and the last time since.
His conscience had grown quiet over the years since, only having to see Dams the Gate growing stronger each day to be drowned out. After having faced Echoes, he’d told himself that he had done the only sensible thing. After all, who could say how many more of his people Echoes the Borealis may have slain had he not taken care of him? It was too easy to see an element of fate in play. In the end, would there ever be another combatant on earth strong enough to bring the prophet himself to fertility?
Now though, his son was dead, and the very gate that had made his conception possible was continuing to send back casualties. As though the universe were giving him a karmic lesson, screaming to him that his trespass had not been forgotten nor forgiven. That his debt had gone unpaid. In his grief, he wondered if his sanity might not be spared in the long term if he just let himself feel as though he’d been wronged.
After all, it was not as if he had given up nothing to see himself a father. When his brother learned the means by which Echoes the Borealis had fallen, a wedge had been driven between them. Heyer, for the first time in his life, had looked at him with a disdain that bordered on hatred. Malkier had bled before his brother, the wound Echoes had given him far from healed, still hardening into the white scar he saw every time he caught sight of himself in a reflection. It had been a painful recovery, the device’s ability to heal his Feroxian form delayed for reasons he did not understand. Nevertheless, Malkier had seen in his brother’s eyes that he had considered finishing the job Echoes had started. Perhaps, with his injuries, Heyer may have succeeded.
Instead, his brother had stood before him, visibly shaking with rage and… indecision.
A number of times, as the Ferox fatalities had grown, Heyer had offered solutions to the problem of Echoes the Borealis. Of all of them, he’d fought harde
st to see Echoes allowed to retire peacefully—his gate left dormant until he died from natural causes. Heyer didn’t understand his people’s nature. The Ferox needed to see the legend brought down, or they would believe themselves a failure to their gods.
“Ends the Storm,” said Sleeps the Dream, a peculiar note of excitement in his voice.
His Feroxian name snapped Malkier’s attention back into the moment, and his eyes followed to where his lieutenant now pointed.
A man crouched beside the gate, surrounded by his tribe. He was on his knees, his hands out in front of him as he shielded his eyes from the sight of the Ferox and begged for their mercy. Beside him laid the body of yet another Red, not the last to have entered gate. It was a wonder that this man had not yet been torn to pieces by the Ferox surrounding him. Though perhaps it was that they waited, held him prisoner, until an elder came to decide who would be given permission to slay him. Malkier would not let this happen, not publicly. Whatever had occurred to bring a man through, if he was attacked, without the aid of an active implant, the Ferox slaying him would find the man an unformidable enemy—a complete waste.
“Leave the abomination unharmed,” the prophet yelled over the crowd.
The hisses, the need for violence died down, and the few remaining Ferox parted to allow Malkier and his two lieutenants through.
Is this him? Malkier wondered. Has chance sent me Brings the Rain. Given me a face.
The Never Paradox (Chronicles Of Jonathan Tibbs Book 2) Page 19
