“By the cities and the stars,” Siklar whispered. And, “Must I do this?”
You must.
“But—”
There is no other choice. It is your duty, entrusted to you alone.
“I—” He started to object again, but found his resistance crumbling. Slowly but surely he found himself acquiescing to the seer’s plan. “Very well,” he said. “It will be done.”
I would have your absolute dedication in the mission.
“You have it.”
You understand what must be done?
Within his mind, Siklar felt repulsed, but he agreed. “Yes, I understand.” He hesitated. “There is something more?”
The means. The manner in which you can carry out your mission.
“Yes?”
When the time comes to do what you must do, you will need sufficient power, and a way to channel it properly.
Siklar took this in. “Yes, I understand. But I cannot imagine where in all the galaxy such power could be found—”
It cannot be found in our galaxy.
“What? But then—?”
Not even in this universe.
Siklar thought about this for a moment and understanding dawned upon him. As it did so, he beheld within his mind’s eye a towering geyser of sparkling energies.
“Ah,” he said. “There.”
Indeed.
“But—surely that cannot be possible. How could we ever—”
I will show you. There is a way.
Siklar was surprised to hear that. “Very well—but once those energies are released, how to harness them? How to channel them in the manner you desire? Not even the greatest engineering accomplishments of our people could—”
There is a way. There is a device, a machine, older even than our people. It links all the stars together—though for a different purpose than that which we intend.
Siklar absorbed this. A device older than the Dyonari themselves? It was hard for him to imagine—even with new images appearing in his mental vision, showing a great metal tower alone in a fog-enshrouded field. “Where do I find this ancient construct?”
It exists on many worlds, but I know of one in a remote sector that should be open to you and your warriors, and relatively simple to break into and bend to our needs.
Another compressed message entered Siklar’s mind, coming from that of the seer, this time containing images and coordinates along with other details of this objective.
Siklar’s head was spinning. “I—yes, I believe I understand now,” he said to the voice of the seer.
Good. Any last questions?
Siklar considered. His head was pounding and he could feel a sickness in his stomach, despite the fact that all of this had transpired within less than two seconds of time in the real world.
“Seer, are you absolutely certain this is the only way? If I am to do this thing, I must believe it is the only viable option.”
It is.
Mentally, Siklar nodded to the seer and to himself. “Very well,” he said. “I will do what must be done. No matter the cost.”
But, he thought to himself as the mental connection dissolved and reality returned around him, such cost....
3
Siklar recovered first. He helped the warrior next to him back onto his feet, then looked at the seer. The elder’s eyes were closed and he did not appear to be breathing.
“Is he—?”
“He is dead,” the first seer said. “But most of what he was, who he was, has passed to me.” The old Dyonari tapped the side of his head. “He dwells here now, and I fully understand what he saw and what he requires of you and your forces. What we all require of you.” He paused and then raised his right hand; it was very long and appeared very frail and delicate. “Understand,” he whispered, and unlocked the message in all of their minds.
For several seconds no one spoke, as the enormity of the seer’s telepathic words—a long message, compressed into a single second’s transmission—unfolded and took hold in their consciousnesses. They all closed their eyes involuntarily and allowed it to spool out, in words and images.
Siklar had already seen it. He waited, gazing at the others, waiting. “You all received his message, yes?” he asked when they had all opened their eyes again. “You saw his vision?”
The others—twenty-six in all—answered in the affirmative. One of them across the circle added, “But I do not understand.”
Others made sounds of agreement with this.
“Ours is not to understand implicitly,” Siklar replied. “Ours is to obey. But,” he added, “what I do understand, and understand quite clearly now, is the magnitude of the danger the galaxy faces.” He nodded down at the seer. “He saw it very clearly—saw who these aliens are, and what they intend. He saw what will result if they are allowed to succeed. He saw all of it—past, present and future—and he has shared it with us. Who among us yet harbors doubts?”
No one spoke up. They all returned Siklar’s gaze evenly, their expressions grim.
Siklar nodded. “Very well. Each of us knows what he or she must do, and where he or she must go. There is no alternative now but to succeed.”
The others drew their swords simultaneously and held them high. One of their number led them in a sacred pledge. Then they sheathed their swords as Siklar looked upon them with appreciation and respect.
“There is nothing more for us here,” he told them. He turned to two female officers who waited nearby, and they quickly stood at attention. “Mirana,” he said to one. “Madalena,” the other. “You will be co-commanders of one phase of our mission. Your orders have already been implanted. Take four warriors of your choosing and go.”
The two saluted Siklar and chose the nearest four Dyonari, who then moved around behind them, at the ready.
“Now—let us take our leave, and quickly,” Siklar said. He raised his right hand and concentrated, but nothing happened.
“Commander?” asked one of the warriors to his left. “What is the matter?”
“I—do not know,” Siklar replied, strain evident in his voice. “I cannot open a way...”
“The Phaedrons are blocking the path,” came the weak sound of the seer, lying at the center of their circle. His eyes were barely open—mere slits—and his color was pale. “They do not intend that any of us escape the scene of the slaughter.”
“What can we do?” Siklar asked, reeling, sensing defeat closing in again. “Is there no way? No hope?”
“There is one,” the seer responded. He started to pull himself up.
Siklar moved forward quickly. “Do not strain yourself, elder,” he said. “Lie back.”
“Now is not the time to lie back and wait to die, Commander,” the elderly seer responded. “Now is the time for action!”
Siklar marveled at the old seer’s resolve and inner strength. He reminded himself that the elder supposedly now carried another of equal power within himself, and for the briefest moment he wondered if that had been the first he had absorbed. Who knew how many ancient Dyonari had merged their essences with this one, over the years? Shaking his head at the thought—I’m just a warrior, thank the stars—he helped the seer to his feet and supported him. “You said there was one hope. What is it?”
“The Phaedrons believe they have cut us off from the rest of the multiverse. They think we are cornered and ripe for the slaughter. They are almost—almost—correct.”
The old seer raised his staff high overhead and the upper end of it, decorated with swirls of iridescent color, shimmered and took on an otherworldly glow.
“But,” he continued, “they did not count on one of our number being as strong as I am—nor on my willingness to give my all to break through their barrier.”
Siklar blinked at this, understanding only too late. “Give your all? Wait—do you mean—?”
The seer raised the staff even higher and cried out, his voice strengthening just long enough to cause the sound to echo across t
he area. Then it trailed off and his body slumped to the deck. His staff, however, did not fall. It hung there, floating in midair, light now pouring from it, becoming almost blinding. A flash, and then the light disappeared.
In its place stood a swirling round rip in the fabric of reality. Bizarre colors and clouds of smoke and fog billowed within it.
Siklar hesitated for only an instant. Then he barked out sharply at the others, “Now! Through the portal! The elder gave the last of his life-force to provide us this escape, and we shall not squander it!” He all but shoved the nearest trooper toward it. “Go!”
The twenty-six warriors dashed through the gateway and vanished. A second later, only the commander and the elder remained behind. Siklar knelt down, checking the life signs of the seer. As he had suspected—as he had known—the elder was dead. A wave of sadness, magnified by the psychic attack of the enemy, washed over him, but by now he had grown quite accomplished at ignoring such things. It was why he was still alive, and why he was about to escape this slaughterhouse.
Nodding in respect and appreciation to the body of the seer, Siklar turned and ran through the portal. An instant later it snapped closed and vanished, leaving no traces behind of the warriors who had passed through it, or of where they had gone. All that remained was the lifeless body of the elder Dyonari, staring through sightless eyes up at the heavens.
For thousands of miles all around him, the comets rained down and the great snowflake-cities burned.
4
A short time after the portal had closed, the two seemingly dead Dyonari seers blinked their eyes and sat up. They looked at the devastation all around them, then at one another.
“Did it work?” the second seer asked. “Did they believe?”
“They are convinced we are dead,” the first seer replied. “That we have given our lives in the cause we have dispatched them to fight for.”
“Excellent,” said the second seer. “Then all goes according to plan.” He smiled. “I have always found that nothing motivates the young and already-dedicated like a little death thrown into the mix.”
The first seer nodded. He rose and helped the other up.
“Now,” the second seer said, “let us go and convince these invaders that they have succeeded in killing us all, that they might take their leave while we still have a Star-City upon which to dwell.”
“We can only hope we are as persuasive with them as we were with our own warriors,” the other added.
“We will be,” said the second seer. “Their minds are as weak in their way as are those of our own warriors.”
The first seer agreed, then added, “For all their weakness, we must hope our warriors succeed—or else that they die. For if they return, having failed, and find us alive…”
“They will not fail,” the second seer stated with conviction.
“I agree,” the first seer said. “But if they do…”
The second seer mentally shrugged. “Then they will not live long enough to challenge our plans.”
5
With a swirl of color and light, the very substance of spacetime collapsed inward and formed a circular portal leading out of one layer of the Above and into another. Through that gate walked six tall, slender figures clad in what appeared to be armor made all of multicolored glass. They carried firearms as exotic as themselves, and behind them they pulled a floating palate loaded high with more strange equipment. They stopped just clear of the portal and looked around, taking in their surroundings, then continued on.
They were Dyonari warriors, and they had just emerged onto the Road.
Never had mortals of their own volition penetrated this far into the above. This little group of Dyonari knew this. They understood it implicitly. Longtime travelers in the pathways of the lower Above, the Dyonari in almost their entirety as a people knew their way around the dimensions immediately adjacent to their own. But none of them had ever come all the way to the far end of the Road.
“Keep moving,” one of their co-leaders—the taller of the two, by a hair— sent via their telepathic link. “We cannot slow or stop now. The dangers are far too great, and our time is short. And the High Commander chose us for this portion of the mission because he had the utmost faith in us—and we will not disappoint him!”
“They understand that, Madalena,” the other, slightly shorter co-leader stated, weariness plain in her telepathic voice. “There is no need to harass them.”
“If I feel the need to urge them on, Mirana,” the first leader replied, “I will not hesitate to do so.”
Mirana groaned inwardly at this but made no retort that anyone could detect.
They marched along the Road, their equipment following along behind them. Their objective loomed in the distance, still more than a few kilometers away.
“It would have been much better if we could have emerged onto the Road closer to our goal,” Mirana noted.
“Certainly it would have,” Madalena replied. “It would also have been preferable for the High Commander to place me in sole command of this mission. Unfortunately, he did not; he saddled me with you. Similarly, your lamentation regarding our location is a waste of the mental effort it took to project it to the rest of us. For it is impossible to emerge into this region of the Above any closer to our objective. It is impossible even for the gods, much less for us.”
“I am aware of that,” Mirana grumbled. “My point, however, stands. It would have been preferable.”
Madalena merely shot her an annoyed look, while resting her left arm on the white leather-looking satchel she wore over her shoulder. The others pointedly ignored their repartee, as they had done for the duration of the mission already.
How long that mission had gone on was a matter of some dispute.
The entire team had set out together from the low Above under the orders of their High Commander what seemed like only a short time ago. But time flowed differently at every level of the Above and the Below, not to mention in the real world they had left behind even before that. They had no real way of knowing exactly how much time had passed for the rest of their little army, back where they had started out. In truth, it scarcely mattered. They had a job to do, and they intended to do it—regardless of how long they would ultimately be gone, or if they ever had the opportunity to return.
“How was the High Commander able to open a pathway for us all the way to the Road?” Mirana asked.
“Even if I knew,” Madalena replied, “I might not tell you.”
“Why not?” Mirana asked, her voice sounding almost hurt.
“Because such information is not relevant to our mission,” the taller Dyonari said.
“That does not preclude me from seeking to obtain it,” the shorter one replied.
Madalena did not answer that and the two continued on in silence for some time, the other four and the stack of equipment following along silently in their wake.
They passed into a forest of low, deciduous trees and the temperature dropped. A small creek ran just alongside the Road now. The path they walked was firm and smooth, as though worn down by many feet over many years. The sky, they noted just before the foliage blocked most of it out, was orange.
The warriors kept their guns at the ready and their eyes trained to either side, looking for trouble. For a long while, they didn’t find any, and they grew slightly complacent.
“I believe we may have been quite lucky in drawing this detail,” Mirana said after a long stretch of silence.
“Just so long as trouble doesn’t find—”
A horn sounded in the distance, very faint.
The two Dyonari leaders exchanged nervous glances. They raised their energy rifles and also drew their favored weapons—their long, curved, gleaming swords, seemingly made of glass but much stronger. The four warriors behind them did likewise, and together the six of them formed a circle, facing outwards in a defensive formation, weapons at the ready. They waited like that for a very long minute, and had ne
arly concluded the horn sound had not represented a threat to them, when it came again—and much closer.
“There,” Mirana cried, pointing toward an opening in the dense foliage a few meters further along the Road and to their left. “Something is coming!”
In a flash, it was out of the woods and almost upon them. The six Dyonari tensed, ready to fight for their mission and for their lives. Then they saw what had emerged and they merely stared, their dark eyes wide.
It appeared to be a human, a male, mounted upon a horse. He had long, straight, dark hair and wore what looked like scaled mail armor painted white. A hunting horn hung on a chain about his neck. The animal he rode was jet black, like a figure straight out of nightmare.
Mirana kept her eyes firmly upon the horse and rider as she whispered to her co-commander, “What in the name of the sun and the stars do you make of that?”
“I—I cannot say,” Madalena replied. “But if he is a god, our mission may be over before it has scarcely begun.”
The rider drew near, and the little group reformed so that all but one of them was facing toward him; the sixth Dyonari kept watch to their rear.
The man stared down at them, possibly even more startled to lay eyes on them than they were to see him. He spoke then, saying something in a language they didn’t recognize.
“I will seek to acquire his language from him,” Madalena whispered. She closed her eyes and reached out with her mind, attempting to carefully enter the horseman’s mind.
The man recoiled, nearly falling from his horse. He flashed a look of extreme anger and barked something in his own language. Madalena, meanwhile, stumbled backwards and into the warrior who was standing rear guard. The two barely avoided crashing to the ground.
Mirana, fearing their operation was collapsing even as she watched, addressed the horseman. “Sir,” she called, “do you come from the City?” She nodded toward the massive wall and the gleaming towers visible at the far end of the Road.
The Shattering: Omnibus Page 69
