by Chris Fox
Tendrils extended from Krox, ripping into Xal’s body directly over the heart. The now familiar pulses of magic flowed up those tendrils, draining into Krox. Nor was he the only one feeding.
Countless Wyrms gnawed at the corpse, and Aran realized he recognized one of them. Drakkon, one of the smallest dragons present, was eagerly feasting on void-infused entrails.
“It’s horrible, isn’t it?” Malila’s translucent form appeared a meter away, her arms folded and her wings limp as she watched Xal’s memory play out.
Aran studied her out of the corner of his eye, still uncertain how to react or talk to a being of this age. He was left with the impression that she could snuff him out like a candle, and might if he said the wrong thing.
“Terrifying,” Aran admitted, turning his attention back to the awful feast. Much of Xal’s body had been eaten away, exposing large sections of bone and sinew. His head was still attached, for the moment anyway. “It definitely paints the godswar in a new light. We talk a lot about Shaya being holy, and the last dragonflight thinks that Virkonna is some sort of beacon of righteousness.”
Aran shuddered. A sky-blue Wyrm, and a snowy-white Wyrm were feasting on Xal’s heart, right beside Krox. He guessed he was looking at Virkonna and Inura. “She doesn’t look very noble to me.”
“Why do you suppose Xal chose this memory to show you?” Malila drifted a little closer, her dark gaze searching.
Why indeed? What was Xal trying to show him? Aran didn’t answer immediately. He watched the memory play out. Time accelerated, and each god and Wyrm moved with comedic quickness. They swarmed over the corpse, and as years passed it shrank in size. The head vanished, presumably stolen by Malila, though time spun by so quickly that he couldn’t be sure.
Time finally slowed, and all that was left of Xal was a desiccated husk. A few bones connected by lingering sinew—headless and lacking one arm. Aran glanced at Malila. “Are we observing the present now?”
“Approximately.” Malila gave a very human shrug, completely at odds with the rest of her appearance. “The Husk of Xal still floats at the site of his death, and still possesses enough magic to sate those who seek it out. I was only able to save the Skull.”
What would Xal gain out of showing him this? The memory seemed to have completed, or at least it was no longer advancing.
“You said you can see through my eyes, right?” The thought of it made him queasy. He was already being manipulated by too many divine beings, and he didn’t like the idea that this chick was watching him on the toilet.
“I can.” She nodded.
“Can you see through the eyes of everyone who’s taken some of Xal’s magic?” Aran turned his attention back to the body.
Malila was silent for a long while. Finally she raised a hand to brush dark hair from her face. “Theoretically, yes.”
“Every god in the sector looks like they took a piece of Xal,” Aran pointed out. “If that’s the case, then you should be able to see what all of them are doing, including Krox. Maybe that’s what Xal is trying to show us.”
“It doesn’t work that way.” Malila shot him an irritated glance. “Xal doesn’t know or understand that I am here. This is crafted for you, specifically.”
The memory finally changed. Space dissolved into darkness, and he was suddenly elsewhere. This new system was much, much more familiar. He was at the Skull of Xal’s present location, the barren system on the far side of the sector.
His perspective moved until he was staring into the glowing eye sockets of a dead god. There was no sentience there. No awareness, or at least nothing he could detect.
Both purple orbs flared, and twin beams of pure void magic lanced outward. They crossed the gulf of space incredibly swiftly, and yet it somehow also took an eternity to reach him.
Aran’s senses exploded, and he could suddenly perceive entirely new spectrums and dimensions. He could smell starlight, and hear the passage of quanta and the lingering echo of the background radiation that had birthed the universe.
Part of him had expected something like this, and he relaxed into it. Perceiving as a god perceived had been heady the last time he’d been here, and if not for Narlifex he’d have drawn too much magic and died. He wrapped his hand around the sword’s hilt, and was reassured when he felt Narlifex’s presence.
Our Maker. Narlifex’s voice was tinged with awe.
“Yeah, I guess he is,” Aran replied with the same awe.
The magic should have been overwhelming, and yet it wasn’t. He had no trouble adjusting to the dizzying array of new senses, and this time there was no desire to plunge into those orbs and attempt to gain more power. He was in complete control.
He turned to Malila, who studied him with those unreadable violet eyes. “Why isn’t it affecting me like last time? And what is he doing to me? It doesn’t feel at all the same.”
“He is remaking you.” Malila’s voice sounded both impressed and a little frightened. She drifted closer, and did a complete circuit around him as she studied the magical transformation. “You’re being imbued with void magic, but not like before. Before you were given raw essence, to shape as you will. This is a direct transference. He is crafting a specific magic ability, and imparting it to you. Something this complex could only have been formulated while Xal still lived. This is a part of his contingency. It must be. This is the realization of my vision, all those millennia ago.”
Anxiety flitted across the corners of his mind. Neith had revealed that his entire existence had been shaped specifically to prepare him for some grand role in their endless war. Xal apparently had a similar plan, and there was nothing to say those plans intersected. What if they both wanted him to do different things? Which god could he trust?
Aran’s back arched, and electric pain flooded every neuron. More and more void magic poured from the Skull into his chest, then rippled down into Narlifex. It played across its armor, darkening the metal, and making it both sleeker and a little larger.
Narlifex, stronger. The blade pulsed. Mind… clearer. Smarter.
The process stopped as suddenly as it began. Aran’s breaths came in great heaving gasps, and cold sweat coated his entire body. He was still floating in space not far from the Skull of Xal, though, so it couldn’t all be over yet.
He turned to ask Malila, but the words died unspoken. A dark shining mote of void danced in Malila’s chest, and Aran could see it. He could feel it. He could, if he wanted to, even take it. All he had to do was extend a hand and claim the magic.
Vessel. The Skull’s jaw opened as if speaking, and Xal’s eyes flared. You are my hound, born to harry my treacherous enemies. Track them to the edges of the void itself, or even into the darkness underlying all realities. Flay them, and devour their strength. Consume their magic, thus growing in strength.
Aran realized that if he looked in any given direction he could feel faint pulses of violet light, in every corner of the cosmos. They pulled like the mote in Malila’s chest, and Aran could only guess that each must belong to someone who’d eaten a piece of Xal’s magic. There were thousands. More, maybe.
“He has elevated you, hasn’t he?” Malila demanded. The quaver had grown stronger.
“I don’t know,” Aran admitted. “But I suspect it’s something similar to what he gave you. I can feel you, and I can feel them. All of them.” Aran gestured expansively at the night sky around him. “And he called me a hound.”
“He’s raised another.” Malila licked very human lips, then flared very inhuman wings. Her hair floated around her like a sea of tiny snakes. “I have long wondered what my role in this epoch of the godswar is to be. I think you may have just answered that question. Leave here knowing you have made an ally. I cannot aid you against Krox, but it seems you no longer need my aid. Xal has given you something far greater than I could offer.”
Malila bowed at the waist, and then her spectral form vanished.
Aran suddenly found himself falling, his body being dra
wn into Xal’s titanic mouth. He plunged toward the overwhelming violet glow, passing between teeth that could have snapped apart the Spellship, and fell headlong into the magic.
33
Void Mages
Aran stumbled from the light, back into reality, and collapsed to his knees. His limbs refused to respond, and if not for the spellarmor he’d have toppled to the pallid bone. He drifted there, unable to control himself, magic crackling through his body, the aftershocks of whatever Xal had done to him.
After several moments the disorientation faded, and as it did he became aware of his surroundings. His armor insulated him from the cold, but frost crystals glistened all over the bony ridges leading back to the ocular cavity. He’d come out right where he’d entered, apparently.
An army of demons stood in neat, even ranks, observing his progress. They covered the plateau, every meter of it, and every last one carried a weapon and wore dark armor. The demons raised both arms, then brought them down as they chanted a single word. “XAL!”
It echoed through the Skull, washing over Aran in a wave of sound, and he realized that the gesture—cheering, maybe—was directed at him. He wasn’t certain having demons be pro team Aran was really the way he wanted to go, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
The demons completed the odd ritual twice more, chanting the name of their fallen deity. Aran could only stand there and watch. The ranks of demons turned as one, and began marching away into the shadowed recesses that led down into the nasal cavity.
Something clattered behind him, and Aran spun to see Crewes approaching. The sergeant crunched across the bone, stopping next to Aran. His faceplate was closed, giving no hint as to his mood. He aimed the cannon roughly in the direction of the departing host. “Those bastards make me nervous, sir. And I don’t like how they all just kinda cheered when you came out, like you were their gods-damned Messiah or some such. Demons are evil, sir. You know that, right?”
“You aren’t getting an argument from me.” Aran willed his armor into the air, and began drifting toward the Talon.
Nefarius had, evidently, spawned the word ‘nefarious’. It didn’t get any more evil than having a word named after you. Xal seemed less evil and more alien, but how much did Aran really know about the deity? Enough to realize that he’d been given the ability to rip magic out of people, which wasn’t altogether different from what the ships they’d condemned could do. Perhaps that should be a wake-up call. What was he letting himself become?
Aran squared his shoulders, and tried to focus on the task at hand. He could mentally unpack everything he’d seen during the trip back to Shaya. “Has anyone else emerged?”
“You’re the first.” Crewes’s faceplate snapped up. “This whole business is bad, sir.”
Aran snorted a laugh. “You’ve got that right. I’m more than a little tired of being a scale on a Kem’Hedj board, but if this is what it takes to save Shaya, then I’ll do it. We can’t leave Voria hanging. You were at Ternus. You saw the same thing I did.”
Crewes shook his head, and spat on the bleached rock. “Don’t mean I have to like it. This is why I wanted you in charge. You have to listen to me grouse.” Crewes gave a grim smile. “I know you ain’t got much choice in what happens here, but it makes me feel better knowing you don’t like it any better than I do.”
A shadow passed over the light, and a figure tumbled out. Then another, and another. Marines, men and women both, began to emerge from the light. It all happened in the space of a few seconds, and bodies piled up as more mages emerged.
“Let’s get these people organized. Kez and Bord already back on the Talon?” Aran asked as he moved to assist the closest Marine.
“Yeah, I’ve got them prepping the medbay. Figured that could be useful.” Crewes also moved to help a man to his feet.
Aran patted the man he’d helped on the back. “Head toward the ship. The disorientation will pass, and we’ll brief you on what comes next.”
He moved among them, gradually herding the dazed mages toward the ship. It took a while, but after maybe a quarter hour he paused and realized that the flow had stopped coming. “Sergeant, what’s your count? I’ve only got 73.”
“I’ve got the same, sir.” Crewes shot him a sober look. “Rest didn’t make it. We can wait as long as you want, but nothing else is coming out of that light.”
As if on cue a final figure appeared. She didn’t stumble out of the light, but glided under her own power. Nara’s borrowed spellarmor had been transformed in much the same way Aran’s had. Her Mark XI was now darker, and slightly bulkier.
Her face was hidden behind her faceplate, but Aran sensed that something was off. Her arms hung limply at her sides, and she seemed barely aware of her surroundings. He cleared his throat into the comm, “Nara, you okay?”
“Hmm?” Nara’s head came up. “Yeah. Just…kind of had a big bomb dropped on me. Godswar stuff. We can talk about it later. Where do you need me?” She glided a bit higher in the air, and surveyed the Marines Crewes was leading to the Talon.
“Get to the bridge, and get prepped for flight. I’m going to address the mages before we turn them over to Ternus.” Aran started toward the ship, and considered what he was going to say.
He drifted up the ramp, and into the cargo hold. The newly minted mages clustered around the far side of the bay, and many wore the same haunted look Nara had. Aran waited for the last few to enter, then removed his helmet. Void pulsed from every Marine, and Aran could feel it in a way he never had before. There seemed to be a relative strength to each person, with some being nearly twice as strong as the weakest.
Most were already paying attention, but he strode to the middle of the room, then raised his voice, “I know better than anyone what you’ve just gone through. It turns your world upside down. You’ve peered into the mind of a god, and have been changed by it. We have that in common, all of us. Like it or not, we are all a part of Xal.”
He let his words sink in, and glanced around the room to make sure he had everyone’s attention before continuing. A sea of hard faces stared back at him. The governor wasn’t going to like what he was about to say, and he was almost positive someone here would go running back to tattle. Oh well.
“You’ve signed contracts with Ternus, as I understand it.” Aran walked over the ramp, and slammed the button next to it. The energy winked out, and the ramp began retracting into the ship. He faced them again, and noted that he now had all of them paying attention. “They’re going to feed you to those new ships of theirs, and while they may have told you that all you’re going to lose is some magic, it’s important you know the truth. The magic you just absorbed? That’s merged with you. It’s a part of you. They can’t take it without taking away some of what now makes you, you.”
“What are you saying?” called a tall, blonde woman from the back ranks.
“I’m saying that what little I know of your history says you’re fighters,” Aran called back in a clear, confident voice. This was the right thing to do. “Don’t let yourselves be used. Don’t be taken advantage of. If you see yourself in a bad situation, and want out, get word to me, or to Major Davidson, and I’ll do what I can.” Maybe the words were empty. There was no guarantee he’d be able to do anything to help them, but he couldn’t send them to the belly of those ships without some sort of lifeline.
“I can’t speak for the others,” the woman said, “but I need the money. My family needs the money. Doesn’t much matter what happens to me.” She shrugged, then moved to sit against the far wall of the hold.
Murmurs of agreement rippled through the crowd, and Aran realized that these men and women had been selected for a reason. Of course they had. Ternus would have picked people they could control, however that control needed to be maintained.
“Fair enough.” Aran nodded his assent, suppressing his irritation at once again having been outplayed. “Get comfortable. We’ll get you to your ships as soon as possible.”
They
had eight days before they’d reach Shaya. He had that long to figure out how to save these men and women, and to somehow help Voria stop Krox.
34
My People Will Live
Nebiat flexed her magical muscles, and willed her newly created body elsewhere. She translocated to a spot deep in the Erkadi rift, over the world Krox had led her to not so long ago. The Earthmother’s headless corpse lay below, surrounded by a nearly endless army of drakes, all of various ages, and covered by ancient trees.
I do not understand why you have returned here. Krox’s apparent confusion satisfied a deep need in Nebiat. These drakes are unsuited to form an army. A sufficient quantity will not be ready for several decades.
“I do not agree.” Nebiat hovered in the sky over the world below, and with her enhanced senses saw every last creature. Most looked up at her in primitive concern. Some hid. Others were blissfully unaware of her arrival.
It was the drakes she was concerned with, and even the most primal, down to the smallest, freshest arrival, stared up at her. They all recognized the presence of a god, and felt her immense strength, but they were too primitive to articulate it, which made them worthless to her, at least in their ability to fuel her with worship.
Nebiat studied the Earthmother’s remains, and focused on the concentration of magic there. It was an immense amount of earth, dense and powerful, much greater than what she’d taken to crush Ternus.
Do not do this. Krox protested, finally seeing enough of her thoughts to understand what she intended. If you destroy her, you give up a resource that will serve us for a thousand, thousand millennia. Nothing you could achieve with the magic is greater than the near countless armies we will raise.
