5
General Marcus Ezekial Tamerlane strode into the small conference room of a remote space station in a remote corner of the human-occupied portion of the galaxy. He chose a chair, pulled it out, and sat down. Then he waited.
It had been several months since the end of the Nightfall War. Agrippa had fully recovered and was back out among the troops, helping to clear away the last stragglers from the invasion and to rebuild the shattered worlds of Man. He and Tamerlane had settled into a formula for governance that seemed to be working, at least for now: Tamerlane tended to most of the political decisions, while Agrippa dealt more directly with the surviving elements of the legions and with the infrastructure repairs now desperately needed throughout the Empire. They both knew that, sooner or later, the young Princess Marens would come of age and possibly take the Empire in a different direction. For now, however, they served as co-regents, and they were both determined to do all the good they could do in the time they were allowed.
That was what had brought Tamerlane here, to Alsatia, just beyond the borders of the Imperium. Alsatia had been a member of DACS—the Dominion of Allied Core States—for many years, but had always retained its independence even within that loose arrangement. Its brutal, absolute dictator had kept it that way—but in recent weeks he was rumored to have died, and been replaced by a new and mysterious leader who, the stories went, might have also played some role in the dictator’s defeat and death.
It was this new man Tamerlane had decided to come all the way out here to meet in person, to invite to participate directly in the negotiations that might bring Alsatia and some of the other DACS-affiliated worlds into the Empire. The gods knew the Empire needed all the new blood and resources it could get now, as it struggled to recover from the devastation of the war. Alsatia promised just that—if its mysterious new liberator and ruler could be persuaded to throw his and his people’s lot in with them.
As Tamerlane sat ruminating over all this, the weight of the metaphorical crown weighing heavily upon his brow, the door opposite him slid soundlessly open and a tall, dark-haired man in a blue semi-military uniform strode in. He stood gazing down at Tamerlane for a second, whereupon the general pulled himself to his feet and extended his hand.
The two shook while looking one another up and down.
Tamerlane was struck by one thing in particular. While this other man possessed long, lank hair that nearly reached his shoulders, his overall complexion and features bore no small resemblance to…him. Could this be one of my distant relatives? he wondered. Immediately he dismissed the notion as ridiculous—but still, the similarities were profound.
“General Tamerlane,” the man said. “It’s a pleasure to meet you at last.”
Tamerlane nodded respectfully. “Likewise, sir,” he said. And then, striving to be diplomatic, “Ah—I wasn’t briefed on your preferred form of address. Is it Mr. President? Lord? Your Majesty? Or—?”
The other man smiled at this. He gestured for the general in red to take a seat before doing the same himself.
“I typically use no form of honorific,” the man in blue said after a moment’s reflection. “Most often I am simply known as Markos. Markos the Liberator.”
Tamerlane blinked at this. Something about the name sounded a chord within his memory. Something old; something from ancient history. He frowned, thinking hard—and then he had it. “Markos,” he exclaimed. “Yes. The legendary ruler of Mysentia of the Outer Worlds.” Then he frowned deeper. “But—that name was later revealed to have been a false identity, used by—”
“By me,” the man in blue replied with another smile.
Tamerlane was by now extremely confused. What was this man saying—what was he attempting to put over on him?
“By you?” Tamerlane laughed uncomfortably. “That’s amusing, sir, but—”
The other man was not laughing. He was no longer even smiling. Instead he stood. He waited while a very puzzled Tamerlane did the same. Then he gestured with his left hand, and a swirl of light appeared in midair. Quickly it expanded into something Tamerlane had become intimately familiar with in recent times: a trans-dimensional portal.
Tamerlane gawked openly at it. This was something he had not expected. “You—” he began, but the other man cut him off.
“Better to simply show you,” he said. He laughed. “That way you won’t have to decide if you should take my word for it or not.” He paused, then looked Tamerlane up and down once again. He seemed somehow pleased. “I had come to believe all of my line was dead and gone,” he said. “It has been quite a shock—and a relief—for me to learn, these past few days, that an orphan boy from the Empire—its new ruler, in fact—is Dorion’s great-great-great-great grandson.”
“Dorion?” The name was familiar, somehow, but Tamerlane couldn’t quite place it. He stared back at the other man, not sure exactly what to say.
“And Agrippa,” the man in blue said. “He is well now? There were rumors that he was grievously wounded in your final battle.”
Tamerlane was still attempting to come to grips with the man’s previous statements, and was taken aback by this question. He nodded absently. “Yes—Arnem is himself again.” He pictured the big general in his mind and chuckled. “As if nothing had happened to him.”
The other man smiled at that. “Good. That is hardly surprising. He has done well for himself. My old enemy—” He paused, seemed to think about his words, and resumed, “My old friend would be proud of him.”
“Your friend?”
The man didn’t elaborate. He motioned again and the portal surged with power, little traces of lightning racing along its interior. “This way,” he said, gesturing for Tamerlane to go first. “After you.”
Tamerlane stared into the depths of the inter-dimensional gateway the other man had somehow opened. “Where does it lead?” he asked.
Markos the Liberator—or, rather, the god that had, for thousands of years, used that alias on occasion—laughed again, harder. “To the Golden City, of course,” he said. “To visit your birthright.”
Tamerlane swallowed hard. Somehow he’d known all along that’s what the man was going to say. It explained so much. Even still, it was hard—almost impossible—to accept, and lingering doubts and skepticism remained. Nevertheless he found himself nodding.
“Don’t worry,” the other man added. “I’ll have you back before dinner. After all—you have an empire to rebuild.”
Tamerlane smiled at that, and together they stepped through the portal. It vanished in the air behind them.
6
The ghost of a god stood on a dead world and screamed his frustration at the shattered stars.
It had happened. Despite all his hopes, all his efforts, all his travels and his labors, it had happened. The galaxy had been torn asunder—broken to pieces by cosmic forces too vast and powerful to contemplate.
He gazed out at the ruins of the old empires and the wreckage of starships beyond counting—to say nothing of the dead, in their incomprehensible numbers. He could feel the vibration in the very fabric of reality; he could sense the shockwave that had traveled here and now, from the dim past, to wreak this disaster.
Futility. All of his feelings as he confronted this cataclysm could be summed up in that single word: Futility.
It could have been different. But for a tiny happenstance here and there, it would have been different. It all would have been avoided, and the galaxy would have continued on as it had before—as it deserved to.
But no. For all his knowledge and experience and power, he had been unable to shift the course of galactic history by even the tiniest bit.
Time now to give up, then? Time to declare his labors a failure? Time to accept the course of history as it seemed, irrevocably, to be written? In a galaxy where so many untold trillions had died—where even the gods themselves could die—was it time at last for him, too, to acknowledge what had long been the truth? Was it time for him to lie down and die?
The temptation was great. His energy was ebbing; his corporeal form could not long endure now. So easy to just give up, to let it all go. To let himself, and the galaxy, die.
But no. No, he could not accept that. Not so long as life and energy remained to him. Not so long as some measure of the Power yet resonated throughout the cosmos.
No, he would try again. He would pick himself up and go back again and this time—this time—he would succeed. This time he would correct all those little things that had caused his failure. This time he would get it all right.
He moved then, a ghost drifting over a graveyard—but a ghost with purpose. Perhaps the most ironic purpose of all, for a ghost: the purpose of preserving life.
He would need a way to get back—back to the critical moment. Back to the great cosmic splash whose ripples had led him this far into the future, and to their ultimate result—a shattered galaxy. He would need a conveyance that could carry him back through time. A Temporal Vault.
He could build such a device. He knew he could; somehow he knew he had done so before.
But first, he would need a new body...
THE END
OF
LEGION III: KINGS OF OBLIVION
AND OF
THE SHATTERING TRILOGY
THE SAGA OF THE SHATTERED GALAXY BEGINS IN
HAWK: HAND OF THE MACHINE
THE STORY OF THE MURDER OF THE GODS
AND LUCIAN’S QUEST FOR THE KILLER IS TOLD IN
LUCIAN: DARK GOD’S HOMECOMING
So the trilogy is complete, and quite a few questions I’ve left hanging for years now have been answered at last (though not all of them!). I thank you for taking the journey with me.
I don’t rule out the possibility of more “Legions” in the future, but this book completes the particular story I set out to tell when I started, more than two years ago— the story of how the galaxy came to have been “shattered” during the time of Hawk, and where he and his fellow Hands came from. Obviously, a few other mysteries remain, but the clues to answering more than one of them can be found in the pages of the three books you’ve just read. (For example, here’s a freebie you may have missed: Certain names of important and seemingly different characters are duplicated in my books. This is not laziness on my part. It is most definitely intentional.)
If you haven’t read Lucian: Dark God’s Homecoming or Hawk: Hand of the Machine yet, you might want to go there next. The events of Lucian take place much earlier than this trilogy, and the events of Hawk are set much later, so that “The Shattering” acts as a sort of bridge between them. Other books are coming, if all goes according to plan, as well: I’ve had sequels to each of those novels on the drawing board for some time now.
I have to extend my thanks to Wayne Reinagel for spending a long lunch with me one afternoon, hashing through what I wanted to accomplish with this trilogy and what the characters and legions would be like. I also have to thank my wife, Ami, for all that she does and has done to help me make these books the best they could be. And also to my girls for standing in as two Dyonari characters in book three.
Many thanks to Mike “MD” Jackson for his awesome cover painting for this volume, and to Mark Williams for the incredible cover art he produced for the new individual editions of these books. And a thanks to Alexander Maisey for introducing us. You can find more of Mark’s artwork online at http://marrilliams.deviantart.com and you can contact him at [email protected].
A huge shout out to the great writers, artists, editors and publishers of the Pulp Factory and the New Pulp Awards for nominating Legion I: Lords of Fire for Novel of the Year, and for making it a short-listed finalist in both. My appreciation knows no bounds.
My thanks to the writers over the years who have produced material that inspired and drove me onward in the creation of this series. Those are phenomenally talented people such as Jim Starlin, Dan Abnett, Jack Kirby, Graham McNeill, Roger Zelazny, Christopher Moeller, Peter F. Hamilton, Vernor Vinge, and Larry Niven. I also found John Julius Norwich’s comprehensive three-volume history of Byzantium to be of enormous inspirational use, as well as J. M. Roberts’ New History of the World.
Lastly but certainly not least(ly), I must thank each of you. These books would have been written whether anyone out there was reading them or not—that’s what a writer does—but it is enormously more satisfying to know that others are appreciating the hard work being put in, and the story that has resulted. Here’s to you, faithful readers. You have my undying thanks.
One way or another, we have not seen the last of Tamerlane, Iapetus and Agrippa!
About the Author
Van Allen Plexico writes and edits New Pulp, science fiction, fantasy, and nonfiction analysis and commentary for a variety of print and online publishers. He won the 2015 Pulp Factory Award for “Novel of the Year” for Legion III: Kings of Oblivion, the 2015 Pulp Factory Award for “Anthology of the Year” for Pride of the Mohicans, and the 2012 PulpArk Award for “Best New Pulp Character.” The first volume in this series, Legion I: Lords of Fire, was a finalist for Novel of the Year in the 2014 Pulp Factory Awards and the New Pulp Awards. His best-known works include Lucian, Hawk, the Assembled! books, and the groundbreaking and #1 New Pulp Best-Selling Sentinels series—the first ongoing, multi-volume cosmic superhero saga in prose form. In his spare time he serves as a professor of political science and history. He has lived in Atlanta, Singapore, Alabama, and Washington, DC, and now resides in the St. Louis area along with his wife, two daughters and assorted river otters.
Van Allen Plexico’s Sentinels
Super-hero action illustrated by Chris Kohler
The Grand Design Trilogy
Alternate Visions (Anthology)
The Rivals Trilogy
The Order Above All Trilogy
Also by Van Allen Plexico
Lucian: Dark God’s Homecoming
Baranak: Storming the Gates
Hawk: Hand of the Machine
Other Great Novels and Anthologies
Gideon Cain: Demon Hunter
Blackthorn: Thunder on Mars
Blackthorn: Dynasty of Mars
By Ian Watson
Nonfiction:
Assembled! Five Decades of Earth’s Mightiest
Assembled! 2
Super-Comics Trivia
Season of Our Dreams &
Decades of Dominance (Van Allen Plexico and John Ringer)
All are available wherever books are sold
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www.whiterocketbooks.com
The Shattering: Omnibus Page 91
