How did I let things come to this? Tamerlane wondered. How did I let everyone down, and lose everything that mattered? Frowning, he bowed his head, feeling utterly beaten for the first time in his life. Beaten, and alone.
But he wasn’t alone, as his companions reminded him then.
“You can’t get away with this,” Inquisitor Delain interjected, her expression as animated and dark as Tamerlane had ever seen it. “The Grand Inquisitor stood up to Barmakid and stopped him, and he will stop you, too.” She glared defiantly at Iapetus. “How effectively do you truly believe you can govern this falling Empire with the Inquisition—and likely the Ecclesiarchy, too—set against you?”
“The Ecclesiarchy is firmly behind me,” Iapetus replied with a smirk. He turned and looked to the red-robed woman behind him. “Isn’t that so, Teluria.”
“You’re supporting him in this?” Tamerlane asked her, almost incredulous. “I thought you had more sense than that.”
The woman met Tamerlane’s eyes briefly and looked away. She appeared remarkably uncomfortable and unhappy. She looked back at him again, then at Iapetus—and particularly at Iapetus’s waist, his belt. A holster hung there—one that Tamerlane didn’t recognize as part of the general’s usual outfit. He didn’t at first recognize the pistol that rested within it, either. But then something in his memory clicked, and he began to understand.
“As for Stanishur,” Iapetus continued, shrugging, “Well—he’s had a lengthy tenure as Grand Inquisitor. Perhaps it’s time he had a vacation. A long vacation, far from Earth. Or perhaps simply a retirement.”
Delain cursed.
“Your job,” Iapetus went on, moving next to the woman in black, “is to tell him that. Make it clear to him. I know that you are close to him. Make him understand. I would like him on my side, but I will not hesitate to replace him.”
The Inquisitor glared at him but said nothing.
“You’re retreating, aren’t you?” Colonel Arani said then, scorn dripping from her words. “You’re pulling back. Everywhere.” She looked from Iapetus to Tamerlane. “It’s the end of the Empire, general,” she said. “He’s going to retrench across the Inner Worlds, and to hell with the rest!” She gave Iapetus a sour, disapproving look. “It’s so stupid—so blind, so short-sighted.”
“She’s right,” Tamerlane said coldly. “You’re making a terrible mistake, Iapetus. One that will bring you and your legion down. The gods forbid it also brings down the entire Empire.”
“Your mistakes have already brought the Empire to this state,” Iapetus snapped, growing visibly perturbed for the first time. “But,” he said, raising one hand, “this is all pointless. Decisions have been made. Processes are already underway. I merely wished to inform you of them, out of respect for your years of service.” He smiled again—enough to chill the blood—and added, “Those years are now over, of course.” He motioned and four Sons moved forward, guns at the ready. “Take this little group into custody,” he ordered. “They are all under arrest.”
“What?” Tamerlane started forward, but two Sons bracketed him roughly, holding him by the arms.
“That one, too,” Iapetus added, nodding toward Titus Elaro. “His loyalties have become divided, I believe. I cannot trust him any longer.”
Soldiers in black surrounded the two women and the double-agent major.
“What of the governor, sir?” Barbarossa asked, pointing toward the doubled-over form of Rameses where he sat on the floor nearby, abandoned and ignored. “Should I arrest him, too?”
Iapetus regarded the broken Rameses, lips pursed in thought. “No,” he said at length, striding across the tiles to stand over the wreck of a man. “No, I think his usefulness is done now.” He drew a blast pistol and fired a single shot into Rameses’ head. The governor slumped to the cold marble tiles, dead.
Tamerlane and the others jumped, startled and shocked. The Sons of Terra didn’t react at all; for them, it was as if this was standard procedure.
“Hmm,” Iapetus said, looking down at the body. “It appears he wasn’t a god after all.”
Tamerlane cursed. “He deserved better than that,” he barked.
“Better?” Iapetus laughed. “You’ve been out to get him for months. Isn’t this what you wanted all along?”
“It wasn’t entirely his fault,” Tamerlane replied, still angry. “There are other forces at work here. The gods—”
Iapetus regarded Tamerlane with a smile. “Even the gods do not want to mess with me now.” He glanced back at Teluria. “Isn’t that right, Ecclesiarch?”
The woman in red said nothing, but her complexion darkened to almost match her robes.
Iapetus seemed to have said all he intended to say to his prisoners. He turned to consult with Barbarossa. Meanwhile Tamerlane struggled angrily against the hold of the two Sons. He nearly slipped as he did so; the marble floor had become suddenly slippery. He ignored it at first, what with everything going on, but then frowned. Had he stepped in a puddle of blood left over from the earlier battle? Looking down, he saw it wasn’t blood... but ice.
Ice. Again, and more of it. And with Goraddon long gone.
“Iapetus,” he murmured, looking to the rugged general in black. Then louder, “Iapetus! I believe we have a serious problem developing.” He motioned toward the spreading patches. “Ice. Don’t you see it?”
The air had grown noticeably colder in the throne room. Delain had perceived it quickly; her brow furrowed, she raised a hand in an attempt to sense what was happening, only to have one of the Sons slap it down. She glared at the man in scarcely contained rage.
Iapetus and Barbarossa had been joined by a third soldier, who was whispering something frantically to them. The last part of it he said loud enough for all to hear: “Thank the gods the fleet is here.”
Iapetus was scowling, seemingly uncertain of what to do. He realized then what Tamerlane had said to him a second earlier. He turned back to the other general, now obviously disconcerted. “What was that?” he asked. “What did you say?”
“Ice,” Tamerlane repeated, nodding toward the sheets of it forming on the columns and across the floor. His breath was a cloud of white now. “You know what that means.”
“It’s a by-product of the manifestation of psychic energy,” Barbarossa offered.
Iapetus whirled on the man. “I’m well aware of that, Colonel. Thank you.”
Stung, Barbarossa bowed and backed away a step.
Another Son approached Iapetus and spoke the word Tamerlane had expected. “Comets,” he announced loudly and clearly. “Comets are incoming. Hundreds of them.”
“Comets?” Iapetus repeated this, nervousness manifest in his voice. “Here?”
“Goraddon’s parting gift,” Tamerlane breathed. “He wasn’t done with us after all.”
The first impact, some distance away, shook the foundations of the palace. The next two were closer.
The throne room was plunged into chaos. Ice covered every surface and the Sons of Terra were having trouble moving about as the general ordered them to form up and join their compatriots at one of the landing areas outside the Heliopolis.
They never got the chance.
A comet, its velocity greatly reduced by the astounding telepathic power of its inhabitants, crashed down just beyond the Heliopolis, and in reaction the wall on that side of the palace buckled and collapsed, chunks of stone and glass and metal raining down. The chamber was now open to the early-morning air of Ahknaton—to that, and to an eerie, crimson light that flickered over the landscape.
Tamerlane gazed into that light and was horrified by what he saw: dark shapes, specter-like, with gleaming silver faces in the shapes of alien skulls. It was as Agrippa had described. It was the Phaedrons. They had come to Ahknaton.
Iapetus recognized them as well. He whirled about and barked orders at Barbarossa and the other Sons officers nearby. “Get the men back onto the shuttles. Load everything and get it all back up to the Atlantia and t
he other ships as quickly as possible.”
“Everything?” Barbarossa asked, frustrated. “Everybody?”
Iapetus remembered then that Barbarossa had never personally encountered the Phaedrons, so he couldn’t truly understand. He was therefore extra-patient with his assistant. “Everything and everybody, yes,” he answered.
“Are we simply to abandon Ahknaton, then?”
“To hell with Ahknaton,” Iapetus growled. “This is not a fight I’m the least bit interested in having. Certainly not out here in the outer periphery. If these things want this lump of sand so badly, they can have it.” He raised his voice and addressed all the Sons of Terra still present in the throne room. “Back to Earth! Get out there and get the transports loaded.” He glanced over at Barbarossa, realizing the men wouldn’t move as quickly as they needed to, unless he took a hand himself and pressed the need for haste. “The Colonel and I will help,” he added.
“What of the prisoners, sir?” asked the ranking officer among the group holding Tamerlane and the others.
“Bring them along. When all is ready—when I am satisfied—and the main bulk of our forces has lifted off for the fleet, the good Ecclesiarch here will open a direct passage for us back home.” He flashed Teluria a quick and tight smile and then he and Barbarossa hurried from the throne room, leaving only a handful of his soldiers behind.
“Alright, then,” the ranking Son barked. “This way, all of you.”
They started forward, along the same path Iapetus had taken out of the chamber, but then more chunks of masonry tumbled down, the sound like gunfire as the big pieces impacted the marble tiles. Between that and the horrific sounds coming from outside, the guards grew somewhat distracted and lost their focus, ignoring their prisoners for a precious few moments.
That was all the opening those captives needed. Tamerlane struck with what little of his flame power he had recuperated, while Delain warped their vision, causing them to lose track of their charges. Arani and Elaro seized weapons from the startled soldiers and fired. Within only a few seconds, no one was left standing there except the former prisoners—and Teluria.
“We need to move,” Arani said, sizing up the tactical situation. “What can we do?”
“Teluria is getting us out of here,” Tamerlane told the others, only then turning to face the woman in red.
“And why am I doing that?” she asked archly.
He laughed without humor. “Because the Phaedrons are coming—and I think even you fear dealing with them if you don’t have to. And because you despise Iapetus as much as we do. And because you don’t like being a prisoner.”
She took this in but her expression still appeared skeptical.
“And,” Tamerlane concluded, “because I will never point a gun—a gun that actually could hurt you—at your head and order you to do my bidding.”
“You saw it?” she whispered, eyes widening. “You know?”
Tamerlane nodded. “I saw what Iapetus had in his holster, and I know the story. The gun that can kill a god.”
The ice was everywhere now. Cold winds blew in from outside. Teluria shivered, but it had nothing to do with those physical things.
“What’s it going to be?” Tamerlane asked, reaching out his open right hand toward her.
The red lights were all-pervasive. An eerie, howling sound echoed across the sands of the desert. The horrific Phaedrons were descending upon the Heliopolis and would be there at any second.
Teluria considered all of this, and considered Tamerlane’s words. Then she shrugged, and even offered him and his companions a minuscule smile. Raising one hand, she began to conjure a dimensional portal; swirling smoke and lights appeared in midair just beyond them. With her other hand, she clasped Tamerlane’s.
“Where would you like to go?” she asked.
EPILOGUE:
In a darkened room in a darkened corner of an otherwise dazzlingly-lit celestial city, an ornately-designed and crafted chess board sat on a small granite table. The pieces were of ivory and obsidian, the board itself a slab of veined marble. The game in play upon it looked to be near its finish; many pieces on both sides had been removed from the board and set aside, killed, while those that remained were in place for a swift endgame that clearly favored the black side.
A hand reached down and caressed the black queen for a moment. It did so gently, almost tenderly. Then it grasped the edge of the board and in one smooth motion lifted it up and dashed it against the wall of the room.
As the dust and debris and shattered pieces settled to the floor, a man clad all in black turned on his heel and strode from the room. The door clanged shut behind him.
The spiral of lightning, fire and smoke dissolved around them and left them standing on solid ground again. The ground, however, was the only thing solid within view.
General Agrippa touched the visor of his helmet and it slid soundlessly up and out of the way. His breath immediately became visible as a white cloud in the cold.
Cold. He tensed, suspecting what that could mean. He reached for his quad-rifle.
“No, no,” Aurore said, motioning with her right hand for him to relax. “It’s not psychic energy making it cold here. It’s simply cold.” She placed the hand on his arm and leaned on him for a moment, as if the exertions of getting them all this far had drained her of her energy.
The other eleven members of Agrippa’s Bravo Squad moved up around the two of them and waited, most with their visors still down, tiny lights blinking along the sides of their helmets and air circulation systems hissing softly. They looked about them in wonder; it appeared as if they stood within a tunnel of fluffy white clouds that led off in either direction into infinity. The effect was extremely disconcerting.
“Where are we now?” the general asked, his eyes moving from the swirling mists that surrounded them to the face of the woman in white. Big and muscular and clad in the Deising-Arry Mark 5 combat plate, he towered over her frail-looking form. “How much longer until we reach our destination?”
“We are very close now,” she replied, seeming to recover a bit. She gazed in one direction down the tunnel of clouds and then the other. “I think.”
“You think?” Agrippa frowned at this. “You’ve led us across half the multiverse to get this far,” he rumbled. “Don’t lose the way now.”
“No, no,” she reassured him, offering a wan smile. “The Dyonari are nearby. I can sense them. They naturally channel a tiny bit of the Power at all times. As you can imagine, they make quite a vivid impression in the fabric of spacetime.”
Agrippa couldn’t imagine any such thing, and didn’t want to try. Instead he offered, “Perhaps you could use a break? We could stand guard here while you recover more fully, and—”
“I am perfectly fine,” Aurore snapped back, almost sharply. Then she softened. “Your consideration for my health is appreciated, General,” she said, patting him on the heavily-armored forearm, “but I am a goddess of the Golden Realm. I require no rest, no sleep. Merely unobstructed access to the Power of the Fountain.”
Agrippa nodded uncertainly at this. “And—um—how can we make that happen?”
“It happens constantly,” Aurore said, smiling at him maternally as though he were a small child being instructed on the most basic facts of life. “The Power radiates out from the Fountain in the City, high in the Above. It reaches everywhere in the multiverse, always. It—” She faltered again, this time actually grasping his arm and hanging on it for a moment.
Startled, Agrippa brought his other arm around and caught her, keeping her from falling.
“Aurore?” he said, growing more concerned. “My lady, are you—”
Her eyes were closed. They fluttered open once and she murmured something unintelligible before they closed again. Her skin had already been pale but now it was growing almost translucent.
Agrippa easily lifted her up in both of his powerful arms, cradling her like an infant. He looked up at the others; their f
aceplates were all up and they were staring back, eyes wide.
One last time her eyes opened and she strained her head upward. Agrippa leaned his own down to hear her. She whispered something. He hesitated, then nodded.
Light flooded out from her. He almost dropped her in surprise, so blinding was it, and so unexpected.
And then her body came apart, literally shattering in an instant into thousands of tiny shards of what looked like glass. The shards cascaded down, sparkling as they fell. The troops instinctively all moved back a step, startled. A second later, the shards were gone. Agrippa’s arms were empty. Nothing remained of the woman in white at all.
“What—what happened?” the nearest of the soldiers—Torgon—asked his general. “Where did she go?”
Agrippa shook his head, only now relaxing his arms back down to his sides.
“She’d better come back, and soon,” Harker said, gesturing with one arm at the fog and clouds that surrounded them, constituting the entirety of their world now. “I’d prefer not to have to settle down and live out my days here.” He spat to one side. “Wherever here is.”
“I don’t know that she is coming back,” Agrippa growled. “Something has gone wrong. Very wrong.”
The others all nervously looked at one another, increasingly discomfited by the surroundings and the situation.
“What did she say, there at the end?” asked Obomanu hopefully, a second later. “Was it anything helpful? What did she whisper?”
“She said pick a direction and go,” Agrippa replied, his forehead creased with worry. “She said finish the mission. Save the galaxy.” He looked at the others, thrust out his jaw firmly, and began to exude a bit of his usual confidence and bravado. “And that is precisely what we will do, Bravo Squad.”
Agrippa gazed first one way and then the other along the tunnel of smoke and fog. Then, as if detecting some telltale clue that provided the correct answer, he nodded once to his right and set out in that direction at a brisk and steady pace.
The Shattering: Omnibus Page 60
