BRIAN C. MAHON
THE HOUSE OF TORUNTHANE: LIBERATION
Copyright © 2015 Brian C. Mahon.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
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ISBN: 978-1-4808-1431-8 (sc) ISBN: 978-1-4808-1433-2 (hc) ISBN: 978-1-4808-1432-5 (e)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2015900829
Archway Publishing rev. date: 01/14/2015
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
This book is dedicated to the following people (in chronological order) throughout my life, who in some form or fashion participated in the imaginary games and conquests of our childhood, listened to me verbalize this when I wouldn’t write it, and gave me the opportunity to finish this finally after fifteen years of wasteful procrastination: Mom, Dad, my sisters Amy and Jenny, my friends Michael Scherer, Justin Phass, Cassie Sherman, Tom Wilson, Scott Clouse, the Ruisis, my wife Samantha, and the two boys who gave me understanding.
PROLOGUE
“V EDIN. VEDIN. ARE YOU R EADY?” The bronzed warrior jumped at being woken so early. “I was sleeping! What d’you think?” He threw the sheets off and yawned, rubbing his eyes with a loosely closed right fist. “I think I’m escorting you to a trap. I attempted two escapes last night, and here I am. They mean to see this through.” “Nothing bad’s gonna happen. We’re frickin’ invincible, right? We escaped the Atlantis, lived on through all of humanity’s shenanigans, even fought off the Jortash! That Avallah woman tells me this is just some sort of stop at the lab. They wanna run some tests on me—I guess to see why I’ve been able to talk to the Sword and none of them can.” “You think so? Because the lead villain told you? Come on, Vedin! Don’t be so damned thick! She reeks of ulterior motives! They promised to let us visit the world of our ancestors years ago and instead sent us to Fordin! Why? And why suddenly kidnap us now? Vedin. Ask the question. Why?” Vedin arched a brow and smirked at his slimmer twin. He gave him a chiding pat on the cheek before replying coolly, “Only one of us got kidnapped. I wanted to come here. You, I got no explanation for. They told me you were here so I wouldn’t be lonely. Hell, who knows, maybe they were rough with you because you’re usually a prick.” Menver scowled and opened the door, eyeballing the four guards waiting on the brothers before slamming it shut. “I don’t know how the hell you’ve lived so long as an idiot. If you’re going to go so confidently to your end, then so be it. I’ll be happy to collect your belongings when you’re gone.” “Yeah, see? That’s what I mean. Puh-rick.” “I can almost see it, Vedin. This is how your end starts. I warned you of it years
ago, and you failed to heed me then. I’m astounded your feet could be at the very edge of the pit of your fate and you still fail to listen. They want the Sword, and you are their key to it.” “Then I’ll just have to tell them the same thing I keep tellin’ you: over my dead body!” “So you say.” “Whatever, creepy. I came here with one bottle of rum on me, and I finished it last night. Whenever we’re done with this appointment, we’re going to find a bar somewhere around here and fix things up good!” Bristling, Menver tossed Vedin his shirt and scabbard and broke out of the apartment. Vedin followed him shortly after with a whistle, his thumbs tucked into his belt, smiling. Outside, Menver balked at the sun’s brightness and covered his eyes. Dozens of tiers of craft expediently moved through the Jurda sky, their flight paths coordinated by the city’s computers, casting their shadows on the hundred million citizens below. An armored sand skiff awaited them at the street corner. “Hey Menver? Seriously, keep an eye out for a bar. I wasn’t kidding about that. There has got to be some space rum around here.” Menver shoved Vedin toward the ramp and said nothing. The next evening, an exhausted Menver returned to the apartment alone, shocked, frightened. He spent the night awake in the corner, a knife in hand, muttering under his breath continually, “Not me … Not me … Not me …”
CHAPTER 1
THE DESERT LANDSCAPE OF THE province Nethar was exceedingly hot that night. Perhaps it wasn’t the heat that made the night so uncomfortable. Typical of a Nethari night, the wind had ed away, leaving a contemptible mugginess for the two solitary figures, alone amid the vast dunes. All about them, the scenery was the same as it had been during nights before: dunes upon dunes of uninterrupted sand, with smoldering ruins of the abandoned cityfortresses littering the sad horizon. No, he realized it now; it was the atmosphere. The circumstances that led a now changed Menver back to the city of Tehvoon weighed his spirits down—so much so that not even his nephew’s attempts to cheer him could pierce through the dull gaze he cast upon the far-off leveled city. The last time he was within the borders of Tehvoon, he had recently arrived on the planet, a prisoner almost, along with his brother, Vedin. He ed thinking the city was magnificent, a civilized monument the likes of which he never seen. All this was now changed, since the glorious luminescence of the city was no longer there, only the outlines of broken and fallen buildings, massacred swiftly during First Strike. Menver had once taken to the false hopes that his prophecies were nothing, mere guessing, but the sight of Tehvoon was enough argument to prove him to be an accurate seer. Now fate had shown him to be a more powerful mage than the citizens of Tuluhr ever could’ve expected from one of such mixed lineage. He spat into the sands, embittered by the knowledge of still how useless his power was in the face of the war. It had been a month since he’d last seen any inhabitant of the devastated homeworld Turluhr. Months before, the Mage Menver’s mettle had been tested in the battle for Chartev Nral. He and the rest of Tuluhr’s defenders were driven back by the overwhelmingly advanced attackers, but by the time of that great fight, his magics had grown to the point that he was able to be an effective asset to the Deltornir, the Tuluhrai army. Sadly, though one man can fight a war, it’s nearly impossible he’ll be able to win it. In the end, he was forced to a retreat— he and the remains of the city’s guards—before an imminent annihilation. Regardless, in the minds of those who fought for Chartev Nral, the outcast, the half-breed of a mage, was now held in much higher esteem.
Before then, the Tuluhrai never treated him with much respect. To them he was a mere “nekaf,” outsider, a final outcome of a band of Tuluhrai explorers who had intermingled with various races over the years, diluting their, and his, heritage as Tuluhrai. The Vishok, a small branch of the nekaf clans through which his ancestors ran, made their last home on the planet he knew as Earth. That is, before the clan was finally wiped from existence by war. The Vishok were clever, altering their very genetic code to appear like the dominant, sentient race of each world they visited, and thus they acquired physical traits of these differing species, which was the source of the animosity toward them by their full-blooded kin. Menver looked typical of the Vishok during their last state of change. It was deemed best by old Venor and Kryus, the Vishok leaders, that they take a form closest to that of the local humans. Menver came after the stage changes and had been born appearing just as the Vishok wanted. Two meters in height, his skin a dark copper tone, naturally and from Tuhlur’s incessant sun, he bore a tightly muscled frame. In his eyes was a look of exhaustion and despair that had settled in since First Strike’s wake had destroyed most of Tuluhr. Despite this, he still maintained the youthful appearance from the day he turned twenty-four and ritually imbibed the sun’s energy for the first time, locking himself into a state of never aging. To his right, his nephew, Ajax Torunthunai, towered above him. Young Ajax was a lad who at first was a burden to Menver but grew to become a fine protégé in various forms of magic that the Hetlurai, Tuluhrai priestesses, would never allow any besides their own to know. Forbidden Arts they had called them, powers too great for their race to be taught but so mighty that the High Sages of the Hetlurai couldn’t bring themselves to erase the magics entirely from their planet. Thus they kept the Forbidden Arts only among their caste. Menver, though, was well aware of the Arts and was a fair enough practitioner of them even before he set foot on Tuluhr’s surface, making it a point to teach Ajax these magics, as well as some that perhaps even the Hetlurai were not aware of. Ajax was too new at learning these new abilities, unfortunately, and if the remaining Hetlurai were to sense Ajax’s dabbling in the Arts, they would seek him out and wipe him from the holy sands of Tuluhr. The nigh-eight-foot “lad” glanced downward to the one he considered father and nudged him in the side. Their journey across southern Nethar was taking them across a Shekethrum checkpoint, marked by the trenches dug into the sands by their tanks. The v-shaped cuts in the dunes meant that one of their larger war machines had lumbered its way across. Slower to analyze such details, Menver still stood studying the trail before Ajax sent the thought rippling through the Mage’s mind:
but if we continue to Tehv—> “Ajax,” muttered the Mage, “if we do make it to Tehvoon, what will we do? There are three tracks here. Based on their width, it’s one of their city killers. You and I can’t battle that monstrosity. Considering the number of soldiers and machinery it can transport, I don’t think the chances of us reaching your home are very good.” This was not the sort of answer Ajax cared to hear. As a Tuluhrai, proud and strong, the thought of being barred from his home again because of the Shekethrum presence struck and tore away at his sense of honor and might. As a soldier, though, he knew that it would beyond foolish to try to sneak back within the walls of his home city. Tehvoon was probably already occupied. Had there been any forces left in the boy’s birth city, anyone left in defense of Tehvoon, they must have been eliminated by now. The Shekethrum never sent a Kinitral land vehicle if they weren’t intent on conquering and keeping an area. “Kinitral” was the Tuluhrai word for “behemoth”; the proud Tuluhrai were never known to be embellishers of the truth. He had seen a Kinitral twice, in Chartev Nral and Jurda, and in both places, the hovering beast simply plowed through whole buildings, and nothing save for a Tuluhrai destroyer could stop it. His pride relinquished to his reason, and Ajax despondently nodded to his uncle in quiet acceptance. Suddenly, though, his head snapped up, his eyes tearing away from his uncle to the far-off horizon as his helmet’s visor, a virtual command center, slid across his eyes, and a new thought was sent to the Mage’s mind, as before in the lad’s native tongue.
A low growl began to build in the lad’s throat just as he reached for the golden rod strapped to his leg. His eyes glimmered with a yearning for revenge, while deep inside his chest, he summoned his hatred for the Fiends, fueling his body with anger while thinking to Menver,
Although not a full-blood, Ajax was in most aspects Tuluhrai, but shorter and with more of his father’s human facial characteristics and skin. Most Tuluhrai, on the surface, looked alike, with the exception of those who hailed from Uthanral, the large oasis province nestled inside a ring made by the intersection of three vast mountain ranges that trapped rarely seen rain clouds. Tuluhr is, with Uthanral and two similar but uninhabited regions discounted, a desert planet, owing to its proximity to their sun. Most Tuluhrai were between two and a half to three meters in height, tough, with thick leather skin. Their most noticeable
characteristics were their glowing yellow eyes and dual clawed feet. Long fingers, longer than humans’ in proportion, extended from their hands. Brown to black hair covered the heads of the general populace, and if one were to sculpt the stereotypical face, he or she would have to mold in tall cheekbones, a small mouth, small (though sensitive) ears, and a somewhat tall forehead. Because of their strict militant culture, all Tuluhrai had some martial training, though only the worthy had the supreme honor of being lifelong soldiery. From this training evolved a common sense of activity and health, where laziness, sloth, and gluttony have become shunned as crimes against their supremely evolved bodies, so even the most domestic of Tuluhrai were athletes, in form and ability. As a whole, the race of Tuluhrai was blessed with the power to absorb and store energy taken in from the sun’s light—any sun’s light, according to Menver’s own experience—and it was from strict training and practice that they could manipulate this energy into the powers that every Tuluhrai was now familiar with. Superbly strong, fast, and agile, and—through time and evolution—gifted with telepathy, the Tuluhrai were an unnaturally powerful race. From this great power came their great pride, and it was from this great pride that came arrogance. Through this arrogance, they secured their own fate of defeat, and this conclusion was no surprise to the Mage. What had disturbed Menver was the fact that, indeed, Ajax was more Tuluhrai than all the mixed blood infused in him, and so the lad was drilled with the Tuluhrai manner. To Ajax, the sight of a single Shekethrum soldier was a grave insult, and honor dictated that such a slight was deserving of death. Unfortunately for the lad, Menver’s own nature had always been of a more calculating sway, and much calmer, at least in the more recent years, and he was less willing to put them in harm’s way. “Boy, you know well that they’ve seen us as well, and likely others are already informed. We will return; I can promise you that much.” Quickly then, Menver waved a hand to the air and a large portal opened before them, the dark-green glow of its swirling energies turning the desert sand a putrid color. “Hurry!” he ordered the boy before stepping through, and Ajax grudgingly obeyed.
When the portal snapped shut, the two were standing within the remnants of what had once been a residential building but was now one of the only stillstanding structures in all of the city of Tathanhla. Sighing in frustration, the Mage Menver briskly walked across the room, snapping his fingers as he went to create a small fire for warmth. Luckily, the apartment still contained some
furniture when they found it—a benefit for any transient’s home. The Mage hopped up onto the bed and, without much ado, kicked his boots to the other side of the room. He then unclasped his cloak, tossing it to the floor below, an irritated grunt following the landing of that extra garment. Ajax’s voice made itself heard in the mage’s mind:
Nodding to the lad, Menver threw up a hand pointed toward the wall—or, rather, the hole in the wall—closed his eyes, and began the chant that he chanted with the closing of every day’s adventure. Menver drew various symbols into the air as he whispered, “Kurneryl op manketh,” and here the runes drawn began to glow, revealing their shape. “Disuma dekral cornuvral!” His voice shot upward from a quiet whisper to a muffled yell upon the calling of the last word, since that was the word that gave the spell its strength. It was the sealing word, and after it had been spoken, the view of the outside world wavered briefly with a dull hum. The illusion was now set. To any looking at the building, the whole structure seemed deserted. No firelight escaped the boundaries of his spell, nor did any telltale signs of their having been there. To any Shekethrum patrols, the building appeared to be the same as on the day it was left to decay. This spell, unlike any other illusory spells of Menver’s, was of Fiend origins, taught to him by the Tir Korcath, nemeses and equals to the Tuluhrai-descended Vishok; and perhaps as a result of its inheritance, only the more powerful Shekethrum scanners could see through it. Certain scanners, he assumed, detected something the Cornuvral spell didn’t hide, or were powerful enough to cut through it. After setting his gloves aside, the disheartened Mage cast a piece of what once was the back wall into the fire, expressionless as the flames flickered around and engulfed the shard. There was a window in this room—small, since the average Tuluhrai didn’t (or possibly couldn’t) find much pleasure in viewing their city. They were proud of their accomplishments but, as Menver supposed, were so proud that the commonplace sight of the hundreds of sky-reaching golden buildings were no longer a wonderment to them, as they were to the Mage. But outside this window, the view was certainly not an awe-inspiring panoramic. Menver’s attention was caught in that window while his mind backtracked to two years before, when the brightness of the afternoon was reflected in the mass activity in the streets below, and the sunlight glinted off the sides of the buildings in the city of Jurda. What lay outside the window he now looked through was something much different. The city stretched out before him, a cluster of fallen buildings and ruined war machines strewn about the streets, the charred-gold bodies of both lying across each other in piles that made the Mage’s heart
shudder in his chest. The smoke of still-burning ruin from all over the planet had lifted to the atmosphere, so no longer could the stars be seen. Maybe tampering with the atmosphere was a form of warfare that Menver wasn’t aware of and the Fiends intentionally did this so now even the infamously bright and blazing Tuluhrai days were rather hazy and much less intense. Emergency lights from the city’s shield-ring, which encircled the city and created its border, colored the surrounding sand a pleasant blue. Menver had visited this city before and ed it well; it was the main factory city for the Great Fleet. It once served as a centerpiece for military demonstrations, shown once every decade to strut the new advancements they made in war-making technologies. He attempted to watch one such show. Bearing witness to the oversaturated pomp and arrogance was too much for his sensibility, and he shut off the video screen in preference for organizing his room. Now he would trade all his painfully earned power to see one warship fly overhead. “So proud and noble … now defeated and stamped,” he whispered to himself, his gaze now far off past the city, past the horizon, making it appear as though he were viewing eternity. Then, as Ajax looked at him, rather perplexed, the Mage suddenly hopped off the bed with a snort and mumbled curse, and he then began to pace about the room. “What is wrong?” The words sounded suddenly in the mage’s mind, in English for a change. The boy never actually spoke to the Mage, since in Tuluhrai society verbal speech was reserved for communicating with the inferior peoples. The gift of mindspeak was not something Menver had been blessed with, and it took a few years before Ajax was retrained into knowing that Menver didn’t consider him inferior. “Nothing … nothing that hasn’t bothered me before.” “The Deltornir will come back. The last signal from the Seventh Legion said soldiers gather in Mohdchar to take Kardesh-Nar. There is a new
made, but they don’t say where on regular
. What are those words?” Menver shrugged, paying only half-attention, “Base? Home? The other, a signal or radio wave, if I understood your meaning right.” Sighing again, Menver paused in his pacing, his back toward Ajax, and turned
his head to the side, speaking slowly, the sorrows of too many lost battles apparent on his face and in his voice. “You’re far too hopeful, Ajax, and I will attribute that to the flaw of youth. The full might of the Deltornir, the Hetlurai, and the Creornir couldn’t drive the Fiends back, so what use is the attempt of a few bands of survivors to try what so many more couldn’t prevent? Ajax, we still must wait for the colonial reinforcements to arrive, unless those have been beaten as well. Patience, Ajax, patience and time shall get us through, but we must remain hidden. I know you hate this, and know this wears on me as well. I wish I could take you away from this, but I cannot. Not right now, which is why we must hide.” “No!” Ajax’s eyes flared to a bright white as he faced Menver. The long-held frustrations seethed through his voice, as he spat the words into Menver’s mind, the thoughts angry in their tone, flowing relentlessly in the Tulurhai tongue. <We’ve survived almost a year now, running and hiding, striking against our enemy only infrequently! We will wipe this vermin filth from our sacred homeworld, from our holy sands, and we will pursue them out from our borders and purge the whole Empire of their contaminating touch! Then we shall take the war to them and take glory in seeing their worlds burn and cities crumble, as they have done to us! We are the Tuluhrai! We are born for victory!> By the end of this speech, Ajax was breathing heavily, his muscles tensed and ready, as inside his mind, he was praying for some Fiend to come within range of his armor’s miniature radar. The Tuluhrai hybrid prayed for blood. Menver, on the other hand, disgusted as he was at the display, knew better than to fight the boy’s instilled pride and battle thirst, so he silently nodded in acceptance of the lad’s words and looked back out to the ruins below. He wondered when the day would come that the Deltornir’s mind-training would wear off. He also wondered which city it was that he saw off in the distant horizon. Names and structures of the many domed civilizations flashed through his mind, but the far-off destruction left nothing for his memory to identify. The only apparent thing out there was death, the ever-present threat looming over his and the boy’s heads. With the lad’s aura of wrath impinging on the Mage, Menver began to dwell on his own powerlessness in the situation, and his frustration skyrocketed. Quickly becoming enraged at himself, the Mage turned to the front wall, the only one left unmarred, and hurled an explosive ball of energy at it. The dark-green sphere of his own raw, natural energy blew through the wall, leaving a new doorway where he had destroyed the old. Anger, in the form of crackling dark energy, filled his eyes, hiding the pupils and iris to show
two grimly verdant orbs. As he turned around to look at the outside wall, the one hidden by illusion, he found that his glowing eyes were now reflected to him in Ajax’s breastplate. He looked up, his dark, rippling eyes glaring into the intensely bright yellow ones, and the sound of Ajax’s voice began to scold him.
“Listen, lad, I—”
Hearing this boy—the one he cared for and taught—actually correct him flared his anger to a height he hadn’t seen in a very long while. His eyes changed from a swirling dark green to a furious lighter version, trails of smoky energy escaping to relieve the excess. He took a step back and brought his hands to fists. Slowly, though, his eyes, as well as he, settled back to normality, the brown pupils exposed again as the irrational anger cooled into more of a bitter irritation at himself. “I apologize, Ajax. I’ve never been the most patient person, or a humble one, and being reduced to this,” he muttered, waving his hand around to show off their surroundings, “well, this is quite the blow. It’s hard to bear with this pitiable life. Why, were I still on the planet Rh—” He stopped as an afterthought hit him, but after a quick pause, he spoke again, saying, “No, never mind that; that was a much different life. It’s gotten late, and a good rest will do us well. Tomorrow, I promise, nothing will keep us from reaching Tehvoon.” Ajax nodded silently in acceptance of the proposed course of action and began to strip himself of his scarred armor. Ever in worship of their golden sun, the Tuluhrai armor shone its hue. The protective outfit comprised a breast plate with a flexibly attached stomach guard; leg plating, for both the shin and part of the thigh; and the two most infamous parts of the whole guise: the helmet and gauntlets. The helmet was inlaid with the most sensitive of receptors, which could actually receive the telepathic thought patterns of its wearer, and was able to react as commanded. The helm’s visor, which always slipped down to cover the eyes, was a very small but potent version of a heads-up-display, blessing the bearer with alternate forms of vision: infrared, night vision, magnification, and true sight. This gave the Tuluhrai infantry the ability to see through illusions of
both their own and of the Shekethrum. Through the helmet, the soldier could issue mental orders to the gauntlets, which offered both defense and offense. In the left gauntlet lay a micro generator (an article that by even this time was becoming old technology), which created an energy shield of roughly two meters in height and three-quarters of a meter wide in the middle that tapered inward to a flat edge at the ends. Installed in the right gauntlet, located just above the wrist, parallel to its counterpart on the left, was an unremarkable protrusion marked only by a slit in its taller front. From this mark, the soldier could fire powerful bolts, either in a concentrated bullet form or as a cutting ray. This gun was generally used to conserve the soldier’s own energy, though sometimes the raw destructive powers of the Tuluhrai were much more devastating than the wristworn weapon. Perhaps most savage of all was the last surprise of this self-worn armory: the claws. With a single command of the mind, the Tuluhrai soldier could snap-extend a set of claws from his fingertips, each small blade sharp enough to cleave shavings off of bone with little effort, and even much more easily to slit enemies’ throats. Tuluhrai war was both highly advanced and, at the same time, brutally primitive. Though armed with energy shields, guns that could split a man in half, ships that could devastate whole armies with a single blast, these warriors reveled in the animalistic ground warfare in which the simple spear and claw were the main weapons of battle. As Ajax busied himself, the Mage tried to fortify their temporary home by use of his magics. Again the energy began to gather about his fingertips, and those fingertips began to dance in the air, drawing runes again to strengthen his illusion. His wearied eyes closed in concentration, and the words began to spill forth from his mouth, in a language not related to the Tuluhrai high tongue or of the elemental magic he’d taught himself, but again in the words of the Tir Korcath. This spell, he hoped, would lengthen the Cornuvral spell’s life so that it wouldn’t fizzle out while he slept. It probably was not a necessary measure, but he didn’t dare test the illusionary spell’s life span as he had tested its ability to work. A Shekethrum Zenfral, another tank, had nearly vaporized the Mage before he crafted the illusion around himself. If he had been slower, he would be just another charred skeleton upon the sands. With this new spell set, Menver lay down with an exhausted yawn on the bed, whispering a few words of onishment to himself about his earlier behavior. The two slept peacefully, both dreaming of their plight. Thoughts of the invasion pervaded Menver’s dreams, and each second of that horrid day replayed itself in his mind. And so ran on his dream.
CHAPTER 2
IT WAS THE MORNING OF the ceremonial Three-Hundred-Year War when the downfall of the Tuluhrai Empire began. As every third century ed, a new war was engaged between the Tuluhrai and the Shekethrum, always starting at either nation’s homeworld, at their heart. The two homeworlds, Tuluhr and Sheketh, traded the post of defending planet with every iteration. These quick engagements settled their lust for each other’s destruction while avoiding the threat of being met with genocide. The Shekethrum had an unfortunate history of losing the majority of these first engagements to the Tuluhrai might. In this first battle, it was tradition that only the two most powerful warships would duel. If the defender’s ship were to lose, then the invading fleet would have full rights to open itself into an all-out attack upon the enemy homeworld. If the defending ship won, the invading fleet was required by the great laws governing this ceremony to leave immediately, while the defenders had license to chase them out of their borders, as violently as they pleased. One great folly of it all was that the heart of either empire was left vulnerable for this first engagement. During this particular event, the greater folly was the Tuluhrai overconfidence, allowing their guard to be let down; pride filled in where cautious planning and advancement should have reigned. Unfortunately for the Tuluhrai, this particular engagement was to be held upon their ground. Dressed more casually in a long-sleeved and loose white shirt and similarly shaded pants, Menver sat within his apartment in the city of Jurda, trying to study, learning the words and motions needed for some basic shape-shifting spells. He’d left the wall screen on while reading so that he could hear how the engagement was proceeding, whenever he cared to, for he had enough faith in his powers of concentration to block out the updates constantly spewing from the screen. His quarters were small, just big enough to house a bed, table, and bookcase. The bed covered one wall, and the desk and bookcase were placed opposite of it, with only enough space left to walk between the objects to reach the oval-shaped wall screen. Although sometimes Menver had been able to show remarkable spans of patience, the hopeful thoughts that his predictions would be wrong were enough to null the anxiety surrounding that day. With a huff, he’d set his book down and paid rapt attention to the screen.
The Corthul, flagship and supreme dreadnought of the whole Creyanai, the Tuluhrai navy, was in sight with two fleets flanking both her sides. It was their largest, most potent war-bringer—a jeweled hammer built to ensure the Empire’s dominance. Armored in the toughest alloy in their creation, with a cannonade dwarfing that of any other dreadnought in history, the Corthul had been their pride. It nearly tripled the size of the average Creyanai dreadnought. The typical dreadnought’s hull was much the same as the Yekrathnir destroyers: covered in deep channels, cylindrical, blanketed in multicolored lights. Surrounding this was an immensely thick, smooth plated blast hull made of three intercalating plates extending fore and aft of the true ship sitting inside. At the bow of every ship was an immensely large cannon with enough ballistic power to engulf whole ships of any lesser class. The camera shifted over to show the Shekethrum answer to the Corthul—their most powerful ship, and a fearsome-looking beast. The Mage scowled as he looked at it. The mighty Corthul, symbol of Tuluhrai ingenuity, initiated the first move of this fated dance, firing a single shot across the silvery three-pronged bow of the Shekethrum’s mother ship. Immediately, as though the ship’s commander had a sudden bout of lunacy, the Shekethrum ship began to charge swiftly into the Corthul with every single cannon and gun blazing, a hundred blue-tinted laser beams and bursts smashing directly into the Corthul’s shield. As every shot slammed into the Corthul, its golden-tinted shield made it visible, every direct hit sending ripples across the surface. But as the Shekethrum ship sped toward the Corthul, the Tuluhrai dreadnought turned to clear itself of the approaching onslaught, with its whole portside gunnery unloading on the Shekethrum. Menver’s eyes twitched as he sucked in a breath of air; a faint premonition came to him. He knew the Corthul would lose. As the Corthul bombarded the Shekethrum ship with a battery that would easily lay waste to any weaker ship, the Shekethrum dreadnought’s shielding lit up with every blast colliding with it. Menver watched with curiosity as the steelcolored three-pronged bow of the Shekethrum ship began to glow a silvery-blue. Seeing this, the mage stepped up from the bed, his face quickly turning from one marked with curiosity to one of alarm as he saw the Shekethrum ship’s pointed prow ram straight into the Corthul’s shield. The Corthul’s side had been exposed to its enemy, since it was too large and cumbersome a beast to dodge swiftly, and its counterpart charged at a ravenous speed. In a surreal sight, the Shekethrum ship rammed deftly into the Corthul. The only thing saving both ships from
explosion was the Corthul’s shield, which vainly tried to hold longer. As the Shekethrum ship drove into the Corthul, the silver-blue energy that tipped each of its ominous prongs suddenly flashed so brightly that the wall screen nearly blinded the mage. If the brilliant light was not enough to cause the Tuluhrai worry, the terrible sound from the collision was like a thousand thunderstorms all at once raging as the heralds of the Apocalypse. In a way, it was. After the dazzle and sound faded away, and the camera was able to focus in again on the battle for every Tuluhrai citizen to see. What the expectant race next saw was terrifying. The Shekethrum dreadnought fired another volley into the Corthul’s side, and, just as the Mage was backing away from the screen, the Corthul’s hull was ripped apart by the Shekethrum attack. The flash, the sound, that damned energy the Shekethrum ship was wielding—it was all to nullify the Corthul’s shielding. The Mage, horrified as he saw his own predictions coming true before his own eyes, was thrust into a deeper despair when the startling discovery hit him: the Shekethrum had developed the means to defeat Tuluhrai shields swiftly and easily. Hardly more than a few minutes ed before a final blast, fired off by a triad of some rather large ship-killing cannons, tore clean through the Corthul, ripping the pride of the Tuluhrai navy into thirds, sending them to crash onto the planet below. Soon Menver saw the two fleets that had accompanied the Corthul suddenly charge to the massive armada awaiting them, but the screen quickly switched over to show events within the atmosphere of Tuluhr. The Mage didn’t need to watch the space battle; he knew that not a single ship or a single Tuluhrai soul in that first engagement would survive. The screen now began to flicker, the images coming in only second-long bursts, and to his curse-fueled frustration, the Mage could only see parts of the terror that would soon envelop his city, Jurda. Picture after picture came through, interrupted by periods of blackness that were accompanied by whatever swears or oaths seemed appropriate. First he saw some half dozen Shekethrum warships descending to Jurda, their prows glowing with the same silver-blue that had ended the Corthul’s life. Then the screen flickered off. Then on, showing the insides of the city as gun mounts and defense towers of all sorts and sizes began to rise out of the city’s streets and off the sides of buildings, and thousands of small golden portals opening and shutting everywhere; the Deltornir’s ground troops were already being transported in for battle. Each legionnaire was armed with the standard battle spear, readied, raised. Valiant defenders filled the open Jurda airspace.
The screen shifted again to the outside view, where three of the Shekethrum warships were fending off a newly arrived set of five Creyanai destroyers. The sound of three successive explosions sounded through the screen as a larger battleship, coming swiftly through a black portal, came to the aid of its Shekethrum brethren, all its guns firing into the sides of the Creyanai ships, which by that time had already lost their shields just as the Corthul had. The other three warships, now left to themselves, rammed into Jurda’s shield. The wall screen shut off. Menver slowly and apprehensively laid his hand down on the cool leather of his book on shape-shifting. Blinking, he turned his eyes toward the small square-foot window, his jaw slipping at the sight. The room filled with staccato illuminations, blues scalding his eyes in repetitive sequences of threes or fives, followed by a random array of yellows. Between the growing dimness of the room and the bright blasts of the fights below, Menver’s senses were becoming so distraught he forced himself away from the window, hurriedly reaching for his desk and pulling from the drawer a small disk. He took his cloak from the desk’s surface, where he had lazily thrown it when he came in from the morning’s walk, and flung it over his shoulders. Leaning against the crux where the desk met the wall was his saber, his black gloves resting on the hilt. It had been a long while since he last took up his weapon. In his bloody past, no enemy that he’d met had ever faced his blade and remained alive. This day was to be just the same. Menver assured himself so. With a final look toward the window, he closed his eyes, picturing the street below within his mind, and immediately dashed into the portal that opened up to take him there.
Full-bore battle raged in the streets around him, thousands of explosions occurring all about, blasting his ears into deafness. With an angered cry drawn from memories of old, when he was the warbringer, Menver drew out his saber, wielding it in his right while wielding tremendous power in his left. A flash and he created about his body a shield much like the one used by the Shekethrum. His eyes were burning a deadly green as he levitated upward four stories along the side of his residence building. From above he cried, “Soldiers of Sheketh! Your fate is here!” He raised his left hand up high, as a spear-shaped mass of energy gathered together, and with a yell, he flung it into an invader, the energy spear colliding fiercely with the soldier’s shield, destroying it; and the blast’s tail pierced the soldier’s chest, killing him. Another Shekethrum looked up to the Mage, his hand raised to shoot him from his floating position, but before a single
beam could be fired, from the skies above Menver called downward a bolt of lightning, and then a whole host of them. A tempest grew before him, the lightning flurry striking down dozens of Fiends. The smell of bodies burning within their ashen armor filled the Mage’s nostrils, but he did not care. His face was now stone. His eyes were now glass. His whole demeanor was of ice. Above the battleground, encapsulated in the dark-green glow of his shield, as some dreaded angel of death would, he floated down the streets, calling down the heavens’ fury upon every Fiend he spied. Inwardly, the feel of battle called back and drew upon the darker nature of the Mage, and he took more than comfort, but a pleasure, from it, smirking at his power’s efficiency. He touched ground in front of a Shekethrum, gazing up at the being who pillared over him. Hate built in the soldier’s eyes at Menver’s insolence, and cursing at the Mage, he brought his staff up, bearing the glowing shield-killing tip upward and down on Menver. <Mongrel. Tuluhrai servant dog, die!> Menver snapped his palm out to his enemy, throwing him from his feet and splaying his limbs outward with a spell. In the chaos surrounding, the Mage stood resolute, smirking, his eyes brightening at his hostage enemy, who was stretched and helpless in the air.
The smirk fading, Menver made a downward motion with his free hand, allowing the soldier to fall. The Mage nodded, a near-silent whispered word escaping his lips. The street itself spat up a spike of rock and impaled the soldier in his fall. Menver watched him a second longer for movement, until he was satisfied with the death. With his attention elsewhere, a blast came from behind, knocking a gasp from his mouth and shocking his mind as he shunted his energies to hold the shield. “What in the hell was that?” He spun, sheathing his saber, bearing both palms about, ready to unleash a flurry of explosions on whomever had shot him. The fury in his eyes lay behind a look of confusion. Besides a few skirmishes between Deltornir and Sheketh infantry, there was no one that could have fired on him. The street was clear. Menver scanned about for a sign. He waved away the rock spike and called up a wall of sand for concealment. Down the street toward the city center was his answer. The blast had come from nothing that intended him to be an enemy. His glance caught a torn, charred, gold-plated husk lying no farther than a hundred meters
away from him. Torn metallic limbs were attached to its nearly severed waist, with shattered pistons, wires, nerves, and muscle strung across the street from where the calves lay, having been ripped from the robot’s thighs. A large cannon was lodged in the side of a building to his left, and his eyes traced to his right, along the pock marks the weapon had put in the street with its cartwheeling, finding where so recently it had attached to the lip of an intersection. Directly below him was part of the cannon’s anchor. But then, before he could wonder how the anchor had found him, his ears picked up a deep rumble that sounded farther away than its source was. The ebb of power fled his eyes at the sight of what came through. The building at the corner suddenly bore a crack that streaked through the lower levels and across its side, and a loud humming, rhythmic and beating, now coursed through the city. The sounds of cannon fire and yelling, of metal clashing against metal, all drowned beneath the deepening bass. A black prow peered into the street way, a shattered fragment of building speared over its tip. Soon, to the Mage’s own shock, he saw the crack in the corner building grow, bolting upward along the wall, followed by a loud moan of twisting inner s and synthetic metal outer walls. The prow jutted forward suddenly in an unreal shift of position that seemed too quick for its otherwise lumbering movement. The building shattered at that, the upper portions of it losing connection from the base and sliding toward the ground below. Then the black tip, visible as it was, became as the night; the reflective surface of it turned into void, creating an unsettling sight for the Mage. Nothing reflected in its surface. And it began to turn. Menver stepped back, his hand instinctively on the hilt of his blade, watching as the tip cut through the underside of the next building closest to him, while echoes of other destruction amplified his horror. Like its airborne brethren, the machine was another three-pronged beast, its body shape the only main difference Menver could discern. This looked more triangular down its length, with a concave belly that left sharp corners where the underside met the flanks’ armor. It stood half the height of the city’s skyscrapers and was entirely smooth-bodied until cannons or berthed machinery emerged from what appeared to be the land-destroyer’s liquid hull. He regathered his energies to strengthen the shield about his body and tipped away from the ground with a quick raise of his calf. The light around the landdestroyer began to bend. Three silver-blue sparks flashed and grew, raw energy jumping among the three charged nodes. At the juggernaut’s bow was a deeper,
thickening disturbance in the hull, barely visible through the spear tips’ distortion. “Oh no …” Menver spun, aghast, watching Shekethrum warriors, revealed from the skyscrapers felling, standing between him and the nose of the destroyer’s cannon, disappeared within a multitude of fluttering portals. The distant Tuluhrai defenders all looked in Menver’s direction. He flew fast, firing small explosions from his fingertips to attract attention, screaming,
With a last glance cast behind, he saw the destroyer’s main cannon connect with the fully energized prongs. The blast, as far as Menver could tell, annihilated everything along the blocks to the right and left of the energy wave, as well as all of Jurda that had lain in front of the Kinitral. His apartment. The local market area. Many of the buildings that were put to rest were beyond his legal access, so he could only guess as to what Jurda had lost. However, he knew, sneering with pure malignance as it reentered his mind, that the majority of this sector had been residential. The tendons in the back of his neck tightened; he couldn’t keep from shaking in anger. He had barely escaped the blast, having teleported to a position a forty meters above the Kinitral. Menver brought his right hand up and behind his ear, curling his fingers. Static electricity crackled in the air about his body. A smallarms energy bolt ricocheted off his shield. He let go of his saber’s hilt with his left hand and made a small fist at his side. More electric buildup caused his hairs to stand on end. His energies drifted from his arms and gathered into the circles of his hands. Lightning appeared to strike his shielding, but it pierced through, flowing into the dark emanating from his palms. Two jagged lances finally took form. Screaming, he brought his right foot back, hurled the right javelin downward at the Kinitral, and then threw the second, watching both seek their way to the beast. He then reached both arms back, not hesitating to concentrate, spilling all the power that remained in his body into conscious control. The spears hadn’t hit their mark yet. His shield blackened, concentrating into an opaque disc in front of him. This was his final attack—an ultimate move designed with certainty to destroy the enemy, or him. His control over the stream of power he had tapped into was minimal. It was a thin string that held the weight of the world, and it could only
be cut just as the string was ready to snap. His body was overheating, and only a few seconds into the summoning. Menver saw the two lances make faint traces into the Kinitral’s shields. It was time to cut the string. “Now burn!” Tears leapt from his eyes when he let go. The disc of energy exploded, and his hands disappeared in a black disarray that destroyed the light around him. A pillar of black chaos crashed down toward the Kinitral; it had the form of a condensed smoke, crackling embers of verdant energy bolting in and out of the mass. It rammed into the Kinitral’s shields with a force that sent debris raining from the surrounding buildings. Any typical vehicle, even the largest heavy-assault, would have been consumed within the blast’s cross section. The Kinitral’s shields were holding steady, from what he could see. His vision was becoming blurry, and he shook his head to clear it, trying to refocus the beam on a smaller point, attempting to pierce it like a knife rather than hammer. He shuddered and could feel every cell in his body being squeezed of life, mortality seeping into his fevered veins. The black pillar began to fluctuate, its form varying in diameter, his heartbeat attuned to it. With each beat, the pillar grew thinner and thinner. A pair of fighters launched from the back of the Kinitral to meet Menver. Green bands reached out from the dwindling attack and licked against the defensive shielding of the fighters. The Mage’s shoulders hunched forward, and his arms fell to his sides. His eyes were a dull brown before they closed and he plummeted to the ground. He wouldn’t find out what sort of damage he had done to the Kinitral’s defense systems, if any. In the last sliver of waking moments he had between the exact point he wrung his body dry and his blackout, he ed a force of Vishok warriors storming the Tir Korcath stronghold. As a show of force, he had used that attack; killed dozens of them. It would have been more had the clan numbers not been so few by that point in history. This was his last memory before blackness. Dizzied, he started slowly coming back to consciousness as he was set down in a shaded corner. Menver’s senses hadn’t quite collected themselves; all sound was distorted and muffled, images blurred and wildly mobile. But his mind functioned still, and he heard the voice speaking in the fluid tongue of the Tuluhrai.
and came to you.> There was a pause, and the shadow lifted itself away from the Mage. It turned and moved into the arch of light. Menver rolled his head aside to remove the mirrored glare of sunlight on armor from his eyes. As his vision was clearing, he looked back to a large gold-and-tan figure. He didn’t understand why it slapped the side of its helmet, why it took the helmet off and searched its inside. Menver didn’t quite care, either, because the blackness returned to dissolve his vision, and all faded away once more.
A shuddered draw of breath and sudden fluttering of eyes. Menver sat up from the bed and rubbed the knuckles of his thumbs into his eyes. It was lighter outside. The smoky atmosphere reflected a red-and-orange dawn, ringed with a brown haze. He’d probably been asleep only a few hours. It was too easy to lose track of time between his thoughts and desert-roaming. He promised Ajax another attempt at Tehvoon. Bowing his head, he sighed, the crows’ feet in his eyes wrinkling. He lay back down and tried to sleep some more. Sometimes still, Menver truly envied the Tuluhrian constitution.
CHAPTER 3
AJAX WOKE BEFORE MENVER. WHEN the Mage rose again, wiping the sleep from his eyes, he found Ajax writing into the floor with the engaged claw of his middle finger. The gauntlet bound blade looked flimsy to him, reminding him of a razor. But he’d never seen a razor effortlessly peel layers off bone before. Or carve into metal flooring as Ajax’s weapon was doing. “Might I ask what you’re writing there, Ajax?” As usual, the verbal was responded to with a thought. This time Ajax didn’t care to mince words or go through a lengthy explanation, so rather he sent to Menver the idea of the final goal. He was practicing his runic words, trying to spell out a ward that would insulate all the heat within the room so that none escaped. “Enh … Ajax.” Menver stood and rubbed at his temples, the corners of his mouth taking sharp downward turns. “Please, please don’t do that. It gives me a headache when you don’t … say it. A bad headache, even.” He reached for his boots and took them back with him to the bed, where he put them on. “You know, when this war is over and I can find access to one of your people’s labs, I’d love to have my DNA and physiology broken down and given a gloss over. I’d like to see why it is that I seem to have greater competency with our power than your people but not the same capacity. And also why I can’t communicate the way you do. Not that the chance will come soon, but musings like that keep me entertained.”
“If you say so, Ajax. I still don’t think we can risk activating anything beyond small aircraft. One of those lumbering giants … the Tulryr, right? They do look impressive, but their lack of speed and overuse of conspicuous size just don’t make them all too practical. By themselves, they are just another easy target.”
“Never had the chance? And why is that? Why weren’t these secret weapons you allude to shuttled out to battle at the first chance?” <Standard procedure. Estimate the enemy’s strength first, then match and overpower. The Deltornir does not like to use resources needlessly.> “Or common sense, for that matter. Overwhelm and destroy at the get-go is what wins.”
Eyes aglow, Ajax reached for his helm, which lay on the other side of the room, and it floated to meet his fingertips. Snapping off the faceplate—which was fashioned in the same solid, menacing form as that of his father’s—he fitted the helmet’s crown, sliding the mask in place afterward. In the shadowy eye slit created between crown and mask, the harsh lit eyes of Ajax filled Menver with both a dread and a pride in but one thing: the terror and power of the House of Torunthane. With measured movements, Ajax wheeled about away from his uncle and willed a portal to open before him. Unlike that of Menver’s, his was flowing with a golden light, the same color of the sands of Tuluhr, of his armor, of the light that wafted in his eyes. Sparing no words for his uncle, he stepped through. Every micrometer of his form that ed through found itself on the other side, in the blowing, dry wind of the Nanthala desert, province of Nethar, within sight of Tehvoon. Ajax, after fully emerging, took a few steps and then halted to a short crouch. A mental command received by the interior sensors of his helmet let slide a small screen over the eye slit. Scanning the area for any Shekethrum patrols, any signature of electronic signals or faded energies, Ajax was wholly engrossed in his concentration. But, like most of Tuluhr’s children, his whole concentration didn’t stop him from also being fully aware of his immediate surroundings, and he was not surprised when Menver’s shadow suddenly covered him. The Mage had become sure-footed in all the desert walks, and he could move as silently on sand as was humanly possible. But then, Tuluhrian senses, sharpened past those of normal humans, were not limited to the strict five. Ajax could feel Menver’s thoughts as though they were faint ripples on a pond, though he couldn’t discern them without actively trying to probe his uncle’s mind.
The city Tehvoon stood in the distance, tinted and dulled with sand. The eastern portion of the shield-ring bordering it was nearly wholly enveloped in sand, with the peak of the dune spilling over and into city streets where proud people had once gathered and lived. Menver was rather surprised when he dropped to the sands behind Ajax. He had half expected to see the lad bound off and away as soon as he had portaled here, yet there he was, actually using a measure of caution for once. “My how times do change, and quickly too.” <What do you mean?> “Don’t mind me, simply speaking my thoughts out loud. Listen, I wish you’d practice your English more in times like this, when we’ve the luxury of being unbothered. Do you see anything out there?” “No.” “Good then. Let’s move on.” Nodding toward the city, Menver tucked his hands into the pockets of his coarse brown linen pants and started his march. Behind he could hear Ajax’s clawed feet digging nimbly through the sand. Overhead, the halo of the sun blazed like a candle behind a cloth as the ever-present gray clouds hid the sky. Before the war had started, the skies of Tuluhr were always clear blue and unblemished. Between the smokes of all the ruined cities and battlefields, and perhaps some doings of the Shekethrum, the atmosphere had become choked with smog, leading to gray skies tipped with hazy brown. Ajax felt the problems this produced more than Menver did, since the lad’s energies were grown in an environment that always bore sunlight. Now his recharge times were longer, and in the middle of a fight, Menver noticed, Ajax had become more conservative in using his powers. Menver, on the other hand, had been raised in such conditions. His master, Kinrothu, lord of the Tir Korcath, kept him in the lightless hall of their stronghold, letting him see light only for a few brief moments every morning, since it was still a necessity. In reaching his age of emergence as a warrior for the Tir Korcath, Menver had developed a stronger endurance for the dark. His powers drained much more slowly than those of others of his birth clan, slower even than Vedin on equal , despite his brother’s greater storage capacity. It only lent to Menver’s belief in that he was the wayfarer, the wanderer who walked the gray line between black and white:
neither Tir Korcath nor Vishok, Shekethrum nor Tuluhrai, human nor alien. Such thoughts sank deeply into his mind, and he strode along quiet and sullen. At the very least, he always told himself, the Tuluhrai culture, for all its history and the grandness of the people, was simple, and it kept itself simple. At some point in their history, the mainstream culture, the militant religion, had reached far into every fiefdom of opposing thought and, in systematic shutdowns, dismantled and engulfed the obscure beliefs. The Mage had eventually learned that the major powers of the government were, at some point, those assimilated religions and cults themselves. The secret society of the Hetlurai was, in fact, a sorceresses’ cult that worshipped a serpentine demigod named Junrir; their caste’s original name was the Junridai. The assassin’s caste, the Huroonai, were dark-dwellers that created homes inside the many caves of the mountain ranges that separated the vast deserts from the oasis of Tuluhr, Uthanral. Living, obstinately, in the hestos’ preferred nesting environment, the Huroonai were particularly fierce compared to their brethren. Their speed and stealth were legendary, as was their ability to survive in the dark, scouring the depths of their tunnels for hestos. They were to become incorporated into the military as its corps of elite fighters: assassins, covert operatives, silent causes of tragedy. Even the Creyanai, the Tuluhrai navy, was named for the Ne’Creyai, a nomad clan that used the whipping winds to power their sand ships across the endless dunes. Most Tuluhrai held Ne’Creyai blood, as they most easily spread across the planet. So it was that all of these eventually succumbed to the growing strength, and truth, to degrees only Menver knew, of the mainstream culture of the primeval dragon-god Tuluhr. No religion was older than the one in devotion to Tuluhr. In its shadow, though, the presence of the other cults was proof that many sought different explanations or believed that they had evolved past so simplistic a theology. Menver sometimes envied the way the whole planet had adopted the same religion and history. Tuluhr. The great dragon-god who, mortally wounded and near death from slaying the great enemies’ wyrm lord, Sheketh, came to the sand planet and lay down to rest in the province of Uthanral. His blood poured into its sands, and from the black liquid, life immediately sprang, and mountains rose to guard and commemorate his body. From his teeth, claws, and scales, deltraj—the precious gold metal that coated every spear, piece of armor, and hull for the Deltornir and Creyanai—was created. His power spread across the planet, fusing with only one species of all the creatures that then lived. The rest, which had no home in this species, was absorbed into the rock, crystallizing deep beneath the
sand. The creatures evolved and became the Tuluhrai. Gentrification paired with their growing. Initially their species was hardly as noble or beautiful as at present. Fossil records that Menver was privy to showed their terrible past forms: animals of stubby legs and massive arms, great talons, and teeth that could bite the current form’s shoulders clean off. Winged morphologies came earlier in their history, branching off to become the mindless predators of the air. This knowledge only deepened Menver’s sense of uniqueness of race. Part of him lay in the deep bowels of the sands of Tuluhr, reptilian, dragon, ancient beyond knowledge. Another part lay inside the mechanically dominated world of the dwindling Jortasha. And lastly was the part that he had dwelled with for most of his life, the human side—mammalian, primate—which developed into a confused and terrible race full of promise and self-damnation. No matter how hard he tried, Menver always found his mind was just beyond his ability to keep it from wandering. He turned his attention toward more basic things. Tehvoon was still many miles off, and with the main roads now buried beneath the sand as a result of the lack of shielding, it would still be a long and draining walk. Sweat built up beneath his collar, and he tugged at it constantly. There was some encouragement to be found, at least; the tracks that they had come across the night before, which they followed now, suddenly veered to the west and away from Tehvoon. Seeing the change in the tracks made him consider the idea of teleporting there, given the lightened risk of there being Shekethrum inside the city. With Tehvoon in sight, and having been there before, he knew he could easily will a portal into creation and have them dropped within the city’s center in a second. Then again, he had no idea still if the Shekethrum had left behind sensors to detect just such a thing. He had learned of the potency of their detectors in Chartev Nral when he teleported to a sector of the city that contained a large platoon of mecha moving toward the south. Upon his materialization, he’d heard a series of loud alarms, and a pair of flawlessly mirrored oval-shaped floaters appeared around him, flashing and screeching out a grating siren. He’d raised his hand to shoot one down when they both opened down their midsections and opened fire on him. Eventually he managed to ruin one but was forced to retreat into a rendezvous with Ajax. There was a lesson to be learned: even teleportation was no longer a safe means of travel. “Well,” Menver softly mused to himself, “if teleportation isn’t, and there is nothing within his sensor’s range …” He raised his voice. “Ajax, scan again to see if anything new has moved near our position.”
“English, Ajax.” “Will check.” And the lad halted, looked about, and then took a ten-foot standing jump to the top of the dune and looked around again. After a moment, a small antenna rose from just above the helmet’s rounded ears, and Ajax, on all fours now, stalked slowly over the dune while panning his head left and right with a mechanical precision. Menver followed, placing his smaller feet inside the prints left by the lad, his hand now placed on the hilt of his saber. His voice came in a harsh whisper. “Ajax, what is it? What do you see?” Ajax didn’t immediately respond. He raised his head high and took in as much of the sky as he could before his impatience took over. “Well?” “Nothing. I think I saw something.” “Thought you saw something.” “Thought … thought I saw something. Computer shows nothing. I think it is … safe?” “Safe, yes. Could have used ‘clear’ or something more general, such as ‘all right,’ but ‘safe’ does say it concisely enough while having as much meaning as is needed to communicate the idea. One of the better words to hear these days.” “I see. It is safe.” “Good.” Menver then relaxed his grip on the saber and floated to half a foot above the tip of the dune. Nodding to Ajax to do the same, he darted out a few meters and then turned about, floating backward slowly to keep an eye on his apprentice. Ajax’s arms dangled listlessly by his sides as he slowly took to a hover. He stared at his cloven feet and, with his shoulders slumped, appeared to be putting himself into a hangman’s noose rather than willingly defying gravity. Menver frowned at the gracelessness with which Ajax proceeded, especially since he’d
seen the lad’s acrobatic abilities and knew he was capable of making the Mage appear like a dried plank. But now just wasn’t those times. Menver shrugged and, leaning back some fifteen degrees, shot off backward, rising a meter higher to avoid running his heels into other sand drifts. He smirked as he usually did, beckoning to Ajax to keep up with him and then crossing his arms to show he expected no real competition. This had the desired effect. Ajax immediately tucked his massive legs in, tilted toward Menver, and, digging the claws of his right foot into the dune’s tip, launched himself forward. “Ha!” is all Menver said before spinning about and increasing his speed toward the city. His wake kicked the sands up as he went, with Ajax behind, having to deal with the grains slipping beneath the collar of his armor and under his gauntlets. The lad laughed and yelled, “You will not win! I am too young!” Menver could hear the air crackle and shudder when Ajax throttled forward. From the corner of his eye, he saw a gleam of light off a polished helmet, and soon the helmet’s bearer was moving ahead of him, his shoulders ing, then his stomach, and soon the Mage was staring at a pair of heels that veered directly in front. Now Menver dealt with the nuisance of sand being kicked into his face, and without the benefit of the helmet and visor to keep his eyes and mouth clear, it bothered him greatly. He cast his arms in front of him and erected a small shield that tinted everything directly ahead of him green. And then he focused on the matter of his nephew, who had already created a forty-foot gap between them. There was a way to fix that, though. Nodding his head to Ajax’s left and right, Menver summoned small explosions of air just below the sand’s surface, all along the lad’s flight path. At first Ajax didn’t know what to make of it, but he shot straight up—surveying below for a moment to scan for any devices, Menver assumed—in which time the Mage was able to dart beneath his feet and take the lead. He flipped over to his back and openly laughed at the confused competition and accelerated farther ahead. As soon as he turned over again and refocused on Tehvoon, a wall of sand jutted upward before him, causing him to come to a hard and immediate stop that rattled his body. He righted himself and then, with a palm thrust, obliterated the obstruction and proceeded through, seeing that Ajax was above and ahead by perhaps a foot. They had covered half the distance to Tehvoon by this point, and with so much distance left, Menver saw no reason in quitting the race and letting Ajax be the victor in something that certainly he could win. Win, that is, without having to resort to some trick or distraction.
Menver cupped his hands over his mouth and called, “Ajax! I hope you can do better than that, because I’m done holding back! This race ends when the first person makes it through the main gate!” Ajax’s voice echoed in the Mage’s mind again. “Do not feel sad when you get there. I will wait.” Behind Ajax, a large cloud of sand erupted, accompanied by the whistling of wind over the curvatures of his armor. His speed had doubled, and his confidence had multiplied by scores. Beneath the faceplate, a wide grin spread across his usually somber visage. Though it paled in comparison to battle, he felt some release of tension in this race. With so much unused energy built up in his body from days of caution and fleeing from engagements, to actually use his abilities in such an uninterrupted stream was both relaxing and necessary; when he had awoken that day, he had found his limbs feeling a little twitchy and his neck strained. This was putting his body back into an equilibrium. That, and flying at his fastest speed was purely a rush for him. And Menver, arms crossed, flying now at a forward-leaning stand, felt that this was the time to finish it. They had reached the final leg of the race, with only some dozen flattened dune tips to cross over before reaching the landing pad outside the main gate. His eyes unexpectedly faded to their natural brown color, and they closed in a moment of concentration. The air around him grew hot, bending the light in such a way that his wavering from side to side left shadowy trailing images of him. With his head bowed, he raised his palms to his sides, the ground below him slowly being blown away by the radiating power; Menver was concentrating all his energy to be used for but one purpose. His discipline over his power allocated his internal reserves to the point of shunting all to a single use, a feat that no still-living Tuluhrai could boast of, not even his disciple Ajax, nor his counterparts in the Hetlurai. With a thought, the concentrated energy shoved him forward with such force that his lungs were crushed, thrusting the air out of him in a gasp. But he craned his head forward and regained his composure. Oddly, for a man who never aged, he felt no qualm over funneling the energy that kept him immortal to a different purpose. In any case, he was only ten seconds from reaching the landing pad. Beneath his feet, along every sanded hill he flew over, a yard-wide and yarddeep triangular ditch was made by his wake. The skin on his face peeled back, and he had to keep an arm over his eyes to shield them from any incoming
granules. He was fast in gaining on Ajax, reaching out and using his speed to slap the lad on the back of his helmet before ing. Despite Ajax increasing his output a little more, Menver was no longer in any danger of losing. He was already slowing down and ing the toes of his boots along the smooth tiled landing pad when Ajax roared to signal his indignation over the slap. Menver turned about to greet Ajax. Ajax flipped over in midair and landed with a few short hops, his eyes never straying from the Mage’s. “What was that—magic? What spell?” “No, it wasn’t magic, Ajax. It’s fine and well to use it sparingly to distract, but you know I’d never enhance my own abilities with it to win a race.” “Good. How did you go so fast?” Ajax shrugged—in a manner of confusion, Menver thought. It was hard for the mage to read Ajax’s emotions when he constantly wore that mask, and Ajax wasn’t one to always emote his thoughts when speaking with his uncle. “Just a simple matter of directing my power to where I wanted it to be. It’s similar to charging your weapon. You how to do that, right?” Menver propped an eyebrow in question, while also drawing his saber in case another demonstration was needed. “I . It is hard to do, but I . Your energy and my energy are not too different. So how did you beat me? I
” “You did? I couldn’t sense it, and I’ll tell you why,” Menver said while sheathing the saber. “While you put perhaps two-thirds of your energy into flight, I was able to pool all of mine in. So though I didn’t use it all, of course, my total store wasn’t depleted so much as it would’ve been if I tried to burn that much in flight while also using energy in other things, like a shield or for sensory purposes. You get my meaning, I hope?”
“Right.” Arching a brow toward Ajax, he chimed, “And don’t forget to use your English. Now, since the entrance to the city is here, shall we proceed with this?”
Ajax nodded in assent, and both turned to the shaded corridor of the main gate. The landing pad they stood on was tiled with the smooth orange rock found in the cliffs and mountain ranges that studded the north and east boundaries of Nethar. Sand cushioned their footsteps as they slipped into the shadow of the roof of the main gate. Tall and leering, the gate of dull brown metal stood nearly 150 meters tall, if Menver were to take a guess—tall enough to allow the larger freight vehicles but still too short for something like the Kinitral tank-base to enter without portaling through. The gate’s ceiling protruded to create an overhang on the landing pad, with walls that came down and graded away into the side of the shield-ring. Lining the bottom of the overhang were symbols, carven twinkling stars of a hundred different varieties. They differed in the number and thickness of arms, some bearing ones that were bent to the right or left at all sorts of angles. The script of the Tuluhrai was something that took a while for even immortal eyes to become accustomed to reading. They were merely directions for newcomers to the city. Proceeding still, they entered the hollow of the gate where it began to bore into the shield-ring. Here Ajax growled, staring in disgust at what he saw. Menver tried not to pay any attention to the bodies of Tuluhrai soldiers, nailed by Shekethrum spears against the gate walls. The smell turned the Mage’s stomach. Grimacing, he shoved his nose into the crook of his elbow and kept moving past the deceased. Glinting light from outside, a ruined hover-bike sat, its engineladen hindquarters toppled on a side, and the rider’s seat and pointed prow torn away, leaning against a pinned body. Fifty or so soldiers had found their graves in the gate. Ajax only strode faster through, coming to the actual gate doors. They generally remained open in normal times, with a defensive field being the surrogate barrier. Now the three horizontal doors stood locked in the dark. Menver walked up to them and tapped the lower one with a knuckle. No sound emanated from the dense metal. He gave a look to Ajax and stepped back, closing his palms together and then reopening them, with a small orb in one hand casting light for them to work with. Ajax cupped a hand over the antenna of his helm and paced the length of the doors. His gauntleted fingers traced over them. Ajax was scanning them for any foreign objects that might have been placed by the Shekethrum or Tuluhrai. He feared that in desperation, the Deltornir might have planted bombs before sealing the city from conventional armored ground units. He was also using the helmet’s interior computer to attempt to communicate with the gate controls, hoping that some power remained in the
shield-ring at least. It was a misguided hope. No emergency lights lit the ring’s exterior, and they were kept on a backup power supply independent of the city’s. Ajax went over the whole doorway surface twice, with only meager, meaningless results. Zero connections were made with any computer system— not the gate controls, the landing pad coordinator, or even a mapping program from remote. He could detect no manual override of any sort from this side of the doors either, not that he believed such a device was made to be operated by anything besides some mammoth sentry mech. The conclusion was clear: Tehvoon was a dead city. Aside from teleporting in, which the lad knew the Mage would disagree with, there was no way inside. He turned to face Menver, but the uncle beat him to his own words. “Let me guess; there is simply no way we can get these gates to open, correct?”
“Bah, you speak too seriously, and still in the wrong language. Nothing’s a complete waste if you at least learn something from it. But there is another way in, and it’s something I’ve practiced only a couple times, the last being before Vedin and I were brought here. He knew the technique better than I did. Something Kryus taught him when the Jortasha invaded Earth. I’ll give it a shot, and let’s both hope I don’t burn my hand off in the process.” The Mage rolled back his right sleeve and tugged sharply on the cuff of his glove, his eyes narrowing at the thick, immobile barriers. He had gone through the options in the back of his mind before deciding on this course; it was possible to simply do the teleport, or try to burn a hole through, or fly over the defeated shield-ring. But a portal has such a high energy output that it could be detected by the lowliest of automatic sentries. Burning a hole—well, that would require far more power than Menver was willing to use, and still he wasn’t sure if it could be done, if there was any deltraj mixed into the alloy. So he decided not to necessarily burn one. And flying over? That, to him, was simply no fun at all. He saw no point in learning new techniques if he’d never allow himself the possibility of trying them out. Further, he didn’t doubt that there were some remote mines lining the rim of the shield-ring. Although he hadn’t seen them up close—and Ajax, too, could not confirm the existence of such things, amid the chaos of Chartev Nral—Menver did see something that made him suspicious of such devices. A low-flying and damaged Tuluhrai cruiser was just crossing that
city’s borders when a flurry of twenty small missiles of some sort launched from the ring to cause the ship’s obliteration. The Mage simply didn’t care to test his luck with those. With the leather-padded tips of his fingers pressed gently against the doors, a small, trickling phosphorescence waved down the length of his arm, the hairs of his bare skin standing on end. The traveling pulse slapped against the door and rocked the metal gently where it landed, but the disturbance traveled no farther than the bare confines of the simple wave. Another one, wider, hit the door, and another. Metal moved like the disturbed surface of a tarp on water, and the disturbance grew. His hand grew hotter beneath the spell, and he felt the veins of his arm bulging and the tendons tightening. His mind was slowly beginning to haze as the waves bore deeper and deeper into the doors, perhaps two meters through now. By this point, the disturbance had grown to a circle of two and a half meters in diameter, enough for him to fit through, and perhaps just enough for Ajax. He took a step closer, thrusting his hand into the churning metal, creating a vortex beneath his palm. Menver pushed this farther and farther, until his shoulder was starting to enter. His teeth were bared, and his mouth strained to move in order to whisper out to Ajax, “Come, follow me, and closely! The gates are too damned big!” And he planted the heel of his boot into the floor of the tunnel he had made and walked slowly forward. Ajax, eyes wide, followed in cautiously, hunched over in the now six-foot-high opening. Menver’s quaking hand pushed through the heavy doors slowly, inch by inch, but smoothly, never halting. Behind Ajax, the tunnel closed in on itself, resealing the hole made by the Mage. They were now three meters through. In his strain, Menver’s control slipped, and his body began to vent the excess power. His eyes turned from brown to flaring green, illuminating the otherwise lightless age. Clasping his right wrist with his free hand, he pulled the tunnel’s face back a pace so that his nose nearly touched solid, dense metal; and then, with a thrust that shuddered the whole door, he cast the boring spell forward two meters, finally breaking free through the other end. He jerked his head forward as a signal to Ajax and started to run, with the lad following close behind. Already he felt the tunnel diameter decreasing, so Menver jumped outward from the tunnel, catching himself with his left hand and flipping over, landing in a crouch and thrusting his right hand behind to keep the age’s exit open for Ajax to go through. When he heard the heavy sound of Ajax’s feet hitting the sand, Menver clenched
his fist tightly, and the hole bored through the fifteen-foot-thick deltraj-alloyed door was closed. Ajax straightened himself out and rolled his huge frame from side to side to crack annoyed ts. He offered a hand to the Mage, who took the offer and helped himself up to his feet. Menver then wiped the palms of his gloves together and dusted the sand from his pants. A short sigh of satisfaction came with a twinkle in his eye that Ajax hadn’t quite seen before. So the lad sent to Menver’s mind his question: “What was that? Why did you use such a strong spell? You look tired now.” “I … ha, I just wanted to see if I could do it, really. When I said I had tried it before, what I meant was that I tried and failed. I wasn’t sure it would work, but I feel very, very glad that it did. For one, I never formally learned it … heh, no, only watched old Kryus use it aboard a Jortasha destroyer, and I was absent when he instructed Vedin in it. It’s no spell, I guess. And it’s not a portal either, though it might’ve seemed like one. I suppose …” The Mage paused to glance up to the sky while considering his words. “I suppose it’s like the precursor to a portal, or a primitive version from before someone learned how to entirely corrupt space and time. The good thing of it is that you don’t need to know the environs of the other side to use it, and it doesn’t create an energy spike for Fiends to home in on. So I used it.” Menver stopped to look around. A great glass canopy was over them, allowing in the light of the middle day, and before them lay the main freeway through the city Tehvoon. From where they stood, its base split off into three dozen smaller branches that spread, eighteen on each side of the main road, to the different directions and sectors of the city. The Mage started to walk down the main road before returning to his discourse. “What I did was push through the wall, shortening the distance between molecules in order to create a gap for us to walk through. What we stood in was a bubble of intense strain, of my energy versus natural bonds. I suppose the reason that it was so draining on me was that the metal they used for the gates is a lot denser than I thought it would be. And thicker. And, well, it should only become easier with practice, when I learn more efficient ways of remolding things.” In the shade now of skyscrapers lining both sides of the freeway, Menver rolled down his sleeve and whistled with a satisfied exhaustion. Ajax, now just accepting what he’d heard, grabbed his uncle by the shoulder and wheeled him around.
Menver glanced down at Ajax’s hand and willed it off and placed it squarely against the lad’s side. He then continued on his stroll, moving to a wide sidewalk to the left, which was merely an elevated portion, also covered in sand. The Tuluhrai, Menver noticed, preferred to walk on the sand rather than any other substrate. It only aggravated the Mage’s steps. To his right, where the sidewalk sharply dipped down to the freeway, a thin grating ran along the full length of the road, where interior shields once safeguarded walkers from the wake of sandy winds from ing sand ships. His eyes cast upward, and gazing back and forth between buildings, he snorted once and finally chose the precise words to answer Ajax with. “‘Mad.’ That’s an interesting word to call someone who is beyond a hundred times your age, young one. Don’t be so free to address me with it. My age is proof that I’m no man, just cautious when I need to be, and careless to experiment when I see that there’s room for it. Now come. You know this city far better than I, so you lead the way to whatever you were dying to see again. Be careful in where you choose to walk, hmm?” Ajax appeared to ignore his comment and moved past Menver with long strides. There were three targets for the lad in this journey. He wanted first to return to his unit’s barracks and recover a pair of books he’d left there—two spell books of Menver’s, actually—that he had taken as part of his extracurriculars. Beyond that, he meant to look into the condition of his mother’s apartment. He had barely spoken with her since he signed on with the Deltornir, and it was a lie to himself to consider that they were ever close. Such closeness of mother and son as Menver described in human affairs was neither the norm nor condoned in Tuluhrai society. But there was always a deep respect and loyalty—always. He had lost with her before the attacks started, and he was honor bound to find out what had happened to her since. Lastly, the most useful and proper purpose of the trip: to find the weapons store that he and his uncle argued over. On the inside film of the visor, over his left eye, a map of the city, showing a one by one kilometer block, tracked their movements. And it was a lucky thing the helmet’s computer had such a thing programmed. Despite his knowing the city to degrees, Tehvoon was far too vast an area to know where every main road led and which side streets connected to which main roads. The city itself was a dense forest of buildings of unfathomable heights. Many were smooth-sided and gleaming, like javelin points in the sky, while others took on more curved frames, more like the tip of Menver’s saber. With buildings packed so tightly
along the freeway the two travelers traced, it was impossible to see very far to either the left or right. Even the wider offshoots had their cleared views eventually obscured by more constructs at their ends. Ajax soon began to wonder about the gleam of the buildings, and of the lack of any debris or vehicle on the freeway so far as he could see. Given the silence, save for gusts of wind and two pairs of footsteps, Ajax knew that the city was evacuated and the war effort there had ended. Seeing the bodies before the gate, he knew that fighting had occurred there. The lack of any traces was quickly disturbing him. He increased his pace, casting his eyes to the left and right increasingly frequently. He kept one eye on the map, now reloaded to include any mobile objects if detectable through the urban mess; the other eye peered through the right half of the visor, which was set on the true sight filter, detecting any disturbances of incoming light waves. Despite the heat being reflected down on them from the skyscrapers, even the generally stone calm Menver had a cold chill run down the length of his body. Fifty meters ahead, a large cross-street lay perpendicular to the freeway, and both curiosity and the barracks’ location bade them to take it. The pair found something near a postwar normal upon turning the corner. Two of the ninja-like Veshun urban battle mechas lay sprawled on the street, effectively blocking it from vehicular travel. The humanoid battle suits were short relative to their larger cousins, only a dozen meters by Menver’s reckoning, and crafted to appear like their Tuluhrai pilots. The right-hand claws of the closer of the two were engaged, appearing pitiful in the half-curled yellow plated fingers. Ajax’s superior eyes could see the notched details of the claws, the broken tip of the fifth finger, the synthetic muscular system and veins sliced and torn inside the hole of the forearm. In the pit of the stomach, where the pilot generally sat, was lodged the left arm of its partner Veshun, with the main body thrown on its belly several meters away. Many small craters spanned the street from sidewalk to sidewalk—marks of their attack. Seeing them there, disheartening as it was, also held a satisfaction to Ajax: the city was defended, and there was an explanation as to it being deserted. The lad nudged the Mage in the arm and continued on, forced to kick down the metal-impregnated door of the building they stood in front of. They wound their way down its lobby to circumvent the downed machines. Despite that small sign of battle, after an hour’s walk northward, they found nothing else that referred at all to a struggle. The city was simply barren of
anything: no abandoned Tuluhrai war machinery, no Shekethrum traps left for idle wayfarers, no survivors darting across the small, nondescript alleys they ed. Ajax did notice that there was a great amount of sand covering the ground. Initially he hadn’t given a second thought, since all cities were paved with minimal amounts of sand, as it was most comfortable on Tuluhrai feet. But the sands gently flooded the front lobbies of open buildings, making the street level with the normally raised sidewalk. What most concerned him, however, was that the sand ran as deep as the middle of Ajax’s shin. Normally the city’s maintenance department put down only as much as could reach the bottom of one’s ankle. And the battle at the gates made him wonder more: why were there so few defenders at the city’s entrance? There was nothing from the armored divisions. Maybe, since it was possible, the Creyanai had posted a destroyer squadron to hover over Tehvoon. There was no damage to the shield-ring for all the visor’s scanners could tell, which was doubly odd. The Shekethrum shieldkilling devices held part of their efficacy in overloading the ring’s internal generators, to the point that they usually blew out the ring’s outer walls. For all Ajax could tell on their approach, Tehvoon had never lost its shield.
The tone carried by the thought conveyed to the Mage a suspicion, and given the question, he wondered if the suspicion was meant for him. “No, Ajax, you’re not. Hetlurai magic has such a feel to it that it can never escape me. You are under no power of mine either, if that was what you were thinking.” Menver stopped and crouched low, calling Ajax to halt too. He pulled his right glove off and raked his hand through the sand; he then filled his palm and let the grains sift through his dry, rough fingers. Times like this made Menver wish he hadn’t lost the multiuse eyepiece he’d retrieved from Earth during a return trip with Vedin, albeit under a military banner to intrude on the Jortasha war. “Bah,” he muttered quietly, “it wouldn’t be able to tell me anything here anyway.”
“I … I suppose I do. Ajax, grab a handful of sand and scan it, please. Can your visor pick up things such as, perhaps, toxins?” <“Toxins”? That word is unfamiliar to me.> And Menver could feel how disturbed the lad was by the word, with a flashed image of a Shekethrum soldier
tagged with the fleeting sentence. “Hmm … sorry, Ajax. Poisons, I mean, or really any sort of foreign chemical. That does sound a little like the Fiend speech, doesn’t it?”
The lad squatted down as well, dipped his great hand into the ground, and poured a small mound into the palm of his left, while the visor sped through screens of varying colors and dizzyingly fast arrays of stars of thousands of shifting arms. Meanwhile, Menver strode to the middle of the street, gazing up and down its length with his arms folded over his chest. It was hot out (and always will be, as he knew), but still not as bad as it used to be, before the sun became shaded out. Regardless of the shade, Menver was loath to find this weather pleasant. Idly, he scuffed his heel into the ground and kicked up a breeze-blown batch of granules. His brown eyes watched with some amusement the way they whirled and were carried upward with a gust, how gently they moved. How long now he had lived by taking such simple beauties for granted, he couldn’t guess. Much of his life had been spent mad with power, mad with life, bent on achieving power supreme and welding the world to an order he desired, if not exploiting it. And in all this, mere sand held the power of tranquility, something he never had.
“Hmm? Wh-what is it, Ajax?” The sudden sternness in the lad’s voice shook him out of his trance, and Menver blinked repeatedly to refocus his mind.
Ajax rose to his full height and then settled to the flats of his thick foot claws and started trembling, his fists tightening and flexing, and his breath hissing out from below his faceplate.
Menver’s face had gone white. Too many things darted back and forth in his mind; first and foremost among them was how much Ajax knew of this poison. “Quickly, tell me—it’s a poison, so why haven’t we felt any effects yet? What do
you know of it Ajax? Tell me.” Ajax faltered at first, a thought reaching out to the Mage’s mind—but as only an ephemeral thing, as the lad repealed his ideas quickly.
“Then we have to go! Now! Forget Tehvoon; we’re leaving before we’re dead!”
Menver, still breathing heavily from having felt so close to what he considered an unworthy means of death, flinched as well in hearing his nephew use the term “nekaf” for enemies of the state. ‘Evolution of a word.’ he thought in order to reassure himself. “Slowly, Ajax … I … I don’t know. I don’t know just yet. I’ve a few ideas, but I’d rather not speak about them without knowing more. Let’s hurry, though. If you don’t mind, I would also rather cut returning to your barracks from the trip. If you feel like you need to visit your mother’s apartment, fine, far be it for me to stand between you and that. But let’s get to the armory as fast as we can and be out of here. If I can’t sense anything on any level, I feel on edge. I don’t like being on edge.” <We … we will see if she is still in her apartment. No matter her outcome, I prefer to see that she fled … and was spared a low death.>
CHAPTER 4
“AJAX, I DO BELIEVE IT’S time to look for the armory. Late afternoon’s coming, and soon the hestos will be out. I’m not in any mood to deal with those things.” They had found Ajax’s mother’s apartment after a three-hour walk through Tehvoon. Nothing else fell upon their path that would’ve cleared up the mystery behind the poison dusting. Only a few things stood out that they had come across, none of them adding any insight. Nearly forty minutes after finding the two Veshuns, they saw a wholly intact, unharmed goliath—the Tulryr mech, largest of all Tuluhrai piloted robots. No such beast is ever routinely seen inside the city’s ring, and it would never be deployed without a better-than-good reason. Its shoulders looked to be wedged between buildings, but a further scan by Ajax revealed it to be just barely put into position. But why an unpiloted Tulryr would be left behind, risking it being salvaged by the Shekethrum, baffled the two only more. Farther on, after a turn northward, they ed through an abandoned outdoor market. The air-dropped poison carrier covered the flat s that normally lay spaced evenly about the market’s clearing. In the morning, merchants, a low caste in Tuluhrai society, would find their assigned s and activate them, and these s would fold up and high and neatly assemble their booth. Yet none were activated, and no traces of life having ed through remained—a fact the travelers were used to—save for a small mound guarded by ten spears. Their points all met directly over the center of the mound, and their bases were meticulously spaced evenly away from each other. Menver knelt beside the mound and looked it over a few times, finding no wording or traditional characters he could decipher. Both bowed their heads for a moment and moved on, wondering what soldier rested there who had been so important to deserve the memorial. Finally, the last piece of evidence that something entirely out of the Deltornir’s code of war had occurred here was within the apartment of Ajax’s mother. Her domicile was the only place of residence they dared enter. Menver figured the most detailed clues would be inside the private areas of Tehvoon’s citizens, but both his sense of decency and Ajax’s code of honor prevented them from
outright breaking into homes and searching for scraps. No, they had the right to only one place. And it was there, in the residence of Ajax’s mother, the mate forced on the mind-controlled Vedin, that the last piece of oddity was looked at and pondered. Three recharging mirrors lay on a simple bed of sand tucked away in the corner of the fifty-by-fifty-foot room. It was a typical apartment for the average civilian. They were not people given to anything besides austerity, except in finding means to glorify their empire, and like everything else simplistic, the apartment held only the main room, in which they stood bedside, with retractable walls and amenities, the kitchen and bathroom, which could be willed forth from the floor or ceiling with a thought. The bed was smoothed flat, save for the dents made beneath the mirrors. Oval-shaped with small handles on the sides to open up to the reflective insides, they were made with mirrored deltraj on their insides and a coarse synthetic on the outsides. Holding one up to the light at the right angle could trap a small amount of sunlight and, with other tools, pump more within. In need, one would pry the handles open and be bathed in the light. One mirror was generally sufficient if the bearer had enough skin exposed and was moderately skilled at absorption. So why were there three? Menver ran his fingers along the crevice between the two doors of a sealed one and frowned. He could feel the energy held inside. The other he picked up and found to be charged as well. Muttering to himself beneath his breath, he sat down uncomfortably upon the low bed and kicked his feet out straight, while Ajax disconsolately tried to access the apartment’s view-screen, knowing well it wouldn’t work. “I just … this place looks like she was meaning to move out; everything’s packed away, and here are three of these things, with two fully charged. I don’t get it. Ajax?” Ajax didn’t move away from the dull grain-carved plastic view-screen. But his voice was clear and melancholy inside the Mage’s mind. “Yes?” “Since there’s no sign of attack here, I’m wondering if maybe the military evacuated everyone before anything could happen. Is there any protocol you know of for such a scenario made by the Deltornir? Specifically, any sort of limit on the number of items one can bring?” Ajax bowed his head and turned about; he then squatted down on his large legs. He began to rub the chin of his faceplate. “I do not know. I am legionnaire caste. That protocol is for the
to know and understand.”
“Well then, can’t answer that question. It was silly anyway. These things aren’t so big to a Tuluhrai that she couldn’t have slipped them away into a large pocket. At least they’re the right number—one for each of us.” He picked one up and tossed it at Ajax, and looped his belt through the handle of the other. Menver frowned. “I’m sorry, lad. We at least know she didn’t meet her end here, by herself. Possibilities still exist.”
Ajax headed for the doorway without the slightest hint of disappointment or discontentment in his gait. Watching, Menver agreed with his nephew’s wordless course of action. “We should get moving now,” he said as he started to float himself back to his feet. “We’ve about four more hours of daylight, and two of those without having to worry about hestos.” As the last word slipped through his mouth, a look of disgust took over as ancient memories returned, and his voice dipped with a bit of erraticism. “Have you ever fought them, Ajax? A group of them? They’re evil … perfectly damnably built to be our predators. God help me, I hate them.” Ajax had to always chuckle audibly whenever his uncle worked himself up in such ways. They were rare, far more than when he got perceptively angry, and seeing the generally calm and all-knowing Mage grow so frustrated over something not even being actively perceived was nothing but humorous to the lad. His great chest heaved, and whisping rasps came from beneath the faceplate, but Ajax had enough respect to stifle himself and instead placed a hand on the Mage’s shoulder. It was a slight release for the boy.
Nodding to each other, they left the apartment, with Menver placing a seal on the door so as to protect it from Shekethrum looters. The hallway was fetid with stale, hot air that eventually prodded Menver into taking the black sash he wore over his belt and wrapping it into a bandana around his head. When they reached the door to the flyers’ shaft, built for those Tuluhrai who didn’t enjoy the building’s teleporter system, Ajax patted Menver’s bandana and quipped,
Menver only sneered and descended down the shaft with his thumbs tucked into the front of his pants,
controlling his fall with telekinesis while also making Ajax’s descent a rocky one. Once at the bottom, they moved out into the open-framed lobby, which blended into the sidewalk they proceeded to follow. The sun was already sloping eastward, crowning the tips of buildings with a failing bright light that was tinted orange from the atmospheric garbage. Menver slipped the makeshift bandana down lower on his brow to shade his eyes, while Ajax’s eyes merely changed from the usual glow to swirling pools. The wind began to pick up as well, kicking up the poison layers about their footfalls and throwing it against the sides of increasing drifts. They took a brisk pace, Menver in large strides, Ajax keeping step with moderate ones. Ajax called to his grip the golden-based rod of his spear and tightened his fingers around it, a cold smirk on his face as he began to tense up with the prospect of encountering hestos. Menver kept his hands folded behind his back while his mind and senses reached out far and wide down the city blocks, and creeping through alleys, for any scent, any feel, of either Tuluhrai or Shekethrum energies, and also now for the cold void in the nape of his neck that the scent of a hestos would leave. According to the helmet’s map, the entrance to the armory lay within the city’s central building, the capital building, wherein the guard leaders, governing officials, and religious both worked and lived. Twenty stories beneath its first floor was the single man-sized door that led directly, as far as Ajax knew, to the armory. From the apartment, it was ten miles to the capital building, as a crow would fly. Ajax’s best charted route brought the distance to twelve miles. One and a half miles northward, and another half or so to bend east again, and they’d reach one of the spoke roads, which would take them straight to Tehvoon’s center. Glancing cautiously to the sun, and then to his sides, Menver felt his body grow tight, and his hand sneaked its way to the hilt of his saber. He turned his eyes toward Ajax for but a moment to see any change in his ward’s behavior, but he noticed none. He sighed and rubbed his eyes. By the time they reached the spoke road, Menver had relaxed, save for feeling slight embarrassment over his nervousness from before. Now they had the ten-mile walk to contend with. Two miles in, Menver’s eyes lit as he drew his saber, whispering to Ajax,
Ajax stiffened. He began to sniff fiercely at the wind and lowered down to a walking crouch, splaying his arms out to his sides with his gauntlet claws snapping outward and a low growl building in his throat. Ajax’s eyes flared as he slid his clawed toes against the sand, whipping his head from side to
side in a feral display of instinct. Menver wanted to yell at Ajax for disregarding his advice so soon, but his heart raced, breath caught in his throat, and a cold sweat built his brow and beneath the thick cloth of his shirt. Hissing out warm streams of breath, Ajax called his uncle’s attention. <What is this feeling? I am alarmed, tense, very much aware … and something else I cannot describe.> Menver, creeping along with Ajax and putting his back to the lad’s, answered quietly in a low monotone, “That, Ajax, is your training skewing the fight-orflight response. This is our Tuluhrai blood knowing our sole predator nears.” A gust of wind blew the sands up all around them and howled around the skyscrapers and lower edifices, but no hidden cries welled up in the clamor; no shadows skittered across the ground. But the uncontrolled thudding of their hearts grew louder against their chests. Ajax, at only seventeen years of age, had never seen a hestos. Fear had been bred out of him, but anxiety always lingered, clawing away at his innards and trying to send quivering fingers down the nerves of his legs. Menver, older than whole civilizations, was incapable of fearing many things out of sheer perspective of what is and was. Two things from his time on Atlantis still sapped his fortitude: the Demon and hestos. No others could pull from him true fear. At least he knew that the Demon was stuck in whatever hellish plane he came from. An unfortunate day it was, one year into his stay on Tuluhr, when he learned that the hestos that had infested Atlantis called this their homeworld. Menver put the blade away just as Ajax extended his weapon and engaged the spear points on both ends. Their backs were now pressed against each other; the two inched down the middle of the road while facing the sidewalks on each side. A thin movement between two shadows caught the corner of the Mage’s eye. The wind picked up again, hissing wildly. “Ajax?”
“Have you ever been to the capital building?”
“Damnit. If the idiot who made that law still lives, I’ll personally torture the bias out of him. Right now I’m all for risking the teleport.”
“Well—” The word fell flat on his tongue. A skyscraper’s shadowy point lay between his heels, and on the tip, he saw another shadow, moving, clinging to one side and then scurrying over to the other. Raising a hand to block the sun, he looked up high and stared against the glare. But he didn’t need to let his eyes struggle. The moving figure was coming down toward them, and fast, on ten legs that stabbed into the outer shell of the building flawlessly. “Ajax, fly! Fly now!” Menver spun around and grabbed the lad by the lower back of his armor and proceeded to launch both of them skyward with a hard jump; and then, with a blast of power, he shot them forward with a suddenness that slapped the Mage’s lungs. In the back of his mind, he knew that he might have made the worst of two choices. From behind, the beast on the building came running downward, leaping off the side from high and colliding with the ground. Its segmented legs took the leap without harm, and the three tarsal claws of each foot curled greedily against the sand as the creature sprinted forward. The two forelegs snapped together, their claws elongate and serrate, creating scissors that would slice a Tuluhrai in half with a snip. Tucked below the neck that attached the four-eyed and mandibleladen head to the fifteen-foot elongated body was a single pincer that could shoot out from beneath the sand and snare its prey. The creature, a hestos, beat its middle three pairs of legs rapidly into the sand and screeched. Menver looked behind to the monster, hatred and disgust taking shape on his face, ing that call. He let go of Ajax, who faltered for a minute and fell until catching himself with a running landing, and rose again to the same low altitude as the Mage. Just as Menver expected, from their sides and above, more rhythmic, rattling drums returned, along with the drawn-out screeches. The hestos were out unfortunately early. The Mage pulled alongside Ajax and yelled to get his voice over the rushing air. “Fly as fast as you can! Do not look back! Head straight for the capitol building and do not get too close to the ground! Once it is in sight, portal straight for it! I’m going to try to stall them! Do not interfere, Legionnaire!” Hearing his sworn title called in an order, Ajax nodded and flew as fast as he could down the spoke road, carrying his spear across his body, readied in case he was waylaid. Behind, Menver drew up to stand midair and spun about, slowing down just enough to get a better eye of possible enemy numbers. Two hestos
were chasing them openly down the spoke road, but he saw, or heard, the scattering of claws on metal siding and the chafing sounds of sand being dug through with blades. He knew his saber couldn’t pierce the armored carapaces of the hestos, at least not in the vital areas. His own natural energies were useless against them. The damn things were utterly immune to the offensive attacks and forms of Tuluhrai, and in this he was included. The elemental commands he could make while on the run in a desert city were few, so the ones that came to mind had to count. He spread his arms wide and began to chant quietly, “Earth below, mighty and strong, ye who swallow cities and spew destruction, halt my foes with mountains tall.” He finished with a resonating clap, and the spell was sealed. The hestos on the open road stopped in their tracks and skittered from one side of the road to the other in confusion. Below the ground quaked, gave a short shudder, and erupted a wall of sand-topped earth that punched its way to a height of twenty meters, stretching from the side of one building to the side of another. Menver lowered his palms and raised them haltingly, appearing to lift some invisible weights that were nearly too much for him. As he flew backward and struggled with the spell’s maintenance, more walls of earth erupted down the sidewalks, each just as high as the first and capping shut all the connections from the spoke way to the side roads that he ed. From the other side of the initial wall, he could hear the two hestos switch from their screeches to high-pitched hoots, the sound of frustration. Menver lowered his hands again and relinquished the spell, looking high to the building tops for more creatures. He knew that whichever others he might have trapped in the alleys were, like the first two, already burrowing their way through the toppled rock, sand, and metal of the upturned city flooring. Above, he caught sight of one on each side of him, scrambling down the building heights to points where the bases were close enough to leap from one to the other, following him that way. Menver pointed his palms toward them, aiming at a point just a couple yards ahead of the front legs, and summoned to each palm an orb of energy that engulfed his hands and wrists. His eyes jumping from left to right to make sure there were no sudden changes in the hestos’ movements, he let the orbs burst. Two solid beams of dark energy shot forth and dug into the buildings’ exoskeletons, rupturing them on impact. The beasts, invulnerable to the attack itself, found their walking surfaces disintegrating beneath their feet, such that the one to the Mage’s left couldn’t grab another foothold in time and plummeted, to be impaled on the obelisk form of a walkway lamp. To Menver’s right, the other hestos flipped over, its back to the outer wall, with its hind claws gripping desperately to slow its fall. The knees
of its other legs flailed and knocked against, but were incapable of bending backward to grip onto the smooth surface of, the residential skyscraper. Smiling grimly, Menver turned back around to again face the capitol building and refocused his power on speed of flight. But ahead he saw something he hoped in his heart wouldn’t happen. Ajax struggled against a single hestos that had gotten its foreclaws on both ends of his spear, and he was vainly wrestling to get it loose. “Dear Lord … Ajax!” Menver drew his saber loose, sending a wave of energy through it to aid its speed. He brought the sword up and high and threw it with all his force; he then guided it with his thoughts to aim for the creature’s left eye. Ajax jolted to the left to avoid the sword, sensing its approach, which took away from his balance. The hestos let go of one side and flung Ajax aside with a sweep of its right claw, while bringing its left up just in time to block the saber. It snorted as the sword’s tip bit just enough into the heavy carapace to stick. It faced Menver now, who had come to a skidding halt after seeing it stop his diversion. Coming around the animal’s back end was Ajax, hunched down in the same primal stance he had taken earlier. Menver cautiously flitted back and forth in the air, keeping his eyes on the hestos, mostly on its mouth. He called out after swallowing down a dry mouthful of anxiety. “Ajax, can you call your weapon from its grasp?”
It lashed out with the stabbed claw and spit a wad of orange resin at Menver. He dodged it easily, luckily. “Not without damaging it! Telekinesis doesn’t work on hestos, like everything else! Can you see the capitol yet?” Before he could answer, Ajax was forced to spin about and leap away from a claw that the beast whipped out. Its pincers slammed into the ground just as he’d sprung forward, but the hestos was charging and swinging about with its other weapon. Menver knew Ajax would land on his hands and flip forward, and repeat until he felt he could land and face the hestos; but Menver also knew that despite the distance those powerful legs could make Ajax travel, the creature would have snatched and cut him in two before he touched ground. Spitting into the sand, Menver dashed around the hestos’s right flank, circling about it and rapidly mumbling spells of power with his fingers outstretched to the ground by its feet. The sands popped and flared all around it, snapping flares of green fire,
scorching the dense chitinous skin. It squealed and awkwardly began darting its ten feet up and away from the trapping flames, finding no easy way out. “Now, Ajax! Retrieve it now or don’t complain of it later!” Ajax nodded and started to tug slowly at the air, his mind wrestling to pull the spear out from a loosening grip. Meanwhile, Menver sank his palms low, kneeling even to touch the sand, and in so doing created a small sinkhole that lowered the hestos and made more of its panic. The saber was easily rattled out from its barely nicked home in the tough shell and returned to the Mage’s hand. Ajax appeared to have recovered his spear too, as he had just crafted a portal and was pointing to it for Menver to duck into. It was the right decision. Just as Menver was flying through the hasty exit, three more hestos were closing in from ahead, presumably toward Ajax, to cut off them off. But they were a matter of importance no longer. The portal shunted them a few miles closer to the capital building. No signs of hestos lingered when they exited, but neither Mage nor Legionnaire was willing to walk the rest of the way. Menver crafted successive portals, one after the other to close the distance, bringing them finally within clear sight of the capitol building. As the greatest structure in Tehvoon, the capitol building stretched easily above and beyond the tops of all other buildings standing nearby. The width of its base was impossible for the Mage to guess at, but he marveled at how it, relatively, was so narrow in comparison to its height. Its foundation was like an obtuse clover, its smooth lines delving into each other with such grace and unblemished masonry. Unlike every other building, it was not alloy clad; instead it was made of carefully carved and polished maroon stone mined at the base of Nethar’s mountain range, east of the city. The rounded corners diminished as they climbed, tapering into a cylindrical peak that eventually flattened out into a landing pad for dignitaries’ transports. A short spire stood in each corner, topped with a floating orb as a throwback to the relic Gateways. Menver guessed that the structure had to be well over a mile tall. It was now that he wondered why Ajax hadn’t simply used the tip on the horizon as a beacon for a portal, but then, there was always a reason a member of the Deltornir did or did not do something. A dozen sets of twin doors of widths capable of ushering in Veshuns stood before them, all crafted from deltraj and engraved with runes in characters that predated the current script. It was a language that was foreign to Ajax, but one that Menver knew well. It wasn’t too far-off a patriarch of the Vishok script. Menver chose a sternly worded door, fourth from the left, which started off in its
writing as the others did but had a message that he particularly enjoyed. To his interpretation, it ran thusly:
Travelers through these doors, seek neither power nor position; desire not to teach, but to learn. Experience will show your worth to us and not your haughty ego. Those who this entrance should do so only if they can fear not the Observers.
Menver arched a brow at the warning against the haughty, chuckling as he ed that he’d never met a humble Tuluhrai. He pushed gently on the doors at first, to no avail. Afterward, he dug the toes of his boots in, crouched, and pushed, using all the natural, unaided strength he could muster. Failing that, he stepped back to allow an impatient Ajax to have at it, while he flooded his muscles with power. His strength already normally at three times that of an equally built human, he estimated that this boost maybe tripled that, certainly doubling it. Vedin was much better at this technique than he and had always practiced it more. With Ajax struggling against the door, Menver threw himself at it with a yell. The door quivered and shook from the force, but stood still and somber, tall and authoritative before the pair. Being hinged by magnetic bearings now de-energized, the door was nothing more than a large slab of pure, dense metal that needed to be torn down—and quickly, too. A chilling sensation grew along Menver’s spine again, a tell-tale sign of the hestos’ advance. As Menver stepped back to take a moment to assess the situation, Ajax was barreling backward into the obstruction, butting it with the broad armored portion of his back. Menver stared up at the rounded tip of the door and grimaced. It was just utterly ridiculous to him that the Tuluhrai could coat so much of everything in synthetic deltraj. Were it not for that damn metal, he could will that door down to the floor and even use it to swat dead any hestos in sight. More absurd was knowing that here they were, the great mage Menver Torunthane of a Hundred Ages, and Ajax Torunthunai, Legionnaire soldier of the Seventh Crulaj of the Deltornir, and they were running into an immovable chunk of metal as though they were birds bouncing off glass. It was at moments like these that Menver felt absolutely wretched. Moments like these also made for laughable scenarios minutes after some overtly rash action hastened the solution.
His eyes tracing the curves between the monolithic masonry frame and the preaching door, Menver noticed something that he believed would be of some use. As magnetically held doors, they would normally be held above the ground to prevent them from catching while opening and closing, meaning that there was perhaps a couple inches of open space between the upper part of the crescent door and the frame that held it. Shrugging, Menver stepped a few more paces backward and called for Ajax to stand far to the side, unsure if what he was about to do would cause the door to topple forward and away, or back and onto them. Because the rumor was that deltraj originated from the god Tuluhr, as did all the energies and strengths of the people, it provided a decent enough explanation for deltraj’s ability to utterly ignore any power manipulations made by Tuluhrai and Shekethrum. Intriguing, but not something Menver entirely appreciated at the moment. There was no chance that, if it fell toward him and he’d misjudged his distance away or was too slow, a shield would stop it. It wouldn’t be stopped, slowed, or amused at all and would merely crush him flat. And if he were to throw a series of orb grenades at its tip to knock it forward, they would only harmlessly splash and disperse on its surface. There was a slightly less direct way of going about this. “Hmm. Ajax? I suggest moving farther away still, or turn that arm shield device of yours on to cover your head. There’s the possibility of raining rock today.” Menver then pointed to the sky and began to rotate his finger counterclockwise in a slow, even motion. The lights of his eyes turned from green to blue, with a visible static charge reaching out from his pupils. “Sky’s fury of strengths unknown, elegant blades you cast down upon us!” Gray clouds began to coalesce over the capitol building, accompanied by a shrill, cold wind that tossed sand about them in small tornadoes. “Gather here and now I ask, and instill fear in that which stands before you resolute!” Lightning broke from the smooth billowing surfaces of the whirlpool clouds above and snaked from one to the other. A pair of bolts struck the ground by Menver’s feet and carved their way up and into his palms, which were now glowing with a purple light and rocking gently, cradling the two destructive forces. He bounced his hands up once, then twice, and without so much a sign or change of expression, he hurtled the two bolts high, to the framework just above
the infamous door. The lightning scoured the rock, gutting it and wrenching loose a boulder as massive as four Ajaxes standing shoulder to shoulder. It hadn’t a chance to fall far, as Menver had already reached out with an invisible hand to hold it high in place. Rubble and stones did rain downward, but they found no mark on Ajax, instead impacting the cushioning sand. With a free left hand, he wafted away the increasing clouds, removing the anomalous micropatch of weather from Nethar. Then he pulled his right fist back, dislodging the hovering boulder from the rest of the edifice and balancing it quickly between his palms. “You know, Ajax, that I’ve nothing against brute force. Sometimes it simply needs a little supplement to make it work right.” The lines at the corners of the Mage’s mouth creased with a trite smile, and taking in a deep breath, Menver brought the huge piece of debris several meters farther back. His arms strained for a moment before launching the boulder into the door’s head. It flew straight, unerring, and fragmented against the deltraj-coated entrance with a sound that pealed off the surrounding buildings and shook the sand off their sides. Ajax growled and snarled and backed away, his hands pressed tightly against his helmet, while Menver stood mostly stoic, the bare twitch in his right eye his only expression of the pain. From far off, although closer than he ed, howling cries and chittering calls answered the impossibly loud gong that the Mage rang. The door itself creaked backward and wobbled against its wide foot. Menver arched a brow high in the same manner as Vedin, waiting expectantly. The golden entrance buckled forward toward them, leering as a menace over the two, and then lurched backward again. As it started to move away, Menver jumped up and took to flight, bulleting himself to where his boulder had shattered and driving his boots at the door to hurry its fall. He further pushed himself, gripping even the unscathed side of the surrounding frame and using all his nonhuman strength to flex his thighs and kick his way through. Beneath his heels, the great gold-colored obstruction began to tilt a little quicker, reaching the edge of its fulcrum, but he could feel it bending back against his heels. Harder he pushed while the skin of his gloves started to tear and his fingers uncurled. His efforts proved to not be in vain. The giant door moved again, and Menver’s legs straightened again, quicker than last time, as though he were taking a careful stand. When he could lock his knees, he yelled down to Ajax, “Cover your ears or run to the other side! This will be ungodly loud!” The Legionnaire shuffled a step at first, hesitant, part of him cringing in shame at seeing even that
one part of the hallowed building fall. He frowned and swallowed back the bitter dryness in his mouth. On seeing the door a forty-five-degree angle, and falling swiftly, he shook his dismay from his head and dashed along the building’s perimeter to escape the full wake of the plummet’s echo. For his part, Menver erected a doubly reinforced shield about him to break the sound waves’ approach. And it did crash, with a cataclysmic sound that was far more deafening than the last alarm Menver set off, amplified by the acoustics of its hollow interior. Even through his shield, he could hear the sound, muffled but with enough magnitude to make him question his technique, since he’d never really tried to block sound before. Ajax, on the other hand, fared worse, though not terribly. As he moved back around to reconnoiter with the Mage, his helm off and himself busy with rubbing his ears, he could see the amount of dust sifting out of the opened entrance, with Menver, arms crossed, hovering in the middle. <Enough desecration, Uncle. Let us hurry inside, before the hestos catch us.> To that, Menver beckoned Ajax toward him and hovered his way inside. Through the dust and sand kicked up by the sudden and great disturbance, Menver finally saw the interior of the capitol that he had, many times, been barred from entering. It had a hollow glow, enough to brighten every pocket and corner, but not so much that the Mage’s eyes weren’t straining for every photon they could scavenge. High above, a ring of windows was carved into the sloping sides—cylindrical holes lined with mirrors that funneled sunlight through to supplement the glimmer of the sundown pouring through the downed door. Menver took a few cautious steps inside, his hands relaxing and dropping away from his sword. The cavity of the first floor was far greater than he had imagined it would be. Seven huge fountains were nestled in each pocket of the clovershaped foundation—one inside each lobe, and a grand one in the middle, or at least what had once been one. Thirteen grooved crescent moons lay on the ground, the greatest on the outside and those lesser in between, arranged so that the point of one lay on top of the ading point of its larger cousin. Unable to guess what is shape once was, Menver assumed to himself that it was probably held aloft through some electric means obviously no longer available. Of course the floor was of raked flat sand: a minor irritation to the Mage, who had hoped to escape from it at least here. Tall oval booths were arranged in equally spaced diagonal rows that spread out from the floor’s center. On the roof of each booth was inscribed a single symbol, unique to each booth in a row, repeated in its parallel in the other rows, describing what sort of information could be accessed
from it. Menver started to gather that the general full-blooded public could at least gain entry to the first floor. Past that, as he looked up, he found that the building was barred to only those of military rank and civil workers. Signs were posted along the rim of the second-floor balcony saying as much, which struck him as peculiar; the Tuluhrai were not a treacherous people, and the risk of crime or spying from their own was minimal, he found. His eyes panned downward and refocused to the monuments directly across from him. Huge sculptures of past figures lined the walls, each lobe apparently devoted to praising certain sects of Tuluhrai society. To their right was the area dedicated to the religious leaders: statues of priests belonging to Anyugrai-Mehruhn Tuluhrriyahir, the Holy Royal Order of the Church of Tuluhr (as Menver called them), and the priestesses of the Hetlurai, the ones who wrote and istrated the cultural laws of Tuluhrai life, as well as harboring the secrets to the Natural Powers. Ahead of them, on the walls barely lit by the opposite opening, were the daring and grim figures of past warriors: the most decorated and revered soldiers of the Deltornir, as well as heroes from the days of antiquity, when magic ruled over technology. There they posed, each with his chosen weapon clutched for eternity against the foes of the living; the arms ranged from spears to small hand blades to rifles of some class to weapons the Mage couldn’t even classify. And to his left was the group least appreciated by modern society but still highly regarded in this, their home—the council . Theirs were the plainest statues, the figures standing simply, or cast as sitting, great scrolls or discs held in their hands. Long were both their hair and robes, the latter of which were tied with stone cords against their long limbs and athletic bodies. All save one held their gaze skyward, their featureless eyes staring ahead. Menver wanted to fly over to see if there was some explanation chiseled into the foundation, but between his growing nervousness and Ajax’s tugging on his sleeve, he knew there was no time for it. Knowing the weapons store was far beneath the ground floor and there had to be an entrance nearby, Menver became annoyed at seeing no blatant ways down. There were teleportation chambers clustered into stations along the floor and flying tubes that reached up to the pinnacle roof, but between the vastness of the ground floor, lacking rooms or offices or anything to make it appear more than an indoor commemorative park, as well as any single distortion or sign, Menver didn’t see how they would find the way down. But Menver was still a civilian and a nekaf on the full-bloods’ homeworld, and
he knew that the locations of such things were not at all meant for his knowledge. So he turned to Ajax. “Do tell me that little computer you carry happens to know where we might start to look for our way to the armory, hmm, Ajax?” He blinked his eyes (which amused the Mage who saw the lights extinguish and reappear within the darkness of the helmet) and returned the question with one of his own.
“Well, yes. Do you know where it is? English now, I’m getting a headache trying to interpret everything you say.” “Fine. I am looking for it now. Every city is different. It takes time. The helmet was to look through the sand. This is a large area to look through.” When Ajax tilted his head, Menver finally saw the trailing green plane of light sweeping swiftly up and down, made visible by its angle into the floating dust. “You can try Tuluhrai too. You speak too fast sometimes. You are lucky I am smart and understand more of what I hear.” “Enh. We have a planet to talk Tuluhrai to,” grumbled the Mage before giving a quick clap. “All right then. I’ll go outside and watch for hestos. Never know how long it’ll take them to reach a site. They love changing their ways. Call me in here as soon as you find it.” Menver cast a final glance about and walked out to do as he said he’d do. Ajax shrugged at that and continued to stand as still as he possibly could. He didn’t want to shift his height or bow his head or do anything that would disrupt the scanner’s angle and track, for fear of ing over the basement’s entrance. While that scanning system panned about, Ajax accessed the filament camera on the visor’s inner surface to take pictures of the capital building’s interior. And he didn’t see any reason why not to do so; even after the war was won, he would still be fe Soothurai, the hybrid, and barred by sacred law from entering here again. He also had the secondary scanner map as much of the interior as possible and correlate it by percentages of similarity to known standardized building layouts, his reasoning being that if they needed to reach the upper levels, they could at least have a sketchy idea of where exits and access points may be. Using the binocular function too, he zoomed in on the warriors’ grounds, enhanced the ambient light, and glared at the figure that lay directly in his line of sight.
Audibly, he rasped out in a cracked voice, deep and feral,
His voice bounced in echoes throughout upon yelling in the Tuluhrai tongue umtrath, meaning “heresy,” bringing the Mage to return to the great doorway and peek inside. “What has gotten you so mad? I can’t even recall the last time I heard you truly speak, or yell. Suppose that’s not surprising for your first choice in using those vocal chords.” A red star shifted, grew, then shrank against the enhanced visual showing Vedin’s statue. The scan was finished. Ajax whipped about and crouched, the mere feel of his rage being interpreted by the helmet to signal the gauntlets to engage the talons, and he faced Menver, replying with his mind,
Menver frowned with frustration, as well as some dismal jealousy. Despite how much he had changed, any matter concerning his brother bothered him as nothing else could, and this hit very close to vaguely ed sources of conflict that he once had with his twin. He felt for Ajax, since Vedin had treated the boy as though he were indeed worthless. It was the main reason Menver tried to divert the boy away from Vedin and took him under his care. Menver also held no true ill will toward his brother for the child’s treatment. The Mage knew that the Vedin who was Ajax’s father was not the same man as the Vedin who had been dragged to Tuluhr by the High Priestess Avallah. Idiot and drunkard though Vedin was in the last century and a half of his life, he was still a better man than the cold drone the Hetlurai recreated him as. Menver rubbed the side of his jaw with the back of his glove and strode toward Ajax, speaking loudly at first but softening his voice as he got closer. “Ajax, I apologize that seeing his memorial insults you so deeply. I understood that much, since your thoughts raced through mine. It insults me, too, since I was also at that battle, and others that they tested Vedin in. And since then I’ve done more for Tuluhr. Think, though. That … statue … was probably cast soon after he killed that monster. I don’t know how well you that day, but the
fight happened not far away from this city. Vedin wasn’t from Tuluhr. The leaders who were probably assumed that since Tehvoon was saved from being ripped apart by the Destroyer, then here was the best place to honor him.”
“Quiet … quiet. Not that I haven’t shared your same sentiments, but he was still your father, and one who did indeed stop the Destroyer from consuming Tehvoon like he did Leyern. He was also a fighter of much renown both in the previous world and on Earth. His name is regarded still with cheers in both realms. that before you say he doesn’t deserve some trophy. The man who was the true Vedin deserves this and more. If he, the Vedin I knew, could acknowledge how he treated you, trust me, he would spend all his endless days trying to make amends.” Menver nodded with assurance to Ajax, patting him twice on the breastplate and then taking a few steps toward the fading sunlight to return to his watch. Ajax tensed up at the rebuke, growling, and showed his displeasure by twice slicing the air with his hands. Ri to the flats of his claws, he nodded over to his right, trying to cap the transmittance of his anger to the Mage.
Without waiting for Menver’s acknowledgment, Ajax stomped toward the indicated spot. Menver shook his head patiently and ran in Ajax’s direction, already having much ground to cover from the doorway. Menver could see through Ajax’s steps alone that the lad was still seething at his father’s statue. Ajax was taking long strides at a pace equal to the Mage’s brisk jog, his breath coming in measured beats, a deep inhale followed by a shorter one, then an exhalation in the same fashion. This breathing was part of the preparation for the most important ritual dance in the Tuluhrai history, the one in summation of their people’s history. Given the dance’s inherent savagery, Ajax always enjoyed it as a means of working his frustrations out, and whenever Ajax shifted his breathing habit to the dance’s, Menver noticed, it was because he was angry. Ajax’s anger directed itself to feverishly scooping his great arms into the sand, driving it aside with all the fury and relentlessness of the summer winds, heaving it off to his left while Menver crossed around behind to his right. Ajax’s great hands and elongate fingers were shovel spades, plowing through foot by foot
downward. Menver stood back and let Ajax work without interruption. So as not to be idle, Menver let his mind wander and stretch out, recalling in hazy bird’seye images the main street they had teleported down. The images brightened and dulled to the beat set by Ajax’s work, and the grainy pictures seen only within the Mage’s mind increased and decreased in their clarity with the same rhythm; the work pace was now set for both of them. Ajax’s armored fingertips suddenly ground with a screech against a hard surface, causing him to recoil and hop up from his knees to a full stand. At that same time Menver frowned and spat out, “If that’s the entrance you’ve found, let’s open it and hurry! They’re on their way, five blocks out.” Both bent and scraped madly at the edges of the hole, throwing sand to the sides and between their legs, trying to feel for a handle or slip or anything that they could grab. Menver stood back up for a moment and closed his eyes again, sending his senses out again to check the progress of the hestos. They had advanced another three blocks and were soon to burst inside to meet them. “Ajax, we’re in a bit of a rush!” He didn’t acknowledge Menver verbally, instead moving to the center of the cleared area and muttering a phrase made inaudible by the din he created in ramming his fist between his feet, forcing out a powerful shockwave that blasted away all the floor material from the site and throwing Menver onto his back. As Menver scrambled back to his feet, Ajax leaped from the center to the edge of the now well apparent circular shaft door that lay five meters away. A single wire shot out of his left gauntlet and felt around the edge of the shaft, crawling on a trio of micrometer-thick legs, until it found the proper spot and started to bore through. Ajax’s visor lit up with flashing command codes, and his thoughts communicated orders: <Emergency override. Unlock security codes due to current state. Legionnaire Ajax Torunthane.> The shaft door dilated open and the two, looking up in time to see shadows blackening their source of light, nodded to each other and dropped through, the entrance door thereafter closing and shutting them into darkness.
CHAPTER 5
ENTIRELY LIT BY THE BRIGHT lime glow of a floating lamp, the shaft they had fallen into dug narrowly into the bedrock lying under Tehvoon. During their controlled descent, Ajax began to explain what the computer had informed him of once it had ed current events as the highest-level emergency and unlocked vital information. One piece of these new revelations happened to be the structure of the capitol building. The shaft they were in was actually not the main entrance to the basement levels. Those could only be accessed through the teleporter system. This used to be an access corridor for repair machinery, until mobile teleportation devices were installed in the drones. The many pores in the shaft’s siding were openings to ducts that spread like blood vessels through the spaces between the different levels, giving the repair machinery access to any point of trouble. Via such means, they would make their way to the twentieth sublevel, but they would need to find the proper duct and cut their way through the ceiling. Menver nodded to all that, hardly surprised at all that yet another part of this trip was being made slightly more difficult than it needed to be, and announced too that Tuluhrai society should learn a lesson from humanity and make sure that not everything will catastrophically fall apart because of a blackout. As rubber-soled boots and metal-plated claws hit the conical bottom of the shaft, just one level short of the intended mark, Ajax scanned about to relay their position to the computer and determine which duct would take them closest to the armory. With the small red beam shooting down lengthy black tunnels, Ajax found it fit to reply to the mage’s comment. “Humanity could be lucky to be like us. They will probably kill each other in battle with stupid, dirty fission weapons. They will probably anger Jortasha, and they will have real war.” “That’s what they used to say a hundred years ago there. That yes, they’d blow up the world with nuclear weapons and all would be damned and the Earth ruined for all ages, et cetera. But you really underestimate them, Ajax. You see —” “This one, Uncle. I apologize.”
Menver nodded and continued. “You see, they’re not entirely unlike your people.” Ajax crouched down and jumped high. Two slits in the heels of his leg plating opened, a pair of yellow discs forming beneath his feet before he could reach the peak and shooting down to the floor. “They are easily both violent and proud and blind to what they’re doing.” Ajax started to walk the perimeter of the shaft, ed temporarily by the discs, which buzzed with each step he took and dimmed when his foot lingered too long. “And they’re also very questioning. You’ll find them extremely stubborn to accept things for long, always questioning authorities and trends to find some sort of truth or reasoning behind it. If they don’t like what they see, they fight it and move on. There’s always countless causes and battles, military and civilian, occurring on Earth. One man’s piety is another man’s blasphemy there. You are listening to me, I hope?” Ajax looked down and nodded in confirmation, and knowing that to not be enough, while peering into a particular tunnel, relayed back to Menver in thought what he had just been saying, word for word, in his voice, with all the proper inflections and tones. Ajax even accommodated a few images of what he supposed to be his uncle’s movements while speaking. Menver tilted his head aside and said quietly, “All right then. So I suppose you were.” “This is the right one. It is small, but we should fit.” Menver shrugged and floated to where Ajax paced back and forth, continually renewing the discs’ hold on him. Menver brought his lamp closer to him and decreased its intensity with an impatient flick of his wrist. He then looked toward Ajax to take the lead. The Legionnaire, in his pacing, thought a command, and the helmet shot out three sets of wires: one to each gauntlet and one to his breastplate. His visor shot up back into the overhanging rim of the helmet, and a curious change came over the armor, one that the Mage hadn’t seen before. In the cool, ghostly green brightness cast by Menver’s floating light, the transformation of Ajax’s defense reminded him of enchanted pieces wrought by the mage-smiths in the world he’d last left behind. The smooth metal of the shoulder plating suddenly broke into small slats that tilted up, appearing like vents, then shrank in on themselves into a ladderlike structure that pulled in on itself and became flush with the collar of the breastplate. That itself folded its abdominal covering into the chest, and the parts protecting the lower back slid into the shoulder blades. The gauntlets removed most of the gloves, save for a small covering the back of the hand and its attaching metallic band across the palm. The uncovered portions of skin were almost white from a lack of exposure. Satisfied with the slimmer, more flexible form of his armor, Ajax planted his hands against the sides of the circular duct and pulled himself in. The discs below faded and the slits closed.
Menver blinked once in awe and followed Ajax in. The space was just wide enough to allow Ajax to crawl through, with one or the other shoulder bumping and rubbing against the cold corrugated metal of the age. It was more comfortable for Menver, who sent his floating orb of light forward to give at least him an idea of what they were approaching. Ajax had recalled his visor, which showed him everything in more detail across three different viewing modes than was ever necessary. Past the soft paddings of hand, glove, claw, and boot against metal, and the hissing of breath through teeth, it was silent in the duct. Behind them, beyond the trailing edges of the Mage’s light, was pure blackness. No light from above could ever reach them through the broken doorway, through the closed entrance of the shaft to the twenty stories below. It was a disquieting notion to Menver. Ajax broke the silence with soundless thoughts that disrupted the Mage’s concentration. “We are one quarter there. Then we will turn right and move half the distance we have moved now.” Menver tugged his light back toward him to allow him to see down a side tunnel he was slowly ing. Sitting against the wall of the duct and looking in, he remarked, “It’s quite a ways then still. Let me ask you, though … Your armor— why is it I’ve never seen it transform that much? Not in military parades or the fights at Jurda and Chartev Nral have I seen that. I was convinced the right gauntlet’s gun and talon mounts were the extent of conformational change technology in the Deltornir’s infantry supply.” Seeing nothing but the reflection of more riveted gold siding spackled with red wires and glassy plates, Menver removed his lamp and sent it in front of Ajax again, who had waited and was moving again at the floating light’s lead. The sliding of the tips of his toes against the cobble-ringed surface was heard all the way down the empty, long, lifeless tunnels. Menver’s ears strained to hear some other sounds, but they heard nothing, while Ajax’s voice again spoke to him from within. “It always could change. The helmet does not because it is made like Vedin’s, and I will not disobey tradition. The armor can become greater than you have seen it too. There has not been reason for that yet.” “No reason for that yet, hmm? Well, let me know when you see something it’s meant for.” Menver grimaced and began to crawl forward again after Ajax, who had already put another several meters between them. The floating light he sent
out was bright enough to cast enough illumination to put ease to his nerves. Not that it was the dark that would bother him, since it ran through his blood, but with the hestos so close behind, he’d rather be able to see everything about him with his own eyes than trust solely in Ajax’s visor. Millennia had ed since the last time he’d seen their larval forms, but he ed them deeply, as any prey is fully instinctually aware of their predator. Ducts like these were perfect for larvae to infest. Just like the tunnels of Atlantis once were. “Ajax? How much farther? I can stand darkness and war, but I hate tunnels. There hasn’t been enough time for me to tell you all my tales, but this I shall say: I hate tunnels, and I’ve good reason.” “Uncle, you have been very nervous today. Are you all right?” Menver rolled back to his heels and stared out cautiously behind him, having noticed that Ajax had stopped again and was looking intently down at the area underneath. “I suppose. Maybe I’m too used to fighting people and soldiers on open fields or in cities. I’m old and experienced and mortal. I forget certain things, and certain fears, and seeing those hestos roaming unchecked on the surface reminded me of many things. After the war between Jortasha and the clans on Atlantis, it was said our populations were still high, in the lower thousands. When I was born, the two clans numbered no more than a handful hundred each. There were hestos aboard Atlantis. Kryus never confirmed my suspicion, but I believe that the hestos created the gap.” Menver bowed his head and shuffled around to lean against the curved wall. Though the surface was far from smooth, it did relieve him some to rest his back against something rather than forcibly stay in that crouch. The worn edges of his boot heels hit the opposite wall with hollow sounds, and he slouched lower still. He glanced toward Ajax, wondering what in the world had caught the lad’s attention that he neither shared his thoughts nor moved. The Legionnaire merely sat there, sitting on his haunches and leaning forward, his head hanging low and hands planted in front. A red beam from the right corner of the visor, where jaw plate, crest, and glass met, ran in ever-decreasing circular tracks. Ajax’s right hand removed itself from the duct’s floor and rose to meet a corresponding wire protracting quickly toward it from his helmet. The wire’s searching filamentous fingers grappled onto the armored back of Ajax’s
hand and almost immediately retracted back into the main wire, which returned to the helm in a buzz of collapsing microtubules just as Ajax’s right forearm became encased in gold and the cold, clean sound of his claws’ unsheathing filled the close-quartered area. The Mage slid back up and returned to his feet. Ajax’s voice finally filled Menver’s mind. “I thought so. The door above was on a battery for emergency. For <maintenance> emergencies if power gone.
can open the access holes in here, but we can’t. Can’t because of electricity. This pipe is not too thick; we can cut through.” Menver narrowed his eyes at that and tapped the floor with a knuckle. The echo was short-lived. “Guess—how thick would you say that it is? Does your helmet have that sort of information?” “As thick as …” and the idea of what Ajax was trying to communicate came to Menver—that it was about equal to the length of the Mage’s arm. At that, Menver flinched, his mind pricked from the far-too-personal means of communication and from the sheer amount of material they’d have to cut through. “Is this thing coated with deltraj at all, Ajax? Or even synthetic deltraj?” “No.” “Good. Well, I do want to get out of this rut, so I’ll do this fast. Am I still over the target room or hall or whatever if were to start cutting here?” “We will fall on a bridge that crosses the room. Do not go any farther backward.” “Fine. Move forward a bit to allow me some room. If the outer rim of the cut goes with it, which I doubt, I’d rather you not tumble into the lip of the hole.” Menver removed his right glove and placed his palm flatly against the duct. Strangely, it was not cold at all to his touch, though he more than expected it would be. As a series of translucent bands of energy swirled around his arm, he gave it more consideration. Being deep underground with zero ventilation to connect to the outside world, maybe ambient heat from the planet was keeping the metal ducts warm. The energies swirling around his arm flowed into the skin of his hand and condensed into a dark, hardly visible glow peeking through the
ridged surface below his palm. In fact, Menver noted to himself, until he thought of it, he hadn’t realized that it was uncomfortably warm down here and he was sweating rather badly. He clacked his teeth together and refocused his thoughts on the task at his hand. The summoned energies became concentrated to a single point, walled by Menver’s will against nature’s intention to disperse it across all space. He drew the energy point upward with his hand and then, with a blink of an eye, channeled it in the one direction he wanted: straight down and through the duct. Immediately as the energies hit the bottom ing, they started to bore through, casting a warm glow across Menver’s face and leaving molten pools of wire and pipe to bubble into the ridges, sizzling as the fluid kept flowing back into the cutting ray. His fingers spread, widening the beam, which burned away at the duct and the ceiling attached to it, spilling a tear-inducing smoke into the Mage’s face. As his energy drill began to widen the hole to a clean six inches across, he twisted his wrist about, and the energies responded with a quickly moving counterclockwise spin. The hole started to widen more, and the Mage, straddling it, hopped over to one side in a most uncomfortable display of motor skills and telekinetic balance effectors. With the hole’s radius opening beyond his arm’s length and the heat of the spell starting to pump the sweat from his skin, Menver nodded to Ajax to follow him and dropped through. As they fell through, Menver opened his hands and cast a quick light spell to illuminate the darkness. His eyes dilated at seeing the expanse of the room he fell into. Rather, it wasn’t the expanse, he realized while righting himself midair to a stand, but what was within the armory room that sucked the air from his lungs. What lay all around him made him feel very small, like a child, so much so that the control he’d gained over his descent was lost at a foot above the bridge, causing him to collapse onto his knees upon landing. But what a sight. Ajax came plummeting down to have his fall broken by the hover-stilt systems installed in his boots. His uncle was standing back up finally but paid no mind to the Legionnaire’s presence. The Mage’s light failed to disclose the vastness of the armory, but Ajax didn’t need any light to see. Through the thin screen of the visor, all was open to his viewing, and it was impressive. The armory was much more than a weapons store. On both sides of the bridge were main branches that split off to create newer junctions, and those into more, giving the upper layer a cobweb of platforms to get from any one area to another, mimicking the same architecture as the roadways on the surface above. Below, all was sorted into
rows: legions of machines, bipedal and hovercraft; tanks and aircraft, offensive and repair; and so much more. Ajax’s heart began to swell, and his fingers reached greedily out to the railing to peer over. The crests of a hundred Tulryr mecha gleaned brightly in an artificial gold, lined in ten rows of ten. The proud behemoths of the Deltornir’s machine divisions.
“Hmm? What?” Menver licked his lips and rubbed his eyes. “What else do you see?”
Menver put a hand on Ajax’s shoulder as he ed by, his concentration solely bent to peering toward what had gripped the lad’s attention. His footsteps sounded meaningless in the open, still space. His strength, his might gathered over the years, was but a drop in the whole strength of the remnant Tuluhrai military so long as armories such as this existed. So much power stood pure and fresh, so many machines of height and bulk that he was nothing before them. His fingertips barely breezed along the intemperate railing, and his eyes shifted back and forth from brown to green. Just as his hands began to clench onto the railing, the hollow of the room imploded against an influx of both light and sound. Trenches of lights encircling the whole room flared to life with a deafening noise that didn’t seem so much to be sound as it did a magnetism, bearing down on both the Mage’s ears and body. His head felt heavy, and his shoulders slumped; but as his eyes adjusted to the light, so did his strength. Oddly, as that short experience was, it hardly pulled his mind away from the assortment of weaponry cast for picks. The circling lights revealed to him a largely spherical room—or artificial cavern, as seemed more appropriate to call it. Menver finally saw the network of platforms and bridges that he was just standing in one strand of. Below and off to his left were the Tulryrs that Ajax had pointed out. Beyond them, in a fairly empty-looking spot,
squadrons offighter craft were docked. Behind them rested a host of hover mecha unknown to the Mage. Their bases were flat and smooth, chiseled in the front and back to fine points, and sitting in the center was the upper torso of a Veshun-like mecha with no apparent armament whatsoever. Both arms lacked any sort of hand or usable appendage, and the cyclopean head even appeared to be harmless and meek. Menver’s eyes scanned back to the Tulryrs and then bounced from row to row to find the machines Ajax had pointed out. His pupils contracted and widened again when he found them. “Holy hell.” Just as Ajax had said, four columns of mecha stood resolutely behind the Tulryrs. But as majestic and strong the Tulryrs were, embodiments of the solidarity and dignity of Tuluhrai modern society, something far more dangerous seemed to shine off the armor of this newer class. They were taller, broader than the Tulryrs, a more massive and sinister frame. The single-pit-eyed Tulryrs had a sculptured head with a fine but forthright chin and a barely curved profile that took its greatest angles sloping inward from the forehead. Generally it was featureless, save for that single blue eye occupying most of the face, and the visible canals between armor plates and intermittent lights frequently used on the outer hulls of both Deltornir and Creyanai war machines. Its arms were thick and simple looking, with three long, clawed fingers on each hand, each plodding, oval-shaped foot two-toed. Its designers had abstained from making the Tulryr as fanciful and elegant as the much smaller Veshun-type machine, preferring instead a thick and simple limbed form. The architects also had visual intimidation in mind, as its apparent bulk lay in the effect the shoulders gave it: the trapezius portion extending as high as the crown of the head, but remaining separate from the neck, acting as both brace and fear motivator. Even if it appeared to have no weaponry, the Tulryr’s eye doubled as the outlet for its main cannon, and various parts of its body—forearms, palms, chest, back—opened up to reveal gun and missile batteries of different strengths. The Tulryr was a power on its own. But these new ones, standing so close to the Tulryrs, made the Mage uneasy. Their features were cast sharp, cunning, a sleek-eyed assassin amid paladins. Their single eyes rested low on their faces, their foreheads inclining away. The tips of their shoulders extended into two crescent spines, which Menver thought strikingly odd. It looked, too, as if the Tuluhrai engineers had installed a whole additional layer of plating on top of the traditional Tulryr defensive exterior, which was by no means an easily pierced hull, as Menver knew from his own experiences. Even the hands’ fingers were longer, perhaps
for more surface area to slash with. But Menver was drawn especially to the strange color of their singular eyes. The Tulryrs were obviously dormant, but something of these others—the way the resonant blue drifted and changed when he moved his sight elsewhere—made the Mage much more wary. There were times in his previous life, sitting in crowded alehouses, surrounded by thieves and miscreants and whores, that he’d felt less attention square on his shoulders. He shook his head and turned about, needing to see some other sign of hope to relieve the distress set in by the artificial bloodmongers. Such signs were quickly found. They were impossibly hard to miss, and everything standing before them shrank diminutively against their backdrop. Three Creyanai war cruisers. Each at a converted length of 519 meters, 105 across, and 193 from bottom hull to top. Their armored hulls were a cold, dull gold, marked with the same intentionally patchwork plating, rivets placed where, if active, maroon lights would ebb with the same frequency as the ship’s inner core. The bow of each was marked with a long crevice that ran nearly the height of the ship, the inner lining ridged with thousands of combs that would be used to channel and focus generator power. It was the main gun. And all along the port and starboard flanks, though unseen, were cannon ports that would peel away the outer hull and let the gun through a liquid metal seal so that at no time would the multilayered hull bear an opening. Three intact cruisers of this make rested in the arsenal. By the way he ran down the bridge toward the cruisers, Ajax certainly appeared to be ecstatic to see them, a youthful spring of hope that Menver knew hadn’t once taken into consideration the true efficacy of those mobile weapon stations. Tehvoon’s armory showed no new Creyanai warship, nothing to the idea that perhaps the navy had a novel design in production, anything to replace the obviously overpowered and outdated cruisers. By no means could he call these ships weak; he had seen just one battle the Jortasha scout fleet during the Earth’s Great War. But against its peers in the Shekethrum arsenal, these, the Yekrathnirtype cruisers, were but deathtraps. Menver’s unease started to return. Even if they were the twice-as-powerful destroyers, it wouldn’t satisfy him. After seeing the Corthul torn apart and the Creyanai scattered and beaten like dogs, Menver couldn’t find any joy whatsoever in finding more of these naval failures. So much was put at stake in the Creyanai’s strength that they failed to understand that the arm that is always strong will not always remain the strongest. “We need something else” seethed from his lips. He knew their salvation would have to lie on the ground, where their might was far more equal to that of their oppressors.
The Mage’s fists tightened while he continued staring at the Yekrathnirs, his breath becoming heavy as the frustrated rage started to build once more. Ajax came beside him, placed his at the base of his neck, and rolling his head around to the sound of vertebrae cracking in stiffness.
As though in a timed response to Ajax, the circling lights dimmed to a faint orange and the sounds of various gears and folding metals raced all around them. An overtly electronic voice speaking in the in Tuluhrai language filled Menver’s mind:
Menver gripped the sides of his head and dug his middle fingers into his temples while scrolling texts and shape-shifting starry images ran throughout his brain. Through gritted teeth, he was yelling, “Damn it all to hell! I didn’t know your machines could talk back that way!”
Ajax communicated.
“Ugh … never mind … watch.” Ajax followed Menver’s narrowed steps toward the Yekrathnirs. A subtle bass frequency rippled along the floor of the armory, flowing from a pair of lateral vents in the wall behind the Yekrathnirs and spreading, accelerating, to the opposite end. Walls of dust came flying toward the two and ran against them with enough force to cause the Mage to falter back and to nearly push the Legionnaire from his balance. With the initial shockwave gone, the bass note continued its mellow, throaty repetition. Faint sounds began
to crop up everywhere beneath them, like pebbles thrown into the wash of a shoreline. Once Menver could re-collect his senses, he darted to the edge of the bridge and slid his torso nearly entirely over in order to see what was occurring below. Lights, everywhere. Glistening rubies and emeralds and sapphires placed delicately in ornamented armored skins started to shine. Menver’s heart rushed blood to his face, which became flushed at the sight. Veshuns, Tulryrs, Creyanai warships, roving tanks, and armored carriers all began to move out in unison, the marching steps of the large mecha brutal and rhythmic, punctuated by the sounds of driving pistons and grinding gears. Tuluhrai-sized robots lined like ants into streams that flowed into the larger mass; a great parade formed before the Mage, and his eyes wheeled down the metallic river to see which fall they were to pour into. The bass that had ignited the whole event concentrated itself at the head of the formation. Its force had become so great and controlled that Menver could actually see distortions of the air and dust vibrating back and forth in whatever field contained the noise. But no longer was it just noise; something visible was being created in the middle of the field—a white sphere, the only diamond among the marching treasures. <MOHDCHAR IS NOTIFIED. TELEPORTER ACTIVATED.> As the words and images of intent surprised their way into the Mage’s mind, felling him, he managed to crane his neck upward and witness the diamond’s purpose. Legions of machines marched to their own beat toward the great gate, absorbed by and disappearing into the unstable entrance, while astonished and miniscule, the Mage and the Legionnaire watched with widened eyes and, for once, hearts filled with some joy. The master program of the gate had apparently found the resistance factions at Mohdchar and was sending them a gift beyond either of their expectations. Ajax bent down to lift his unmoving uncle back to his feet, patting him on the shoulder and saying, in tones that Menver had never heard from him before,
The Mage smiled in agreement and gazed below. Most of the walking machines were through, but he spied a flight of Drinir ovaloid fighters
hovering over the last row of Tulryrs. His actions, he figured, would speak his intentions well, so Menver grabbed onto the bridge rail and vaulted over the side, falling fast to the center of the fighters’ floating row. He could hear Ajax’s yelped reflexive concern, and waved him off with one hand before breaking his speed with a double swing of his arms. A translucent orb surrounded the Mage and gently lowered him to an inch above the central fighter. A blink of the eye was what it took to make the orb dissipate and land the Mage’s boots onto the dorsal hull. Four seconds later and Ajax had landed on the fighter just off the port side, with far more force than Menver used, adding a slight bob to the ship’s altitude. He didn’t know what the distance was, or how long it took for his part of the procession to make it there, but soon he felt the heat of the teleporter, the distinct feel of a natural energy source summoned by artificial means, but not created by it. Menver thought to himself as his face proceeded through the spherical gate, “So. The old magic still exists.”
CHAPTER 6
<WHO ARE YOU TWO? HOME city, purpose, and detail of how you accessed the Tehvoon armory,> growled an animalistic voice too guttural to be recognizably civilized. A dozen Creornir, the floating weapon-men standing in waist-high hovercapsules, surrounded the Mage and the Legionnaire. In his shock at the abruptness and manner with which he was met by them, Menver never thought to look around and see where he was. His balance on the fighter never left him, so it hadn’t occurred to him that he could very well be standing in the central hub of Mohdchar, steadied in front of a capitol building nearly identical to the one in Tehvoon. Spearheads reflected the sun into the bags beneath his eyes, and for a moment, with the rush and excitement of their discovery still set so deeply in his veins, he nearly lost control in order to throw these fools down. Who are we? The saviors of Mohdchar for all these Creornir know! The closest spearhead to his neck pumped forward with a snap of two blades extending from its sides. He nudged his head toward Ajax and said aloud in English, “Boy, you had better start explaining to them what happened. My temper is not going to hold out long.” Ajax nodded and turned to whom he recognized as the highest-ranking of the twelve, the one with the blue-banded capsule. This one’s armor, the same design and model as Ajax’s, displayed three royal-blue stripes across each shoulder, the color designating which specialty of the Creornir he belonged to, the length detailing rank, and the number the unit. The others displayed minimal notches of color on their shoulder plates, which made Ajax certain that this was their local head. Despite the ill treatment thus far, somewhere in the back of Ajax’s mind was the slight relief of finally being able to communicate in the manner most natural to him. No more words to clutter and slow down the age of meaning. Was that not what communication had been developed for? Ajax lowered his head and thought toward the leader. He projected his memories of the flight toward Tehvoon and then skipped ahead to the chase toward the capitol, while flashing
in multiple sequences his fight with the hestos. To emphasize the point of danger, Ajax pulsed through the emotion of the battle, the exhilaration of the prey facing the predator, and, more so, the primal fear that no Tuluhrai can ever it to: the numb, gray dread that had fallen on both Ajax and Menver when they sensed the hestos nearby. But the Creornir too wore masks, which covered the entire face and molded into the crown and skull of their helmets; through these no expression or emotion could leak. The Legionnaire continued the chronology of their travels, showing the interior of Tehvoon’s capital building to the Creornir, and even showing him the statue of the ever-adored Vedin Torunthane. But Ajax was too young a mind to be able to withhold all but the desired information he wanted to along. With the image of Vedin’s statue, anger and vague shadows of his younger years ed from him to the Creornir’s mind, being absorbed into the officer’s synapses and becoming part of his consciousness. The floating soldier threw his head back suddenly, the rectangular vents over his mouth giving a sound of surprise, and allowed for the air around them to be filled with his brain’s revelations. “Fe Soothurai! Fe Soothurai keppa utr Torunthunai! Che ihne Tehvoon!” Ajax’s calves tightened, and he lowered himself down with a snarl. Menver, whom the Creornir leader excluded from the telepathic exclamation, looked confusedly at his nephew, and then at their interrogators, who now pulled away from them and split up into two divisions of six, one to encircle Ajax specifically, and one around Menver. “Ajax! What’s going on? What did you tell them, and what are they doing?” “I … the statue. I told them, and they know who I am now. Who you are. They laugh now that Tehvoon’s … hybrid is here. They want us off these. I need to find a
.” This drew the floaters’ attention, causing Ajax to growl before continuing. And you … go home.” Ajax snorted at the Creornir leader and sent him the memory of him telling his uncle what was expected of him, and that now they should be let go. The floaters guarding Menver closed in on him at this point, on a nodded command from their striped leader. Three of them returned their spears to club length and set them inside holsters along the lips of their capsules and put their
gauntleted left hands on him. The other three leaned backward, moving some distance away, and scrambled around to the Mage’s front, reengaging spears at his neck’s height. The unarmed three then backed away, trails of their power extending from where they had touched Menver’s shoulders to their palms. Menver simply closed his eyes and let them telekinetically chain him so that he might descend in their custody. Muscles above his upper lip twitched with contained indignation and anger. His pride as the Mage of Delkurnas prohibited him entirely from taking this insult lightly. But his attitude flipped the coin to its other side—the side of cultural awareness: being nekaf, he was a second-rate citizen. If he were one to have landed on Tuluhr through the normal highcivilization standards, he very likely would’ve been turned away while still in orbit. If he had used the entrance gate of Vedin’s tower ruins, the Deltornir would have captured him at the first chance, to interrogate him. He had resisted the Deltornir before. It happened in the Kingdom Fordin, on that previous world his memories often receded to, when the Hetlurai high dictator Avallah sent her Deltornir detachment to kidnap him after they had Vedin in custody. Menver evaded them when they tried to skulk their way through the runic wards and alarm systems he had installed at Delkurnas. Unfortunately, he learned, the Tuluhrai mastery of stealth is near untouched among the other races, and they had him captured at the edge of Duke Reardon’s private forest; he was chained, telekinetically, as he found himself now. When they reached ground level, his three jailers let go of their bonds, and he wrung himself away, wiping at the back of his neck where their cold energy still made the hairs stand. Over his shoulder and turning to face him, Menver could see Ajax walking away, with the Creornir chief leading him. Ajax’s head hung low, although his step was long and still proud. A shove to Menver’s back redirected his attention to his guards, but his gaze never left Ajax’s form. Even if Menver was entirely unfamiliar with the bylaws of the Deltornir, from the different militaries he had served in, witnessed, and advised, there was always the same patterned chain of command. And he knew that free soldiers recovered from afar were reassigned in times of need according to their talent. Ajax was a legionnaire, a hybrid Tuluhrai legionnaire. Ajax would be made front-line fodder if his superiors got to him without intervention. The prospect of that got the Mage to wipe his jaw with the back of his hand and bear down on his teeth. “Hold!” he cried out in a voice that pealed off the wall of the capitol. His guards
shouted at him in their tongue and called their weapons back to their hands. Menver, still ignoring them, still ignorant that his gift to Mohdchar lined both sides of the main road, robotic eyes alert and watching him, raged against his captors. His voice was carried on gritty winds in a language that none of the Tuluhrai nearby could understand. But they needed not understand his words, only his meaning. Lightning jumped from coalescing clouds overhead, and the air became denser, thick with the crackling of the elements. A jade aura pooled itself as a mist around Menver’s moving feet, increasing in both density and height, filling the space around him and shading him in its color. The smoky energy that had stared at Ajax the night before in unjust fury returned to the Mage’s eyes again, undaunted, uncontrolled. He felt every cell in his body activating its stores of sunlight to be bent to his will. Lightning from above now struck downward by and around him. Creornir and gathered Deltornir alike, once approaching him, now darted away for their safety. He heard yells from strangled voice boxes: “Thuaka nekafi re hura!” But his focus was so set on Ajax and his lead that he couldn’t translate their words. His actions were finally received by all when the Creornir leader turned about in his flying pod and bore down upon the Mage at incredible speed. Menver knew this would happen, and from the corners of his eyes he saw the others ing in. “Heaven! Lend me your power!” He slashed his saber out from its scabbard and cut upward to the sky, providing a rod for a trio of lightning bolts to strike. The purple bolts came crashing on him, blinding his body from all witnessing the sight; and in their immediate brilliance’s fading, they revealed the Mage discharging the sky’s might between his saber and his open left hand. The power of it crafted a fearsome visage from Menver’s snarling face. Through the snarl he finally addressed all in a voice louder than his lungs could ever naturally force, a voice carried on charged particles of air, finding places in the cells of his listeners to resonate; not only would they hear his power, but they would also feel it.
courtesies of all civilized peoples are absolutely disregarded?> His chest heaved with every word, this outlet of anger only dredging further more of his frustrations. His toes left the ground, his hands spreading away from each other while electricity still vaulted from one to the other. <Who of you here can boast surviving in desolate cities while hestos now run freely? Bring me now survivors of Chartev Nral and hear them speak of the deeds of the Torunthane brother and son! Only if your society allowed liars to exist would I hear that our work there was unrecognized! So tell me, who of you proud whelps and yearlings, who dares to challenge me now? Let my nephew go and take us in dignity to the military fool or statesman that now runs Mohdchar! Or refuse if you like, but know you all now that I refuse to be treated like a criminal after all I have done for this ingrate world!> In no way could he have known this at the time, but this nekaf Mage was the first of his kind to openly challenge any member of the Deltornir within a city’s boundaries. Further, he was the first to challenge them at the capitol, in front of which only the most highly regarded and influential of the full-blooded Tuluhrai could linger free of harassment. Ajax did not know what to do or say. The Creornir had shut their minds off from his, and his helmet picked up no stray transmissions being flung across the area. It was a shocked stalemate of one magic-wielder and, now gathered, sixty-seven footmen. Beneath the spade-shaped mask, Ajax secretly chuckled in pride. Each minimally audible gasp was lined with a near-sick anxiety. There was one figure that Menver soon realized was not at all impressed with his display. This one he could feel approaching, quickly, on board a light desert-sled that he could now see in the distance kicking up a small cloud of sand. The dull camel-tan exterior of the open-topped sled was a distant, hardly related cousin of the normally conservative Tuluhrai design, but its angled prow and imperious look held enough to remind the casual looker of its heredity. If that were not enough, the single tall enger aboard the twenty-foot-long sled was more indication than necessary. Her long black hair was cradled down to her waist in sparkling chains of silver and gold, her eyes an ivory-white candescence that stared directly into the narrowed olives of the Mage. The sled stopped short two meters in front of the Mage without its enger having to reach for any switch or apparatus. She wore the same clothes and ornament as she had the day they first met. Her garnet dress, tight and split down its sides, added flush contrasting color to the drab drapes of sandy cloth that came over her shoulders and hung to
her knees, finding their common piece at her lower back. She willed herself over the prow of the sled and in front of the Mage, unfazed still by the aura that froze all others nearby. Her right hand rose, and streams of flattened disks of deltraj, attached to ringed fingers, chimed at her movement. On her palm was the crest of Anyugrai-Mehruhn Tuluhrriyahir, the Holy Royal Order of the Church of Tuluhr, as Menver translated it. As was her custom, she turned her hand about to show him its back, bearing the crest of the Hetlurai.
Menver laughed, lowering himself back to the sand. The rage of his eyes died down to irony, and his snarl turned to a smirk. He let go the tumult of the heavens so that he could make clear to the vanguard his attention strictly to her, crossing his arms as he stared deeply into her.
She appeared to him unbothered so far by his words. Menver took an intentionally deep, but shortly held, breath and marked a line in the sand with the toe of his boot.
The way the sun gleamed against his eye as he nudged his head away from her, coldly raising his chin in the mystic’s direction, was just the sort of effect the Mage wanted in dealing with the great Avallah. He wanted her attention focused on him. Let him be the center of the Hetlurai grand mistress’s innermost hatreds. Deep in his heart he reveled far too much in returning her the favor of such idle condescension, which he knew would be volleyed right back. Perhaps he would never shed his want for seeing the egoists become flustered and speechless at the recognition of their faults; perhaps the same for the recognition of faults that only he planted in their insecure minds. Petulant, yes, but even he, as old as he was, needed to feel the fault of youth now and then. A breeze came, picking at the mystic’s hair and braiding it in the uncontrived fashion of nature, throwing it messily over her right shoulder. Her lips, full and unmoving, displayed still neither pleasure nor displeasure, but it seemed even to Ajax that her anger was building. The lad could feel against the skin of his cheekbones the breeze coming through the helm’s eye slit, bringing with it the sensation of urgency. Smelling the breeze, he closed his eyes, forcing his will to
condense by his forebrain. He sent his will reaching out, as he imagined it, with rays of antennae, feeling the wind, tasting it for synaptic firings that were not being properly shielded. Avallah, powerful as she was, was also equally potent in her drives and desires. The wind carried her well-guarded wrath in waves that the Mage was oblivious to, that perhaps only the Legionnaire sought to interpret, since his uncle’s disdain for the mystic was ed down to him, and none of the soldiers under her command dared intrude upon her mind. Ajax thrust the bulk of his mind’s senses toward the Mage to try to draw in what his uncle felt. As has always been, though, he was blind toward his uncle without having to fully invade his mind— an action that Menver had swiftly punished during times past in such ways that Ajax wouldn’t dare try it again. Hesitation would precede action even if he were asked. So it was beyond both the biological and technological powers of the Legionnaire to see into the Mage’s mind for the moment, yet all was not beyond his perception. Avallah, replete with stoicism echoing from the exterior of her bronzed body, still let her inner wishes be known, making her sudden words hardly a surprise for the lad.
She turned away from Menver, crossing her long arms gently across below her chest and pacing slowly away from his gaze and around, moving closer to Ajax with a bowed head, her toned, graceful legs peering from the sides of her garb, leaving cloven footprints in the sand.
Her arms still crossed, she stopped her pace when she had ed Menver, who hadn’t bothered turning to face her. She lifted her head to peer into Ajax’s eyes from afar, and whispered a few words with bare contractions of her lips. Immediately the Legionnaire shuddered and removed his mask, showing a deep and pained cringe that made him grunt and rub his temples vigorously. Putting a finger to her lips while staring at the lad, she blinked her lush eyelashes slowly
and continued.
At this Menver spun about with his fists clenched and growled, spitting out in his natural tongue, “Your logic!” but the suddenly perplexed look from Avallah threw him back into reconsideration. Exhaling, the Mage cleared his throat, gave thought to what he wanted to say, and then translated into the repressor’s language.
—at the name of which Avallah visibly tensed, her hands dropping to her sides in fists—
<Menver, because I took you and Vedin as my responsibilities should not make me some monster in your sight.> High Mystic Avallah drew closer to Menver, standing as tall over him as Ajax. She, one of the shortest of the Tuluhrai females, who in general are no shorter or taller than their males, drew her fingertips through his black hair and touched his forehead gently. <Many envy you for the special attention you receive from one of the Provincial Twelve. You know my rank, my power. Why do you distrust me so?> Menver’s eyes went cold, followed by a sour frown. As foreign and alien as she
was to him, she still was remarkably humanlike in outward appearances. Certainly, the high cheeks and subtle jawline had no flaw that a world-wanderer like Menver could entirely ignore. Yet she was Avallah, of perfectly textured skin and a mind with a perfect design for strategy. The wisdom of his ages, as she brought up, was itself not blind with a self-imposed open-handed nature. His studies had let him come across a spell of vision, meant to open the eyes to wavelengths otherwise imperceptible. Its original intention was for the sentry mages of the Golden Hand to perceive magical auras, as any supernatural power wielder had some aura to speak of. It, too, was a spell that needed no words, as its core was an act of will instead of the typical phrase of power. Avallah’s aura, Menver noticed, had been growing greater since she started to act surprisingly demure and apologetic—traits he would never accuse her of having. She was trying very hard, he realized, to put him under some sort of trance. To what eventual gain, he wasn’t sure, but he didn’t think finding out was quite worth the gamut of giving in to her charm and possibly divulging to her his secrets as well as those of Ajax. What he did next was an instinctive response, one that would have gone foul if he had premeditated it. Indeed, it was the sort of reply that could only be natural. Intertwining his fingers behind his lower back and then rolling back on his heels and forward again with innocence plaguing his expression, Menver returned,
By all means she did, since the last words slipped from the Mage’s mouth during his final moments spent on two feet. Before the smile could leave his face, he was flung backward a few yards, skidding on his buttocks and leaving in his wake a large track in the sand. He rolled to his side to stand back up, but as soon as he steadied his weight on his palms, another telekinetic shock knocked him back onto his ribs, his fall pulling the fingers of his weight-bearing hand back far enough to make it feel as though the skin were ripping from the palm side of their ts. Again he tried to stand, and again another invisible force ball threw him back down. This time he was lying on his side, facing in the direction where Avallah stood. His eyes panned upward to her sled, hatred brimming in the back of his throat; his eyes found the source of his revulsion, standing on the deck. <Menver Torunthane, know it now that life slavery is the general punishment for such brazen insult before a High Mystic of the Hetlurai. If only you, I, and but
one judge live through this, you will see your sentence. You are given leave of this temporarily only for the war effort. The guards around you hear these, my, words recorded in their databanks. As you are an inconsequential nobody stranded on Tuluhr, by my authority you are to be conscripted in the Deltornir. Your voluntary service record is noted, and appropriate rank will be designated in the low-breed unit. A general assembly of the Mohdchar militia is to take place soon. You are required to attend before reporting to your unit’s barracks.> The dusty sled turned on its central axis and sped away without Avallah casting one look more at the Mage, who now found himself free to leave the prostrate position without her hateful interference. With the back of his wrist, he wiped some of the earth from the corner of his mouth, staring at her flying transport, wondering deeply how it was she had been able to catch him so easily without him being able to exercise resistance. A temporary binding spell? No. That he would’ve felt just as easily as if she prevented his breathing by pressing on his lungs. Those spells are far too tangible to be overlooked. Was he so unaware and taken off-guard that his concentration was too interrupted for him to effectively counter or defend? No. That was for the young and inexperienced. He could have thrown a shield around his body and at least blocked the second and third hits, or absorbed the second, condensed it, and reflected it back with the third for her to deal with. Or was there something else he was not considering? Maybe in the ways of the Hetlurai, she had developed some means of entering his mind and meddling with what he could and could not do, some sort of impossible mind control. But Ajax could never set any more than a word or image in him without it feeling like a complete intrusion. The sheer unlikelihood that he could take three blows consecutively and not have a chance, or try to gain the chance, of reciprocating or defending was so alien to him that he was starting to have trouble believing in what had just occurred. Further, Avallah had always taken coolly to his slights and jabs. Troubled and more troubled with the day, the Mage slapped the sand away from his arms and body with increasingly agitated strokes. “Uncle, we need to leave. The meeting will start soon.” “Yes, yes. Speaking of, where on Earth would they have this meeting?” Compelled, Menver looked up to the sky, biting slightly down on a piece of his right cheek’s inside while noting the color of the great above. It was no longer
the hazy brown he was used to seeing when returning to their hideout in Tathanhla. Instead, the sky above was shaded a light, muddy emerald, reminding him vaguely of a patty mint, of the sort he used to enjoy after a strong coffee, perhaps “sixty years ago now?” He shook his head from the memory of his oldest home and turned to Ajax, following him to a twenty-foot-wide rectangular portal, created and held together by two Creornir soldiers. Ajax was outpacing Menver, but, wanting to spare a few words before entering some convocation of military jargon and posturing, Menver grabbed Ajax by the arm and held him back, stepping aside for the other present Deltornirai to go through. “Ajax, should we stay here? The city’s shield-ring may be operating now—and apparently modified, too, judging by the color—but how long will it last? The She … um …Fiends are bound to notice the armament shipment somehow, or at least the increased activity here. You know that Mohdchar will not last long.” During his short speech, he could see his nephew tense and shorten his breaths. The Mage expected that Ajax wouldn’t appreciate cautionary words, but at the least he thought the Legionnaire would deliver some retaliatory remarks to tell him how wrong he was, or some Deltornir patriotism. The Mage received neither. Instead, Ajax tugged his arm free from Menver’s grip and entered the portal, snorting once over his shoulder after setting one foot into the vertical reflecting pool of sun rays. Following him through, and being followed by the portal’s makers, Menver wondered aloud, “Am I so faithless?”
~~~
The crafters had set the exit point above a floating ovular platform sitting over the middle portion of the third of six divisions of soldiers. Menver, being a meter shorter than the soldiers standing around him, could not see their exact position or the numbers and types of militia formed in columns below. Nor could he really see how large the platform was, as he was at this point uncomfortably surrounded by beings more massive than he. His glances bounced back and forth from shoulder to shoulder in awkward impatience. All was mostly silent, excepting the surprising unity behind even the breathing of the gathered. It
almost seemed as the wind itself were coming and going in a regular rhythm, heedless of the natural chaos inherent to the world’s nonliving pieces. Bumping the others around him enough to reach up to scratch the bridge of his nose, the Mage was suddenly startled when the whole area shot out a triumphant roar, and he looked up to see the soldiers in front of him beating their left breasts with their right fists and simultaneously stomping the platform with left feet. They continued this for twenty-one repetitions, by his count, until they subsided into a dim murmur of ebbing growls and throaty snarls. Whatever was being said or imaged to them was beyond his ability to detect. Of all things detectable and not, Menver’s attention suddenly shifted to the whereabouts of Ajax. By virtue of only his helmet and height, Ajax was easily distinguishable from the generic Deltornir legionnaire. The lad was half a foot shorter than the average Tuluhrian, and his helmet was not standard issue. He had inherited his father’s helmet, almost. The original was obviously too small for Ajax, who was much taller than Vedin and had a little bit of his father’s propensity for bulk muscular strength. Ajax certainly was no lanky child when growing up. So the Deltornir commissioned a weapon smith to craft a helmet identical to Vedin’s, and also to inlay the computer components to make it follow Deltornir regulations. It was tradition carried miraculously through the mechanized ages of one thousand years and two centuries ago, when the different fighting factions from the numerous provinces lost their distinctions from each other and became the homogenized Deltornir. Any child who lost either or both parents in battle received each fallen parent’s helmet and weapon to be worn as his or her own. Ajax received the helm, but the Holy Blade of Tuluhr was a different matter. A firm hand broke the Mage’s thoughts, and irony’s voice entered his mind. “You do not believe, but they think Mohdchar will be safe. They want to go to Kardesh-Nar. It can talk to the other worlds. Mohdchar cannot. We need Kardesh-Nar.” Menver struggled to turn around, glaring upward at covered faces that he assumed had to be angry with his bumping about, and, impolitely ignoring mumbled curses in the Tuluhrai tongue, finally managed to face Ajax. But he found that the lad was fully entranced with whatever was being fed him; his eyes were completely dulled; only two small points of light flickered where his pupils would normally be. The rest of the orbs were snuffed.
“It must be one masterful speech, then.” Menver thought on it for a moment, deciding between continuing his ignorance on what was being said or possibly enraging the lad some more. Of the two, he settled on a compromise. “Ajax.” The Legionnaire gave no response to his name. “Ajax!” The Mage’s voice would’ve peeled off the buildings in this quiet were it not for the surrounding crowd being there to act as a muffler. Even with Menver’s voice raised, Ajax refused to acknowledge him, even though the lights of his eyes showed some awareness returning. “Ajax, what is going on? What is being said?” There was a flicker in the eye slit between crown and mask, and following came the weakvoiced message “Will tell you after. Wait.” Menver creased his brows in annoyance and turned back about to face the same direction as the others, again, as before, getting a few condescending looks from beneath impenetrable masks. But he was far from content to stand and wait for the gathering to finish before he could see what transpired. He cast his irises to the emerald sky above, tinted from the shield dome, witnessing the war haze drifting far above in its swirls around the planet. Floating. That seemed a good way to go about it. And so Menver hopped lightly from the platform and let his natural energies carry him upward, putting some distance between the bottom of his boots and the crests of the Deltornir heads of the platform below. Before and behind him, the landscape gave him a view that he sincerely did not believe could have existed within the logic of war and the tragedies that had heretofore swept the surface of Tuluhr. These weren’t just the equivalent of a couple human battalions. There were countless thousands of gleaming armors knitted in tight, intercalating triangular formations, ringed on the outer fringes by the mighty Tulryr machines and Veshuns standing guard in the spaces between legions. In his peripheral vision, he could see that they were surrounded by buildings, with the speaker—or thinker, in this case—in the center of what had to be a market plaza. Something forced him, though, to turn around and see what lay behind them. Another building, it seemed—shorter, squatter, than typical Tuluhrai architecture, and oddly shaped. “Oddly shaped indeed! More like powered down and resting upon the middle of the street!” The Mage would have reached up to slap himself had he not been so surprised; this was no building, but one of the lovely, damnable Tuluhrai juggernauts, their dreadnought class of naval ship. How wide was this plaza anyway? If he ed the specs, and his eyes did confirm, the dreadnought sat nearly a kilometer across. Here, in the middle of Mohdchar, sat the brand of
ship that the massive Corthul had been built from, the predecessor to the naval champion—and possibly, as the city’s shield-ring evidenced, upgraded to outmatch its Shekethrum archrivals! He spun to reexamine his surroundings; Mohdchar was a large city—not as large as Jurda, but greater than either Tathanhla or Chartev Nral. Boggled, the Mage continued to survey the grandeur of the company. The platform he had been standing on was large enough to thirty soldiers packed tightly, which is not too many, but above the forces of the ground, there must have been over a hundred of these platforms, the lowest floating closer toward the front. There were three rows of these, the two side groups presenting to his eyes perpendicular crescents that gently inclined the farther back they went. The middle group of platforms stood straight as an arrow, bearing down between the speaker’s eyes. Menver saw that he was on the twenty-third platform of the right-side parade, just about within the middle of the group’s curve. He refocused toward the speaker, squinting and straining his eyes to see exactly who it was. The lack of any change in expression was indicative of the Mage’s surprise when he saw the streaming chains and crimson dress. Avallah stood at the center of the circular stage, a podium of some sort before her, from which a single wire reached up to her hair, attaching to what Menver was unable to see. Her eyes were open, with some twitches of facial expression that were also too far to really distinguish. In fact, he was no longer entirely sure it was her broadcasting her mind. The woman was not wearing the draping plain brown cloth as Avallah did; instead she had more of a tailored black shawl over her shoulders; it dipped down low enough to be almost considered a cape or cloak. True, she bore the chains, but Menver, having never really met many of the Hetlurai besides Avallah and her attendants, could not be sure if the chains were ornament of her position or what. There was no chance that this was Avallah. Her sense of self-worth would not allow her to appear on such a simple stage. Other than the podium and two richly red banners with golden claws waving behind her, there was nothing. Her backdrop was the cul-de-sac, a crown of skyscrapers situated behind her. Her movements were coming increasingly faster, her arms gesturing as she threw her head back in some display of fervor deplete of any impact for the telepathically impaired. Just as Menver’s skepticism was building to a high, the air around her, whoever she was, appeared to grow heavier, moving in meditated turns to sculpt two separate shapeless masses, one on either side of the stage. The way light seems to bend off a metal plate on a hot day, so it did here, except without the
natural disorder of waving lines leading to nowhere. There were curves being made, distortions displaying a three-dimensional structure to this strangeness. The broadcaster stood as high as the lowest discernible portion of the air statues around her. More and more they were detailing themselves, but without the benefit of solid contours, Menver was left to guess the true structure, though by now he had a guess; six individual columns stood on either side of her, which he guessed were feet. Yet there were Tulryrs all around them—no need for such showmanship if that’s what these were to be. Then again, the Tulryr is no longer the heavy arm of the Deltornir’s mechanized divisions. If only to startle him, the whole of the gathered clapped their hands, snorted, shuffled in place, and then began to stomp and beat their chests in rhythm again, punctuating every midbeat with a loud grunt. Menver looked to his former platform and could see better that all now held the shortened rods of their spears and beat themselves with them. The broadcaster then spread her arms out, palms sunward, and lifted her voice to sing. Menver had never seen any of this. Her voice was amplified and rang off the sides of the building, rebounding off the bow of the Creyanai beast and returning beautiful notes; her voice was a crystal bell rung over a midnight silver lake. Whoever she was, Menver was taken by her sound, his will bent solely on absorbing the rising and falling notes, the singing in stark contrast to the brutish tribal chanting going on everywhere below. So caught up in her, he failed to see the connection between the two songs, that one was meant to be in contrast to the other, just as the means of the Hetlurai are separate from those of the Deltornir, as a female is from a male. They were separate but complemented each other, which, once the Mage recoiled his mind away from the siren to regain a wider perspective, he realized. What seemed like the meeting of fire and water became something completely different, the crystalline bell and the fire drums painted a wider picture, in words older than the Tuluhrai dialect the Mage knew. The voices from the soldiery were low and resonant, causing the platforms to tremble and the buildings to shudder with their mournful bass, all the while stomping and growling in guttural perfection. And still the siren sang, recalling wonder from the Mage and forcing his eyes to gaze again. It was then that the statues of air found their firm grasp in reality. Six machines became visible, their dull golden outer plating with tan and brown peering from beneath in the t structures and under armor. The fingers of
these humanoid craft were serrated and chiseled so finely that they could pierce the stage without even using all of the arm’s weight. Menver looked higher and higher, until he met the singular eye of the beast, azure and violet at the same time, the colors becoming one and then the other yet never remaining distinct either. These things the Mage did recognize: the monsters hiding behind the stalwart Tulryrs of Tehvoon. Yet here were only six of the one hundred or so that they had recovered. Between the song and the revelation of the beasts, Menver was no longer sure of the significance of anything that was going on. He would have to get Ajax to further explain it to him. Staring at the disclosed machines, he again got the feeling that they were staring directly at him, through a concentration of color at the lower right corner of each one’s eye. A new sound then entered the arena as four flights of Drinirai fighters dived from high, skimming the highest platforms in the rear and coming to a halt before the stage. They swayed haltingly from side to side, moving to climb between each other only every second beat from the crowd’s feet. Symmetrical from top to bottom, the single-piece streamlined craft then moved higher, forming four vertical columns over the stage and between the six monsters. The Drinirai, Menver could ire. In outward appearance alone, they reminded him of an old Corvette he had owned fifty years prior. The songstress, whomever she was, lilted her tune off with a trilling high crescendo that trailed to a finish with the end of her breath. In tow of their leader, the Deltornir, Creornir, and others assembled roared out in a deafening display of vociferous cooperation, their voices too holding until their lungs could expel no more. The woman then began to speak, vocally, such that Menver could finally hear her. To his slight dismay, after all, this woman maintained to be Avallah.
The Mage could only close his eyes and sigh dismally at the news. He would be, should be, enraged if he were not used to this miserable treatment already. She continued speaking, but he chose to drown her out with his own thoughts, until those were drowned by Ajax’s, informing his uncle that he would him on the way to their barracks. Apparently, under Avallah’s law, even a true
legionnaire of Ajax’s lineage was considered low-blood. Sighing once more, Menver descended to meet Ajax. Another legionnaire, of a rank only one higher than Ajax’s, opened up a portal hanging in the sky just outside the platform’s edge and ordered them through, adding that his generosity to the unwanted was allowing him the dishonor of missing the ceremony’s end. Menver thanked him kindly with invectives toward him and his mother using English; Ajax remained silent and ground his knuckles until they bled.
~~~~
When their escort shut the portal behind them, the two were gazing up at a residential skyscraper identical to the one they had held in Tathanhla until just this morning. It was crowded in the middle of other buildings nearly identical in architecture; simple, smooth-sided structures swayed slightly at their peaks as though the wind permanently pulled them over. Ignoring Menver, the escort spoke to Ajax quickly with enough slur that the mage was unable to fully catch what he was saying. What he did understand was that Ajax was being given directions to a floor and room, and that for energy purposes the city’s teleportation system was offline. Their escort put up a hand in order to make a portal to return to the mass gathering, but before he could, Menver tapped the soldier on the shoulder, getting a very swift recoil in response. The soldier leered down, the eyespots of the single-plate full-face mask dimming. Menver then asked in a plain, observatory tone, “If you could understand me right now, would you bother telling me exactly where it is I am boarding for the night?” Having gained no response, Menver urged Ajax to lead him to his quarters. Ajax glanced to the building’s peak and gave an unenthused shake of his head before approaching the opaque liquid door. Before the Legionnaire, the door peeled away as a whirlpool, tucking itself into the engraved chambers of its curved triangular frame. The two ed through into a barely lit corridor. Its high arches were of the same angle and graceful contour as the door they had entered through, but greater—six meters high, in the Mage’s estimation. Just as it was in the resident building that he lived in while in Jurda, this hallway was decorated only in the transitional colors from darkest brown to brightest yellow as the
walls reached up, interrupted by solid-phase doors and simple bronze plaques bearing hardly dissimilar asterisks that noted who lived there. As a strange step away from the usual circular arrangement used in city planning, the floors to the makeshift barracks had cross-halls spread every ten meters. A left or right led to the great number of rooms housed there. Down the central corridor, in the building’s center point, was the combination of teleporters and elevators. Just by looking at it, Menver knew that power to the teleporters was down. It had been nearly six years since he last rode on one. “So Ajax, do you know what’s in store for tomorrow? What was that meeting we saw all about?” “Tomorrow we fight for Kardesh-Nar. What we brought made them decide. It is like I said yesterday.” Ajax glanced at the control beside the third elliptical elevator door and thought out to a pair of smoked orbs sitting above the elevator opening. It opened in a spiral contraction and, as soon as they were inside, shut on them, with the platform smoothly accelerating immediately without a bump or sound. “Will they be leaving anyone behind to defend Mohdchar?” “Yes, but your unit and mine will not defend.” Menver wrapped the knuckles of his right fist in the tightening palm of his left, staring dully at the floor. “And if I were to refuse?” Ajax stepped forward into the corridor of the eighty-sixth story, forwarding a command to the lift’s sensors to stay open until the other enger exited. Menver came slowly, still watching the toes of his boots. With his shoulders hunched forward and his pace calculatingly slow and measured, either he was scouring the depths of his wisdom for some truth to make sense of the near future, or the years were finally taking a toll on the ageless body. Ajax was incapable of determining which it happened to be. He decided to walk on toward his uncle’s quarters. “Ajax, you didn’t answer me.” This was a floor designated for the lower breeds. The building’s better half was for the full-bloods; this half for the likes of him and his uncle. Though perhaps it
was not entirely for him, as Ajax tended to believe; there was none on the sands quite like him. Of all the nekaf conscripts, none were so superficially close to the high form as he. Short, softer-skinned, human nails, more prominent facial structures. Hidden beneath his armor’s cover, he was indistinguishable from the rest. “Ajax.” At the sound of his name, the Legionnaire felt his planted foot lock in place, forcing his inner thoughts to be set aside for the moment that he might return to the present. “Answer me now. I’m tired, and I don’t care to keep being dodged. Answer my questions, I release you. Don’t, you stay there, and I’ll take up whatever empty room I find. Your unwillingness to just give me a damn reply is really starting to bother me.” “Let us get to your room first. It is close.” “Fine.” The Mage lifted his hand, releasing Ajax from the anchoring spell he had placed on his foot. Ajax shook his newly freed foot about the ankle and moved on, with Menver quietly in tow.
At the least, his nephew was no liar. Menver’s newest quarters on Tuluhr were on the left arm of the eighth cross-hall from the main corridor, then twenty-three doors down, on the right. The lock was thankfully not solely dependent on brainwave receptors, employing a gratifyingly primitive dial mechanism whereby entrance was gained by using one’s index finger to pull a set of holographic rays around into the proper configuration, while the above confirmed identity with its multiscanning sensor rod. Ajax relayed an entrance query through his helmet and abstracted the lock from the apartment’s security system. Momentarily, they were inside. Two beds sat within, and there was neither window nor table, but at the foot of each of the beds was a tall chest—magnificently basic given the Tuluhrai penchant for adding chips and mechanisms to everything possible. Hanging from the inside of the chest’s lip was a triangular bucket carrying a small flask of water (though the Mage hoped for wine) and four plasticized tubes of yenuo, the typical Deltornir foodstuff that they fed Menver during the trip from Fordin to Tuluhr. The Mage reached for one of the tubes and tossed it lightly in his hand before twisting it around its middle and pulling the new halves apart.
“Fine, now we’re out of anyone’s sight, oh Legionnaire. Afraid of being caught interacting with a nekafi?” “It is important that low-breeds do not think they are equal. Order has to be kept. It is of my duty to keep order.” “Now that is total malarkey, and the fact that you would apply that rule to me is …” the Mage stopped, pulled the dense roll of meat and desert leaf from its packaging, and sat down on his bed, taking a bite. Still chewing, he grumbled from the side of his mouth, “Too tired to argue. Body’s drained from staving off hunger so long with energy reserves. Just answer my question and fill me in on what’s going to happen.”
Menver squinted at hearing the word “Huroonai” resonate in his mind. Their rules claimed that only one of their order could act as assassin, but that did not bar another twenty from aiding in the chase. In a fight, Menver could defeat one easily, if he knew he was there. The troubling part of dealing with the Huroonai was that they were considered one cut above the Deltornir. Because of this prestige, and the nature of their work—the slaying of gods—only the Huroonai were unbound by law or honor to fight or kill while visible. Not even the mystics were given that much leeway. “Do they have me in their records already? Ah … no, never mind that. They do. Avallah made sure of it.” Raising an eyebrow, he took another bite of the yenuo. The desert leaf they used to wrap the meat in was tough to chew and rough on its way to his stomach. As a counter to such criticism, Menver always found the meat robust and sweet enough to make up for it. “So what is my unit supposed to do? We’re attacking tomorrow, and here I am without a commander or orders. I have run armies better than this.”
is meant for nekaf, so it does not have synneural implants. The Fiends cannot jam it. Yell ‘Link Torunthunai, Ajax, legionnaire,’ and—> “Torunthun … ah, sorry, go on. I forgot that they use only the Tuluhrai version of it.”
“Remind the Huroonai of that. Fine. Look, Ajax, you have survived a few battles here already. I know you have spent nearly all of your years training with the most advanced military in … in this galaxy for all I know, yet no fight is the same as the one before.” “I know, Uncle.” “You stand before me a tall soldier, calm and knowing. Your eyes have a tranquility in them now that I don’t see often in you. But I know your nature. Once out there, you will let the bloodlust take over, override your senses. You’re young! It will happen! Do not let it. Maintain your composure, and don’t do anything that will get you killed. Do not let your youth make you forget your mortality, Ajax. As your uncle, I do not intend to see the sun rise even over one day when you no longer breathe. Do you understand?” “I understand.” <When Kardesh-Nar belongs to the Tuluhrai again, we will sit and feast before a stage, and watch our dancers retell the victory of Tuluhr over Sheketh.> “Good then. I would like to finally see that. I think I will finish my yenuo and retire. And try to keep in touch with me tomorrow. If anything is going wrong, send me a picture or … whatever you would call it. Show me exactly what you see as you see it, if you can. I can deal with the effects if it means knowing where you are well enough to portal there.” “And you yell to your communicator that Torunthunai, Menver is in trouble.” “We’re settled in that case. Neither of us dies tomorrow on the field in some inglorious means. Take care, Ajax.” “You too, Uncle.”
Ajax slipped his mask off and bowed to Menver, a ive smile on his face as he did so. Yet when he straightened himself, the smile was gone, and his eyes dulled one more step in color. He replaced the mask, turned, and exited, his form disappearing behind the circular door’s spiraling plates. Menver filled his lungs to capacity, held his breath, shut his eyes, and then exhaled sharply while falling back on the bed. With so much having occurred in the day, he found it necessary to simply clear his mind of everything. He kicked his right leg over the other, drawing both up so that he could stare at his boot once the ceiling became too boring. The yenuo provided good nourishment, bite by bite. Thirst came to mind as soon as his stomach learned that, for the first time in three days, it was getting some sustenance. A slight gesture of the wrist, and the flask that Menver saw came rising from its cradle and to him. He sat up only slightly to take a sip from it. Hardly surprising, it was water, a naturally rare commodity on this side of the planet, but easily attained from distilleries that made it from various organic reactions. “Three days … ah …” His stomach gave him a sudden, strong pinch. “I can’t keep doing that to myself.” He set the yenuo down on his chest and pushed all the air from his chest again, sucking in his stomach to get rid of that last pocket of stale air he knew was there. Then, taking in the last mouthful of the yenuo, he muttered more to the barely vaulted ceiling, “I shouldn’t have gone into business back then. Maybe I could have learned a little biology to see how this body works rather than how to manipulate it. Some other time, Menver.” He let loose a sigh. “Some other time.” A rational man would have been preoccupying himself with the next day. After all, there was to be a battle, the retaking of a city from the hands of the invaders. It was a siege that could take a day, or weeks, or even months, depending on how well entrenched the Shekethrum were, or their numbers, or whether they had figured out how to reengage the city’s shield-ring and defenses. Menver knew this. He also knew that most rational creatures had failed to live as long as he, and that if he died, it would probably be about time. Also, with Chartev Nral behind him, he had a good idea what the next day’s tactics would bring, what sort of enemies he would encounter. All the ones he could impact, he could destroy. He’d be a fool to worry over the land giants. Unless he captained a frigate, there was nothing within his powers that could harm them; this he had learned at Chartev Nral. So, as he reasoned with himself, better to worry over the muffin-mold architecture of this apartment and the sad lack of creativity, or care,
of his ancestors and captors to make each of these residential towers different from the others. “Heh. No different from the one in Jurda. Both absurd and disheartening.” Metal sliding on a purely self-associative gel lubricant has a soft, but very distinct sound, as does the clacking of asymmetrical sliding plates curling from the bottom upward around the middle of a Tuluhrai residential doorframe. Menver rolled his neck over to peer around his right leg, which was still crossed high against his other, raised, knee. The new conscript’s revelation was limited to the door, so the Mage, for the first half-second, thought nothing of the newcomer besides that all too many creatures wear robes. The second halfsecond had a different effect. Menver, seeing the newcomer’s face, shouted an unintelligible Korcathan curse and rolled forward onto the balls of his feet. He then jumped from the bed to the middle of the room, raising both hands with forward-facing palms. “A Jortashan! How in the hell did you wind up being here!” Lowering its high-ridged head, the Jortashan stepped just enough closer to let the hallway and onlookers be shut away. Seven inches taller than the Mage, cloaked in a ragged brown cloth bearing the typical finned skull crest, the newcomer matched the Mage’s memories. “I thought your damn people were forbidden from ever entering Tuluhrian space! Explain yourself well enough and I’ll overlook your living.” “Zzhertaszha ssss-haaaa. Fle fle!” It trilled a pair of tongues from the underside of its chin and snorted, following with “Zhigh krachzrrrr-heha-hihiheeeisch!” Menver did not contain his disgust. His lips were pulled back, showing his canines, the white enamel contrasting against his tanned face in a display that made the Jortashan swivel its head left and right and hunch downward. It contorted its body, its face and toes pointed directly at the Mage, the bulk of its humpbacked torso showing its cloaked thick right flank. “Do you even know what I am, you bastard? I am the last of the Torunthanes! The only remaining son of Venor, leader of the tribe Vishok, and I was raised by Kinrothu Tu-Henais, patriarch to the Tir Korcath! Your filthy race exterminated
nearly all of them! Then your people came back to finish us off! They came to take my home after sinking my birthplace! Do you know how many died by your greed, you son of a bitch!? Can you even understand me?” <Speak old tongue, creature.>
The newcomer hunched further down and spread its arms apart, one touching the opaque panes of the door, the other pointed at Menver, and it seemed to the Mage that finally it understood why he had been facing his hands and not his sword during the whole encounter. <Stupid, stupid Vishok whelp! Those names familiar … those peoples ed. Explain now. What are you?>
Menver saw nothing, but the corners of his eyes flinched. The Jortashan made no move and slowly took his time to respond, probably thinking of a proper way to handle the situation the Mage had intentionally created; but on the other hand, there was a high level of energy in the room. The air felt denser when he breathed. Menver began to conjure the sight spell he had used on Avallah earlier.
He could feel the spell brimming about his irises.
Impossible. The Jortashan was able to erect a single plane-square shield in front of his body, and was skilled enough to create a simultaneous illusion right in front of him to obscure the flash.
Menver’s mind was scrambling with two ideas. Between what the Jortashan was saying and this shield, either he was lying and the Jortashans had gone to recombining their embryos with nekaf DNA, which
was no stretch given how perverse the Jortashans were; or he wasn’t lying, and he was nekaf as well.
Yehunir. When Menver met the Yehunir, he did not appear like the newcomer. He was taller, straight-spined, appearing in build as a Tuluhrai, but with skin tinted like the bare green of the sea, with some cross between hair and feathers protruding back from his head and arms. Kryus found him on board the Jortashan dreadnought when they boarded it. It was also the last time he saw a true Jortashan in the flesh. But the Jortasha never knew the Yehunir as Yehunir, and Menver understood this. The generation before Menver’s was raised on Jortash Prime, and in all the tales in which he had heard of their ancestors, “they” always referred to a Yevdenin. When the early Jortasha culture met these outsiders and saw, in awe, the might and magic of these who appeared no different, the Jortasha bathed in the imported culture to gain their new deities’ favor; and it was Yevdenin that would evolve into a demon’s name. Menver relaxed and lowered his chin in thought. The Jortash-nekaf remained fixed in his defensive position. <What is your name then, descendent of Yehunir? Tell me how you remain when all others of the Jortash-nekafi were killed or enslaved.>
Menver crossed his arms, nodding along.
strong … stupid, stupid Jortasha.> Becoming a little light-headed from the information and inferences gained from the short conversation with this newfound nekaf tribesman, Menver stumbled back a few steps and sat down, resting himself against a corner of the room. No one ever mentioned other nekaf tribes by name, although enough hints had been dropped between reminiscing conversations with Kinrothu and the old tales. With Getrau around, he could start filling in the blanks of the whys and hows of certain pinnacle moments of Earth’s Great War—things that even he, of Atlantean descent, could not explain to the humans. Redirecting his frozen gaze from the far wall to Getrau again, he saw that this Yevdenai felt enough trust to move to his own bed against the opposing wall. Getrau was not some gullible oaf either, Menver determined. The Yevdenai was able to rotate the protective barrier to keep it in the Mage’s direction.
Getrau said nothing in return. Menver’s roommate lay down, nodding once to the synneural receptor attached to the ceiling’s center. It was just as Menver was reaching over to untie his boots’ laces that the room lights shut off, casting them in total darkness. The room would’ve been a total sensory void were it not for the sound of a pair of leather-bound hiking boots hitting a thick, plated wall, and the murmured curses of the Mage Menver.
CHAPTER 7
MORNING CAME, THOUGH IT WAS able to give no sign through the outer walls of the barracks, to the room where the Mage was stirring awake. For an alarm, the barracks had installed in every room a siren that bellowed on several dozen incongruent wavelengths, leaving no single species or hybrid of conscript ignorant that the time to ready for the siege was now. What Menver had taken for the wall screen was in fact a deceivingly crafted cabinet, which opened itself as soon as the siren began to blare. In it were two bracers that, at a touch of a button, self-modified to look identical to the gun and claw mount that Ajax used. On a shelf above were four earpieces, conical, that constructed a curled, rigid wire at the touch of a micro-button, allowing him to secure it within his ears. Across the room, Getrau’s equipment shot out wires that actually crawled in his open hand until they met each other, connected at their end, and did so again to make a band that fit over his head. To their credit, the Tuluhrai do pay detailed attention to the morphologies of whomever they deal with. As expected, as soon as Menver had attached the communicator, a voice raked in gravel rolled,
Menver looked toward Getrau, who was solemnly swaying his head with every word, his violet eyes fixed in place. “Come, Getrau, no creatures are meant to be eternal.” The Yevdenai stalwart regarded Menver with a look that had to be curiosity in his culture, to which the Mage patted his saber’s scabbard and turned to the door to move out. The barracks, empty the night before as far as Menver knew, were now filling with various sorts of creatures. During the walk from his quarters to the floor’s teleporter booths, the Mage noticed that Getrau was not the only Jortash-nekaf here. There were two others, indistinguishable from Getrau, while also there were beings taller and shorter, of varying degrees of difference from the parent Tuluhrai morphology. Forty-seven by Menver’s quick count. As the corridors
coalesced to the center, where their transportation was, he noticed that there were even regular Tuluhrai infantry on the floor; they looked down on the nekaf and shoved a few out of their way. To be sharing a floor with the nekaf, these must have disgraced themselves at some point. The Mage wanted to see how far he was from teleporters, but in front of him was a broad-shouldered beast of a being, gray-skinned and armored in what looked like splint mail growing from its very skin. Fascinating, but briefly so. His view cleared itself with a snap of light as the splint-skin disappeared, leaving the Mage standing square before the teleporter. A balance in his mind teetered, weighing his heavier worry between being hunted by the Huroonai or the Shekethrum. He stepped forward, staring at a pair of glass scopes that waved at him on thin stalks. These glowed, ing a plane of light twice over his body. Once this had finished, a voice announced, <Menver Torunthunai, nekaf of Earth>, which was when the teleporter booth shut itself, encasing him in blackness. This was standard, as he expected. Soon, the normal feelings associated with any nongated teleport came: lips and ears burning, loss of somatic sensation, eyes absolutely blinded. These were followed by something he could never describe any better than as “being rebuilt from the inside of your chest outward.” And he was placed again behind the splint-mailed creature. Peering left and right, he saw that his group was being transported meticulously into military columns, with him in the farthest right. Stepping aside to get a better look, he was able to count ten rows ahead of him, and about nine people to his left, leaving at least one hundred to an effective fighting squad. The Mage was about to check the number of rows behind him until a Deltornir lancer barked for him to return to position and wait.
Something ahead of his unit was kicking up dust, but Menver could see nothing and could hear little above the announcement.
sands, is diluted in the bodies your forefathers chose for you, but the blood is still there. Fight now to preserve your heritage, and your names will be inscribed in halls of honor all across the Empire. rel="nofollow"> Murmuring back, “Hardly rousing, but better than hearing how we should do this because we’re worthless with nothing to live for and no means of escape.” the Mage raised himself a few inches from the ground to see what had caused the commotion feeding him background noise when trying to hear the declaration. Peering just over the rhino-man’s (as Menver was now considering the one in front of him) cobble-paved skull, Menver saw two sleds on either side of the front row, each with a thick-stemmed jeweled pole attached to the bow. Three mystics were chanting around both poles, holding each other’s hands and swaying around, overall appearing outlandish to ’s austere sensibilities. Silly, yes; but stupid, not at all. He set himself back to ground level when he felt a wave of energy through him, and a shift of vision gave him an idea of what they were doing. The mystics’ auras were fountains of violet power, partially obscuring their bodies beneath the flowing, fiery potency. Menver squinted, averting his eyes from the unnatural wavelengths to the ones they were meant to see, and immediately drew his sword halfway from its hold. It was forged to be receptive to energy infusions; years of experience showed that whoever had blessed it made it too sensitive. The blade was enough proof that a strong art was in the process of performance. Like streamers around the maypole, power came from the tips of the poles, bidden by the chanting mystics. They wrapped themselves tightly about the jeweled spires to encase them just as Avallah’s charges moved back and let their hands drop to their robed sides. At this moment Menver noticed another person on the back of the rightward sled; he was unarmored, meaning he was no soldier, and he was not grossly decked in golden chains, taking his identity away as a mystic. Plain-clothed in a long-sleeved khaki shirt and some reptilian vest, wearing shorts that would seem inappropriately short to any self-reflective culture, this Tuluhrai pulled a pair of control platforms from the floor of the sled. Whatever was going on, Menver decided that this fellow had to be the sled operator, despite that he no longer looked to be doing anything useful now that the s were raised. Useful or no, something happened regardless. The area echoed between the arrangements of soldiery with three blasts, sounding like shotguns firing into
cymbals, and a flat, rectangular portal opened up between the two sleds, welcoming the fighters with its maw of golden shades. <March toward glory and your reunion with your high brothers!> Menver drew his blade with an arcing sweep and growled out before tightening his glove with his teeth. “Christ. Get over yourselves already.” They marched forward to the pace set by the nameless commander who beat on their eardrums in his tongue: “Oush, mash, ish, affe, oush, mash, ish, affe …” As distance opened his field of view, Menver noticed that each assembled group had its own mobile gateway—ready to deposit them in the thick of things, no doubt. Four rows away from the portal, Menver channeled some of his essence down the skin of his forearm, beneath the leather sleeve, through the tightened grips of his fingers, and down the edge of the blade. Two rows away, he called forward a quarter of his inner reserve, turning his eyes from brown embers to blazing green lamps. A nose before the portal, he cried out, “For the survival of my House!” Then he entered.
CHAPTER 8
Distant explosions echoed down the streets, ringing off the skyscrapers to create vague points of origin. Looking up, the Mage could see that the shield-ring was still de-energized—of course; otherwise, they would be fighting their way through the gates. A flight of ten Shekethrum fighters— indistinct black diamonds in the sky—tore through the wind with a howl that made his unit scatter. The enemy wing kept moving, unconcerned. There was no good place to hide; the unit had teleported to an open square within the city. Kardesh-Nar was foreign to him; he knew of no place to portal to for safety. They were in a circle; the outer units—he included—turned their backs to the rest of the hundred dozen of their nekafi company. The buildings around them tapered higher in the distance away from them, making them easily visible. “Getrau! Getrau, where are you?” Menver found himself yelling above the confused babble behind him. Getrau might have a better idea how to deal with this. Menver had entered Chartev Nral as a warrior alone; the difference being that Chartev Nal was a city he knew. Chartev Nral was fought under a completely separate strategy. Whoever sent them to this spot had to have been a fool, or wanted the nekafi dead. Menver certainly wouldn’t strategize himself into a sitting duck. His eyes panning the horizon, the tops of slender buildings, and down the darkness of far-off alleys, he could see no portals opening. Mechanical units were still undetectable to the aura-sight spell, which gave him worry. The Shekethrum must know their position by either the huge portal signature or by any satellite observation of theirs on conquered states. The thought of this provoked the Mage into stomping hard, once, on the ground with a whispered word for the earth to aid him. Flying away from him appeared a wave of sand. His effort shadowed nothing.
“Damn fast of you!”
As soon as the officer’s warning came through, countless portals opened up, each sized for a single infantryman, arranged in a dome array to cage the nekafi. There was no more time to hold back, no time for self-control or pensive moments. Menver concentrated a dome shield of his own to cover his front, his sides, and his head and shoulders. He roared at the figures pouring the portals, concentrating two dozen opaque points on the surface of his shield,
Soldiers of Sheketh came through, twenty-four catching fist-sized energy orbs that exploded on impact before their own defenses could be set. Glancing left, he saw eight or nine leaping into the nekafi ranks, bringing their spear points down like hammers. Voices strained in surprise through broken throats. A brief change in eye color preluded the lightning he shot from his fingers, the bolts branching and splitting to meet the enemy. Their unprotected spears defied the enemy’s defenses, channeling death to their bearers and dropping their smoking bodies to the ground. This many had already been killed by him alone, yet they were still outnumbered. The Mage looked up again and saw the aerial portals close, their tenants walking the air on some solid disc apparatuses attached to their feet. He pulled his arm back, his mind collecting his powers to create his favored jagged spear to take one down. Very close behind him came a gurgle mixed with desperate wet coughs and heavy inhalations—an attempt to hold on to life. It had to be ignored. Spear formed, he started to throw his arm forward but was interrupted by a powerful blast to his left flank, forcing the short, heavy-bodied explosive to arrow itself into a building’s side. Menver, knocked aside by the blast, pivoted on his still-planted foot to face his attacker. The Fiend who had shot him still had his fingers tentatively touching his spear, which was pinned to the ground through some unknown hybrid’s throat. Seeing the barrel of the Fiend’s wrist-mounted rifle brighten with another round, Menver concentrated his body shield to his forefront. The Shekethrum soldier fired, the munitions exploding against the defensive field with enough force to burn into the Mage’s retinas. Menver sealed himself within a full sphere, rubbing at his eyes to return clear sight to them. His opponent was not willing to wait. Fast, and agile, the Fiend jerked his melee weapon from his nekaf victim and leapt over the Mage, firing again down onto the top of his skull. Again the attack was ineffective, but Menver could feel the force of the explosion pummel down on his neck and shoulders. Another round exploded, jolting him forward into a squat, blade-wielding ebony hybrid who yelled upon with the Mage’s
protection. Menver removed that part of his defense, leaving his back and legs guarded, and collapsed onto open palms between stomping feet and laser fire. He thrust his arms forward to throw himself back into a hunch, yet his momentum was cut short. “Traka hir zelnesh!” The Shekethrum soldier had battered Menver back to the sand with three striking blows from the blunt end of his war staff. Menver had more than enough reserves to feed his defenses sufficient energy to absorb and displace any damage taken, kinetic or otherwise, but his sheer frustration was building. An idea came, nothing novel, one he should’ve considered sooner; he took another hit to his back, and another, more powerful, heated, but the Mage began calling together a fine point of condensed energy on the shield’s surface, to slay as he had before. That is, until racking pain came despite the shield, plowing through his middle back, jumping over the nodes between his vertebrae, and constricting over his crown. His temples were on fire; his teeth felt as if they were about explode from their roots. Every breath he took felt in vain, as though he were gasping in a void. His focus was shattered; the more he sought to get a fistful of energy, the more it felt as if it were falling from his fingers. He was overheating, his heart beating so fiercely his body rocked. Menver rolled to his side and put a frail, trembling hand up toward his opponent to bolster the fading shield. Above him, a shining sapphire light, so blinding in its center as to be white, sat as the epicenter of the cracks appearing in his shield; trailing up from it, he saw the Shekethrum soldier holding the far end of his staff, blade-side up, jamming the light further and further into the Mage’s crumbling protection. Menver turned to his back, his chest in convulsions, spit rolling from the side of his mouth. His limbs felt as though they were burning beneath the long sleeves and pants, and he felt a corresponding numbness; his skin baked while his real flesh was cooling to a slow death. The cracks had almost reached the shield’s edges. No longer was it a half-sphere, since all the Mage could muster was a flat plane three-quarters of a meter across. Another surge of pain urged a scream from him with an involuntary arch of his back. The Shekethrum removed his staff and swung it about overhead to menace the Mage with the other end’s simply built razor tip. Though his arms were starting to numb and his consciousness starting to retreat to the safety of dreams, one thing remained constant, forgotten, to the Mage: the saber in his right hand. A spear head was coming down, wielded by two hands; immediately Menver
swiped it aside with a burst of power, the adrenaline rushing to his muscles for one strike; he drove the Sheketh weapon into the sands. Menver’s interior reserves had been destroyed by that staff’s device, an insidiously efficient weapon. Nothing remained to let him portal aside to recuperate. He whispered to the dirt around him, “Save me.” What the Shekethrum soldier saw was the Tuluhrian sands engulfing and consuming his enemy before he could drop his weapon on the little man’s chest; even when he did stab, all the nearly yard-long point found was sand.
~~~~
Fourteen miles northwest of the nekafi unit’s position, Ajax struggled with his spear locked against the staff of an Fiend, unable to break his opponent’s strength to crack his unhelmed head open. The Sheketh soldiers were by every able way equal in strength, size, and speed to the Tuluhrai, a fact no longer lost on the lad. Ajax’s fury flared from beneath the shadowing visor, his growl muffled by the faceplate. The Fiend snapped his uncovered jaws in response, his ashen face taut with anger. Fiends refused to fight well-armored, choosing only a splint mail vest. The irony of this was that these vests generated a nearly full-body shield powered from a wired grid laced into the mail’s underside, which could deflect all arms but a Tuluhrai deltraj-coated weapon point. The Legionnaire chose a change in tactics. Ajax relented enough to allow the Fiend an upper hand, and he then began to feign a sudden weakness, his knees buckling and his elbows faltering under the Fiend’s strength. The Fiend curled his lips back, saliva wetting his enlarged canines.
Collapsing his legs, the lad brought the Fiend stumbling forward, onto him. During Ajax’s drop, three taps on two pressure points on the spear’s center brought its ends snapping to a fold, one end retaining its blades. Ajax tucked the blunt end over his stomach and impaled the Fiend when he fell. He threw the soldier off him, twisted the arm-length pole ninety degrees, and removed the blade from the unmoving ribcage. Spinning to meet the Legionnaire, another of the Fiends’
infantry brought the shield-breaker of his staff down on the lad’s head, its sapphire light flaring. Ajax put his left arm up, a rectangular, thin shield powering up and catching the staff in the upper shaft. With the opportunity present, Ajax thrust his blade into the Fiend’s ribcage and tapped another button, which extended the Tuluhrai weapon deep into the enemy’s body. A gasp went up from the enemy’s throat as viscous blue blood poured from his wound. He brought up a hand and curled his fist; Ajax’s helm ed a power surge. The lad leaped back, returning his spear to full length, and swung as hard as he could; the polearm arced down Ajax’s loose grip to slice his enemy’s throat just as he caught its end. The soldier of Sheketh fell with a cry, and Ajax screamed.
The Deltornir soldiers had met a force of equal numbers in the streets of the military research district. The corridors between the intermittently coned buildings were built narrow, restricting armored suit to the smaller Veshun models. Mohdchar’s fighter wings had orders not to help unless it was absolutely necessary; given the low roofs provided by the arches between the buildings, maneuvering was reduced to hover-and-fire. Fiend command kept sending their infantry into the heart of the battle, in the street’s center outside of a Tulryr modification research building, putting them in a clamp between the Veshuns that occupied both of the row’s ends. But better to face the Veshuns, which were only a dozen in all here, than meet the hundred spears of the Deltornir or the fifty mounted plasma guns of the Creornir. All around were fallen bodies, gray-skins and brown-skins, the unhelmed Fiends and the wholly masked reclaimers. Ajax found it striking that two races could develop in different worlds and converge to become enemies of equal ability. His survey of the grounds found no Fiend left alive. It was a warming thought to the lad that if victory over these mongrels was possible here, in the small, it would be possible in the long run. For the brief minute he knew he had, Ajax knelt down and pressed at the burn just above his knee. A Fiend had grazed him with a rough blast at the fight’s onset. Ajax had cleaved the enemy’s hand off to prevent that from happening again. He wondered if this existence was ordained. Of all the known races in the empire, none were born with the same talents as the Tuluhrai and the Fiends. As impossible as odds were, their two species trekked the wide cosmos and found
each other, and in each other, bitterest enemies. None of the other encountered races held such enmity for the Tuluhrai. If this war were won, would it even create a conclusion to this ceremony? Or had the cosmos decided on continuing this conflict until the stars finally died? <Seventh legion! Incoming portal signatures greater than infantry-size opening!> Ajax, attention back to reality, snapped his head upward to one of the opening signatures. The lad jumped up and activated his greaves to keep him at three meters high, readying for one of their automated sand-skimmers to slide through the ten-meter-wide doorway. His expectations were not met. Seventeen heavy black orbs fell through, landing in a foot-high hover before projecting four roots from their central bottom point. Immediately the Deltornir and Creornir buckled behind their left-armed shields and opened fire at maximum power. Pyramidal shields deflected the offensive with ease; the orb roots sunk under the sand and crept through, appearing outside their mother orbs’ defensive field. Made visible only by every impact, the pyramids grew outward to the whipping roots, attaching their very borders to the straightening appendages. Ajax’s breath caught in his throat. His mind reeled with a psychic cry:
The Veshuns were already airborne, scraping the connective walkways with the tops of their antennae. Ajax flung himself to the ground and covered his head with his shield. Each orb now held itself higher, starting to spin. Peeling away, as from wind shear, were droplets of metallic liquid, uncovering fist-sized holes in a tightly coiled arrangement.
Four Veshuns descended on two of the seventeen, stabbing in lunging, two-fisted movements with their wide swords, which could not penetrate even a third of the way through the shielding before the hands wielding them were repelled. Two Veshuns doubled on their nearest sentry spheres—Neshazt, as they’d been recently designated—driving savagely with their only effective weapons, carving and scouring out pieces of the Neshazts’ barely liquid armor. Eleven were still undisturbed.
Although the power surge warning was on the visor only briefly, Ajax ducked his head and braced his wrist for the onslaught. The eleven unleashed death from each uncovered hole, spiraling energy beams through the rising and falling open slits of their pyramidal shield, directed by the stand-still roots, and blanketed the whole area with ionized silver knives. Creornir fighters dropped all the lightordnance grenades their pods carried, the self-guided discs arming midflight explosives and EMPs, to break Neshazt shields and then the spheres themselves. The Creornir fighters each portaled their flight short to the ground, taking cover in the nooks between buildings or behind decorative front-lobby walls with the Deltornir. A red burn streak lashed Ajax’s shield arm from an incoming energy lance. Pain was something for him to acknowledge later. A far-off crackle and quickly successive shearing noise, like the sound of cloth ripping, preceded a detonation that would have sent the Legionnaire rolling if not for his shield. Angling his head upward, Ajax found that his sight was marred with a cloud of sand and grit that sparked and snapped against the shield. One of the Veshuns was destroyed, and local power readings indicated the others were not far from becoming fodder. But something hummed in the air—some things, rather. With the debris settling, multiple crosshairs targeted and encircled friendly craft; the Driniri fighter craft had finally been dispatched—a full flight—effectively drilling their rotating turrets into the sentry spheres. Missiles propelled through rippling soft spots in the Driniri hulls, coating themselves in synthetic deltraj on exit. They ed through the defensive fields of both Drinir and Neshazt, and marked their targets with flash detonations. Multiple shockwaves threw huddled Deltornir soldiers against edifices and each other, but none were marred by shrapnel; the magnetic/antimatter warheads both mutilated and contained their targets. <Seventh legion soldiers, pull back and evacuate area! A Fiend Behemoth is moving to level your protected zone. A Tulryr platoon is attempting to hinder it but are so far unsuccessful. Rendezvous with the Fourteenth Creornir Division and their defense of the Capitol!> A wave of dust washed over the Legionnaire just as a synneural communication flooded his imagination with panning images of the Capitol’s area, of a second Tulryr squad readying themselves before the great building. He crawled back up to his knees and swiped the grit from his shoulders and chest, and then he rose to survey. All Neshazt sentry spheres were destroyed, as well as a third of the Veshun guard. Black stains slicked patches of sand, marking short trails to the
fallen warriors of both Deltornir and Creornir. But far more than the deaths of his comrades were the losses of the Fiends, their bodies fallen in the varied positions of pain they had endured before their final moments. Pain coursed through Ajax’s body, burned, sliced, and pummeled as he was. Yet he was alive, still. A phrase, something Menver had said, came to him as he tucked his spear beneath his arm: “Death is a consequence … of virtue.” Recalling the image of the Capitol, Ajax erupted in a white blaze and was consumed by it, leaving no trace but a small ashen spot where he once stood.
~~~
Huddled in a dead-end alley corner, next to a family of dried corpses, Menver, pallid and shuddering, fought with his body for control. Never had he been hit with the Shekethrum shield-killer; never had he heard what it really did, how it worked, what its effects were to the organic soldier. Tuluhrai died by the hundreds of thousands at the hands of Sheketh’s chosen infantry, but one difference, one solid difference, separated their collective experiences from his, from his pain. The Deltornir were never taught how to emanate their own defenses. They had always used a powered gauntlet to craft a regular rectangular infantry shield that could not be manipulated at all by the bearer. When attacked with the sapphire light, the gauntlet would be overburdened and the generator would explode, though the damage never escaped from the armored casing. But he, Menver, was his own generator, his every living cell adding its strength for the collective protection of the body whole. He felt as though the footman had ripped his glass-statue soul from his chest and fractured it into a million dying pieces. Who knew what sort of weapon the Sheketh would drop on the city, or what machines they’d send to flatten it. He had to get up and get moving; being in the open lanes might even be safer. Better to see his end coming and have a chance to put it off for another day than to sit and wallow, waiting for the Reaper to collect past dues. “So … nn-damnit.” A spike of pain knifed its way into his side as he tried to pull himself up. His knees dipped and dared to return the Torunthane twin to the arms of the dead, but his will caught him and locked the numb ts in place. With a
chuckle he regarded the three that shared the alley with him—no chuckle of mirth or madness, and even he didn’t understand where it came from—and then he yelled, screamed, spittle flying from his mouth when he punched the rock wall before him. His veins still felt empty of any blood, yet fury invigorated him, animating a lifeless body, activating a hollow mind. Decay was a stench he had tolerated for the last hour, and decayed was how he appeared. The tight, leathercolored skin was still pale, his eyes outlined in coal. Black leather-bound fingertips dragged themselves against the wall. The stone, unpolished and rough, had hardly even been hewn to shape the foundation of whatever buildings he was between. Battles occurring in all parts of the city were foreign to him here, where he stumbled, senseless and drunk in misery. When light was able find him again, the Mage stood but a hundred meters away from the city’s edge, caught midday between the last Tuluhrai buildings and the enormous feat of engineering that was the city’s barrier ring. Its tower lights still bore some life, though not nearly enough to convince the Mage that it had any chance of being reactivated. Huge s had been blasted out far off to his left, and of the ring area directly before him, pockets had been blown through from cannon fire. Menver sullenly focused his eyes on part of the ring, trying to summon together enough power to cut open space to portal back to the battle. Yet he couldn’t even feel the igniting spark of a portal’s birth. He then tried to shunt his body from matter to energy, to teleport, and failed, feeling only the emptiness within. He had no choice left but to wander until he found something or someone. The Mage removed his gloves, shoving them into a back pocket, and unbuttoned his vest and shirt to expose more skin to the flailing sun above. The difference in consumable energy between the present and Tuluhr’s not-so-distant past, before the Sheketh torched as much as they could to fog the atmosphere, was fully tangible. Given, too, the volume of his reserves, Menver realized that his walk to wherever would have to be a slowly taken one. Not that he had much of a choice, as he could barely sense his feet touching ground or how high he was lifting them. Shuffling sounds echoing between the shield-ring to his right and the last neighborhoods to his left told him that he wasn’t making much effort. He bowed his head and forced his skin to tingle, to open itself up to the sun’s rays, to absorb as much of the delicious power as possible before he collapsed for perhaps the final time.
Ragged and wearied the Mage dragged a trail behind him with his saber tip. A sparkle returned to his eye, a ghostly green to show the specter had life in him yet.
~~~
Ajax brought himself down to a hunch and threw his arms open wide, snarling and holding the full spear in front of him. Keduyin, another Seventh Legion soldier, of rank three steps higher than Ajax, snorted at his underling’s display and crossed his arms. Keduyin was a full foot and a half taller than the lad, making him no doubt a rarely challenged legionnaire. His height was one thing that few recognized from afar, since Keduyin was also built wide, stern, a boulder of unmatched might within the Seventh Legion and even in all of the Nethari Deltornir. It was difficult for Keduyin, a soldier of uniqueness among his peers, to ignore the only other unique being within his crulaj—Ajax.
<She taught me much about dealing with your idiot kind, full-blood, and more about being true Tuluhrai. Insult me further and I’ll have your head staked on the grounds before even the first Fiend sheds his blood in front of the Capitol!> Keduyin roared and threw himself at the lad, covering a clean fifteen-foot gap in the bound, aiming his shoulder for Ajax’s waist. Ajax was fast enough to dodge, but he chose to stand his ground and take the hit—a hit that never truly came. Keduyin’s shoulder ed right through the lad, immediately disappearing before even the rest of his upper torso could . A snap realization put the Legionnaire on a quick guard; Ajax spun around to check behind while a mental
order brought an infrared window on a now reactivated visor. He shuffled in a turn, keeping one foot planted and his spear in front of him to ward off the superior ranking beast of a soldier. A choking hand around his neck let Ajax know that he had found Keduyin, who reappeared behind him and growled into the lad’s ear.
Incapable of speech and cut off from the air, Ajax was forced to respond with his mind:
The hand tightened around his throat and shook him in the air.
<Strike them with the fury of a Tuluhr sandstorm, bury them in my rage, send their people back to their cursed world!>
Ajax had curled his legs in while dangling, waiting for the right moment and right question. And it had come. He slammed the flats of his armored cloven feet into Keduyin’s stomach, using enough force and surprise to knock the air cleanly from the larger’s lungs and to have freed himself into a fit of coughing when he touched ground again. Bent and holding his throat, the lad thought aloud,
Keduyin inhaled deeply and snorted the air back out in three venting bursts. If it were possible for Ajax to see it, he would’ve appreciated a smile of satisfaction beneath the cold shine of the officer’s mask.
Ajax nodded and walked away, tossing the spear between his hands in anxiety. No word had come in yet about the fate of the Tulryr group or what they were to expect. It was impossible for his ears to determine how far the Kinitral might be or in what direction it moved. So he continued to do what he had been doing before Keduyin interrupted him and restarted his patrol around the central hub.
Though there were more important military targets to guard, the city’s central structure—the Capitol—held a deep symbolism that endeared it to the fullbloods, a symbolism that he could never understand, having always been barred from entering one. The Capitols were the first to be built in any city, the hub around which the wheel-crafted neighborhoods and sectors were to radiate. Whole city histories were held and represented within the Capitol, fragments of every citizen’s life contained somewhere within. To lose the building, so Ajax was told, was to lose the city and all who had ever lived there. < of the Seventh Legion! Creyanai forces have succeeded in pushing the Fiends out quadrant three. Many are taking retreat routes for a final stand at your position; all available forces are redirecting for . Hold your ground and fight in our Empress’s name!> Four portals opened up around Ajax, gray in color and certainly not of Tuluhrai origin. If Keyudin were to receive his due rewards, Ajax would have to survive these first. As the weapon of the closest started to come through the portal, Ajax jumped at the acquired target, landing into a forward roll two meters short; the Fiend had fully emerged through. Flawlessly, the lad came out of the roll and into another jump with the spear in full swing, bringing its bladed end across the Fiend’s throat. His feet skidded along the sand while he brought the spear back across his body and vertically, blocking a downward strike from another Fiend. Again, the same technique from them; Ajax sidestepped and threw the Fiend’s staff aside, giving the lad enough opportunity to drive the spear down and through his neck. Over his falling enemy’s shoulder, Ajax could see a larger gold portal opening up—Tuluhrai reinforcements. But what came through was a machine beyond his recognition. Forty men came with it, guns blazing and shields up, firing in fiveshot automatic bursts at the Fiends beginning to swarm the object they guarded. The Capitol’s doors opened to them. Warnings of pain to the arrogant etched above the clearing age began to glow—the first sign to Ajax that the city hadn’t wholly lost power. His visor ed movement along the Capitol’s perimeter, while the mysterious imported machine, twenty meters high and a mechanical nautilus by its appearance, opened the slats of its spiraling exterior to vent a cool green light. Ajax’s clad armament tightened itself around his body in response, and so mesmerized was the lad that he didn’t see the shadow climbing
over him; nor did he see the shadow at all, until the spear of Keduyin nicked the edge of his helm and felled a Fiend just behind Ajax. <Pay attention, hybrid! Protect the shield-ring modifier! It is all that counts now!> Chest heaving, teeth grinding enamel, Ajax seethed,
His mind recoiled from having been saved; had not his uncle taught him enough to put him on a plane above regular infantry? Had he not survived major battle and small squad skirmishes? Enough … this was enough. Another Fiend footman was coming from behind. Immediately as Ajax turned with his right arm up for a firing spree, the footman disappeared in a fast fade. Ajax sneered and flipped backward, landing on a hand and pushing himself up and back to touch ground with a crouch. From there he tucked the spear into his arm and slapped the ground, murmuring a command word Menver had taught him, sending a shockwave of earth in a circular wave around him. Forty degrees left of the wave’s center, the crest splashed against two pillars in motion, prompting Ajax to his feet with his spear coming about into a stab. His enemy this time wasn’t as slow as the others, unveiling himself as he dashed into the root of Ajax’s swing, catching the spear’s shaft and driving his fist into the lad’s lower abdomen. The force put Ajax into a backward shuffle, causing him to loose some spittle against his mask. Another blow came into Ajax’s neck, a swift chop that knocked him aside and off his feet. But he refused to be taken down so easily. On his fall, the lad caught himself with a quick turn of his trunk and dug his feet into the ground to hurl himself into a quick forward roll. A shadow darkened Ajax’s sight briefly, and he knew the Fiend had positioned himself to meet the Legionnaire as soon as he came up. His spear fell from his hand when the blow to the neck came; his gauntlet’s firearm would never pierce the fullbody shield, and the claws couldn’t pierce deep enough to cause damage. Fire, then, would be his weapon, and the speed of thought would have to be just quick enough to save him. When his sight righted itself at roll’s end, he caught the sapphire light coming down on his crown, and he countered it swiftly with a hastily activated gauntlet shield. Its generator would offer only a temporary resistance; already his visor’s gauges and sensors were shorting out. The words came, the spell was spoken, syllables slurring in urgency: “Heart of earth, heed the needy, torch my enemy
by my plea!” The generator died in a shower of sparks and smoke, the knocking out Ajax’s control over his armor; the lad scuffled frantically backward when the pillar of orange flame erupted below the Fiend’s feet. Ajax stood unsteadily. The Fiend remained, an expression of twisted pain on his face, a halffrozen smile on skin starting to bubble. Were Ajax calm enough to be startled, perhaps he would be. That not being the case, he beat his chest once with his right fist in salute and raised it, firing a single shot into the Fiend’s forehead.
Flashes folded around the Legionnaire to burst to sight again between others of his unit, who showed no comfort in their comrade being alive. Ajax took a sniff of the uneasy air, which brought indirect news that the Kinitral was still approaching, still headed toward them. Normally the visor would provide him such information overlaid on the city’s map, yet it had taken more damage from the light than originally estimated. His eyes barely caught the visages of a Fiend fighter wing flying overhead. Barely that, but definitely he witnessed that the Observers, the wretched things that forbade him from ever entering any city’s Capitol, had been revived. Stony faces molded themselves from the Capitol’s flesh, their cheekbones high; noses small and compressed; foreheads tall, majestic, crowned with simple rings of shining deltraj. More punched their way from the ages-old rock, their numbers enough to cover the circumference of the spire-like building in regular intervals, from just above the front door’s frame to its uppermost floor. The Observers’ eyes opened synchronously. Vengeance was all their sight knew. Like battering rams, ruby beams shot from every countenance, doubling and tripling their deathly sight on the Fiend fighters. Ajax’s eyes showed him the star-shaped silver craft being punctured and ripped in half by ruby blades. The Creyanai destroyer rushed through a portal in response, to hold the sky’s safety, as something worse than a dozen squadrons of Fiend fighters had broken the Tulryr defensive line. A sharpened trio of prows broke through a skyscraper two blocks away, putting it well within the Observers’ firing range—and Ajax downrange of the Kinitral ground cannon. The behemoth turned, effortlessly destroying the lower levels of the block’s structures caught in its radius. Just as its flying parallels, the Kinitral reflected nothing in its perfectly contoured mirror surface. Ajax could see its maw preparing to fire. Its central forward section, where the three prows serving the sapphire light met, would always whirlpool, as there the armor was kept in a liquid state. Moans from above meant the
Observers knew the danger, and their granite jaws wailed a high-pitched song. From their mouths, long garnet ribbons flowed, wrapping about the base of the Capitol and coiling higher and higher to protect their main body. The cruiser then descended, pulling in front of the Capitol, its wake cloaking the Deltornir and Creornir in dust. Pouring out of its hangar bays were swarms of drone aircraft—four hundred all if standard tactics were being used. Though numerous, they were large enough to house only two Driniri-type cannons; the mechanized hornets had one mindless command—attack. Ajax wanted to watch, to see the Kinitral and Yekrathnir duel, but another warning came through on audible wavelengths. Immediately after the signal ended, a swarm of gray and black doorways flickered and flashed into existence —some smaller, for infantry; others belonging to the scrambling armored divisions, as all of the former occupying garrison’s survivors decided to also make a last stand at the Capitol. As the material plane ripped itself so many times before him, he could feel the strain tugging on the very core of his power, his birthright energy attempting to answer the call to heal the physical realm. Immediately to retaliate, he snapped his spear to attention, switched its form from Kinla to Shinla, the war-ready; daggers snipped their way from the curved sides of the main blades. Roaring for all his lungs were worth, he lunged into the incoming crowd of Fiend fighters, acting and reacting to every twitch and motion he saw. Hover platforms and roaming spherical weapons modules were coming still, dropping explosive charges on Tuluhrai and Shekethrum alike, their only goal being entry to the sealed Capitol. Bodies flung over the Legionnaire’s head, yet his mind was stuck solely on the feud. His legs burned; up high he leaped, gripping his weapon by one end and clubbing the pole-arm down on one enemy, just to jump forward and away, where he made another hand flip before an enemy lance could find his exposed lower flank. Meanwhile, the Kinitral’s mirrored port side caved in on itself to make a fineridged gully from stern to bow. The danger in this was clear; quickly the Yekrathnir warship boomed below an acceleration wave for a fast ascent. A shockwave kicked up from the move, whipping the ground forces with a sand wall and absolutely flattening those directly beneath the ship. The Kinitral pitched to starboard to match the Yekrathnir’s angle, and it then fired a thick plane at the cruiser. Ajax, at a severe height disadvantage, managed to throw off his opponent and
sliced him across the knees before he fell. His spear was raised and its point coming down when his battle fury was snapped by an alarm ringing in his ears. He wouldn’t take his eyes off the Fiend; he didn’t have to. The Fiend was already looking away from Ajax, to the sky. The Tulurhai cruiser was in a roll, descending, backward, heading straight for them and the Capitol. Stuck as he was on the quickly coming Yekrathnir, the scuffling of the Fiend’s feet didn’t escape Ajax; he gave a quick downward stab, and neither did the Fiend. Ajax turned his back to the Yekrathnir when it appeared to be five blocks away. It reached the skyline, knocking rooftops off and cutting through the chests of the premier residential areas. Its oncoming thunder added the perfect backdrop for Ajax. He beat his chest and screamed, “Kiroth inar!” and he then polevaulted his way above a pack of Fiends, coming down on them with swinging spear. “Damnit, Ajax!” Menver’s voice boomed, but not through radio. The circle of soldiers and Ajax himself all looked up to see another figure drop into the thicket, a glowing-edged saber in hand and a Fiend lance in the other. Fifteen small-arms charges crashed into the defensive dome Menver threw around himself and Ajax. But his uncle was snarling, gripped by a feral spirit, and Ajax was not going to question or protest at this moment. Hideous black lines covered the Mage’s face and neck—a face that strained and snorted while Menver shot his hands out and instantly widened the barrier’s surface. The Shekethrum, caught by surprise, were shoved away and burned by the ward’s very touch. Ajax crouched down to observe the Fiends. Menver caught over his shoulder the sight of the Yekrathnir rumbling through the last row of constructions and into the clearing surrounding the Capitol. He reached out and grabbed Ajax by the elbow and threw him into an opening portal. Menver quickly followed.
They emerged in a fall: Ajax in a kneel; Menver, drained of adrenalin, on his feet and backward, lying still to catch his breath. Golden forms appeared out of the dim light with drawn weapons pointed at the lad’s and uncle’s necks, though they removed just as quickly as they came. Ajax stood up and cocked his head in utter confusion.
<Wait, brothers! Where am I? I was just pulled from battle; the Great Fleet frigate was falling.> Though the others had vanished, an answer did come, and it only added to Ajax’s sense of displacement as he heard it solely in his mind.
Ajax stood in wonder over how they responded until he ed Menver. The Legionnaire squatted by the Mage and spoke quietly, “Uncle … Uncle? Uncle.” Ajax squinted. Menver’s chest still moved, quietly, while just a few minutes before, outside, he had been wide awake. His skin had a new, darker appeal—chalkier compared to the usual vibrant tan. Ajax’s right gauntlet retracted to allow him a touch of his uncle’s forehead. Where the blackness traced, the skin was noticeably warmer than the rest, and Ajax sat back on his haunches. Menver then stirred. “Please don’t touch me. I’m very sore all over and in need of one of those rejuvenation mirrors.” “You do not want a mirror now. You are very hurt.” The ground below them quivered, calling a fog of dust down from the swaying walkway trellises overhead. “I was touched by their shield-killer, Ajax. Used up … all that I have left in me.” He panted and then continued. “I don’t feel … quite right.” “Many of your utaikna look dead.” “I don’t know what …” the Mage’s eyes closed, and he wetted his dry, sandcaked lips. “What that is. Utaikna.” The lad crossed his arms and thought before responding. It would have been much easier to simply send images of what utaikna are and their purpose. Yet he knew that the Mage hated such directness even in good health. Ajax chuffed and began to explain.
tissue cells except for the brain and spine. The first I mentioned is our main storage pool, while the second is the charge, recharge, and first used. Skin transfers to the fluid system, fluid to all tissues, all tissues rejuvenate, and fluid is refilled for emergency. That is the barest of basics to utaikna.> Menver, agitated, eyes glassy but angry, sat up and grabbed Ajax’s collar with a weak hand. His mouth worked to speak from a frozen scowl; Ajax could see his uncle’s eyes pigmenting black. Menver faltered back, stretching the arm grasping the lad to its fullest extent. A patch of skin slipped out from between the glove’s wrist and the cuff of his shirt, displaying to a trembling, wrathful Mage the truth of his harm and anatomy. A snaking line contrasted against his skin so terribly where his humanstyled vein crossed into the hand. His face went so absolutely hot in rage that dizziness quickly set in, and he fell back in exhaustion. Disappointment so greatly hovered over the Mage’s unspoken thoughts that the lad was able to get a feeling of why his uncle so surprisingly snapped into anger. Ajax stood, deciding that this was a good time to find out where they were. It hadn’t taken much time or the greatest power of observation to realize where the short portal had led them. Menver had brought them both inside the Capitol, which, by all means, was meant to be impossible once the ancient guardians sealed it. The interior, as he started to observe, was identical to that of Mohdchar’s, with the exception of the honoring statues. Kardesh-Nar had its own heroes to worship. Another tremor suddenly took his eyes to the main doors and his hand to the folded weapon attached at his thigh. He had no idea how long it took for the engineering team to resuscitate the city. Every minute of insecurity allowed more opportunities for the Fiends to enter the battle and ruin their chances of regaining Kardesh-Nar. He was briefed prior to arriving at Kardesh-Nar that the shield modifier would render the shield-ring immune to the Fiend weapon and reset the balance to the great fight. All internal defensive systems would be activated. All Fiends would be sealed within and purged. Ajax next strode toward the main doors, his eyes caught in their glowing reflections within the mirrored deltraj surface. As a boy, his father scorned him for not obeying Tuluhrai law to its finely detailed words. At the present moment in his life, Ajax knew that both he and his uncle were breaking a fatal law. Once
the city was secured, order would be restored. Urgency of business kept Avallah’s guard and the engineering team from arresting them. The High Mystic was certainly here within the Capitol; Ajax had caught a brief touch of her essence the other day when he tried to read her. Her energies wafted to his senses in such subtle amounts that they were no more tangible than the gentlest breeze on the back of the neck. Avallah, too, was a great healer, and should be able to repair Menver, whom Ajax peered at from over his shoulder. Law demanded that all healers tend to the available wounded. It was the Emperor Urha who made the logical move a mandate. The High Mystic was not a woman to let her power persuade her into breaking an 843-year-old imperial law. Once she was done, and her guard ed who the nekaf were and which Deltornir legionnaire wore Vedin’s mask, they would both be arrested. Normally, if one with impure blood made it past the faces behind the main doors’ warning and was caught by any of the Capitol’s Tuluhrai guard, he or she was executed. In war, jailed. It would be no stretch of his imagination to think that Avallah had some special punishment for his uncle, but military law would apply to Ajax, who, unlike Menver, was, in the end, a Tuluhrai citizen. His rank in the Deltornir would be erased from all records, his spear melted and recycled, and he would be reduced to a member of the conscripts’ division. Such was the wisdom of Emperor Urha, Renewer of Law. Outside, the sounds of war resounded, drawing a wistful sigh from the lad. Glory and vindication for a despoiled home belonged to those outside the impenetrable walls; inside was only the wait to see if the term “impenetrable” truly applied.
Ajax’s ears perked and he turned about. The thoughts were clear but weak.
The doors opened again, splashing crimson-tinted rays onto both the Legionnaire and the slowly rising Mage. The Kinitral stood split down its seams with one of the imported cruisers listing snugly in the main street’s middle. Nothing of the Fiend foot-soldiery remained, and that nothing foreign came up on the visor was
a good enough sign for Ajax. Regardless, he called the spear-handle back to his waiting hand and jogged out into the merge of the Capitol’s circle way into the main north-south artery. To his left and right, wounded Deltornir tended to each other with the meager curative spells the Hetlurai taught in training. Howls echoed when the spells came short and the medic packs were used; anesthesia did not break the Dorab tel Tolrar, the Law of Battle, but the standard fare was largely ineffective in the face of the extreme sensitivity of the typical Tuluhrai nervous system. Putrid clumps of earth, too, were spattered everywhere there was a meeting of spear and lance. At the edge of Ajax’s sight was a misshapen figure cutting the horizon. Around it appeared to be movement, and there was a bright shot railing upward and absorbing into the city ceiling. His nostrils flared and his lips pulled back; the traces of all extraneous thought were sealed away. Screaming, “Kiroth inar!” he bounded into a portal, landing in a crouch on the other side with his shield covering him and gun charging, ready to fire. His desires were hardly met. The fight he dared to insert himself in had ended several minutes ago. What he found was a large bronzed arm propped up against the back of a broken, forked Shekethrum low-altitude flyer. It was a misfire. A programming glitch. Ajax’s face and lungs relaxed in disappointed ease. Glaring at the limb, he relaxed his mind, emptying it to be a receiver, and listened in for any calls for reinforcement, engagement—any thought patterns on the wind. Silence in the air, he tapped the side of his helmet to see if it had somehow revived itself. He did not and could not know of the skirmishes cropping up at the city’s outer rim. Fights continued for the liberators in minor locations, but no sign of them reached Ajax. A waft of smoke ed by the lad, filling his nose and lungs with the scent of wrought entropy. The stray shot had distracted him, called him away from what should have been his priority.
The lad twisted and jumped through a portal reopening right before the maw of the Capitol and dashed into its throat faster than the old wards could recover. His uncle lay on the floor where he had left him, struggling to sit up. With a few more bounds, the lad landed beside his caretaker and lifted him gently from the floor.
<We should leave while the law still remains suspended under duress of battle.> “I know … I feel the old ones reawakening … get us out of here!” With his caretaker in his arms, the lad again sped out the long-honored, now spoiled, doors of the Capitol and charged through yet one more portal, leading back to the last place in his memory—the hill of the shattered arm. Care and caution propped the Mage in the nook between two forefingers of the misfiring hand’s left brother, which was a safer bet, as it lacked a palm-centered cannon. It was an understandably quiet moment. Both Legionnaire and Mage suffered pain in the day; Menver most tangibly, while only now, at rest, did Ajax’s wounds and depleted energies make their effects known. It was at this moment, after the battle, that the Mage and the Legionnaire sat on the open, broken hand of a quartered Tulryr and, upon surveying the wrath that they had helped unleash, closed their eyes and reveled in silence. Memories of a hundred nations and peoples at war crossed the old Mage’s mind, while the Legionnaire could only think back to the day of First Strike, of the attempted retaking of Chartev Nral, and the still-pristine memories from his childhood, seeing that fight occur outside Leyern. Neither knew that the other was thinking so, but both mused to themselves how odd it was that the fight never failed to renew itself, never allowing the wearied spirit to finally become used to its misery. There was never an end to the reasons to fight, never an end to the aggressors that would come. For Menver, on Earth, he had seen man impale and shoot man for reasons of ideology or greed, one fueling the other overtly or not, whether the warriors were aware or not. The humans never ceased coming up with new reasons to war. And the Tuluhrai were no different, in his esteem. They simply called it tradition and did away with any veil of deceitful reason. The Emperor, selected by the Empress, the consort of Tuluhr the god himself, made the laws at his whim, and all followed. “There is no reasoning to be made with these creatures,” The Mage wheezed. All the might and magic in the galaxy, yet by one shortsighted being’s will, they all restrict themselves, hole themselves into lying content when each could be a deity. Sure, much has been eliminated, “but the whole race is like a sword pulled from the fires, cooled, with no one seeing a point to sharpening it.” Everything started to go dim for the Mage; he tottered in his seat. “So many tens … of thousands … why can’t they see that they are still
imperfect?” The last Menver saw was Ajax’s hands coming down on his shoulders, his glowing eyes holding a strange expression of concern—something he hadn’t truly seen before.
CHAPTER 9
MENVER STRUGGLED AGAINST THE FORTHCOMING blade. His broadsword’s edge had been made by the keenest blacksmith, but to his fright, his enemy’s sword cleaved a great notch in it with one strike. And the enemy edge was coming closer. Illuminate eyes glared at him, and a long, full brown nose heaved at him. Four Vishok were slain. Now Vedin the Mighty demanded Menver’s blood. Yet Menver was not in danger. He floated somewhere above, watching the fight play out. Not entirely different, he had noticed a few changes. The Vishok were not true Vishok; they were Tuluhrai. But that hardly mattered here. Here they were Vishok. The Sword of the Ages was sent into the ground by a strategic leg collapse. Vedin’s balance faltered, but he’d already thrown himself into a roll. Menver countered with a spin on his heels to sweep his sword tip round. Vedin’s skin had become ashen. Which made no true sense, given that Menver was certainly not the color of the Sheketh but was Vedin’s twin; yet here, in this duel, it made perfect sense. Menver ran forward with his blade low. His arms kept in and taut for a sudden stab. Vedin, quick in reflexes, hurdled himself out of the way and threw the Sword of the Ages into the halting Menver. Which signaled the waking of the Mage.
“Enh … Avallah? Where’s Ajax? Where am I, and why are you here?” The High Mystic stood serenely over the Mage, an expressive smile on her face showing a surprising bit of care, but mostly a placating confusion over his
words. Menver glanced at his hands, grinding his jaw once over the still present black canals under his skin.
Again she let her youthful lips glide to the sweetest smile; with so many being given for him, the Mage turned away from her to examine the room, although he truly meant to keep his deepening distrust from being exposed. Yet, while his attention was apparently diverted elsewhere, Avallah continued in her speech.
Menver laughed openly at the proposition of doing the High Mystic a favor, and he folded his hands over his tucked-in knees to give her a broad grin in return. For once the Mage would agree to her willingly, entirely, to do the Empire, the High Mystic, and, most importantly, him and Ajax a favor that could potentially turn the tide. Potentiality was exactly what Menver sought in this; beyond freeing himself from crime, he could do so much more—something that the Tuluhrai government prohibited his doing; something that would have meant his head in the days of Vedin’s reign. With her undivided attention at his disposal, the Mage decided to get a few answers from her, if possible, before
moving on toward her business.
The High Mystic looked visibly bothered by this information, her brows knit in momentary confusion, her breath halted for a step. She considered his words before responding.
She leveled her eyes directly into the Mage’s, imparting a sorrow in her expression.
Watching her, the Mage could see she was trying to tailor her words. Confidence under all conditions was a trait of the High Mystic’s. Here, she was starting to falter, pause, sort the correct wording.
Avallah folded her hands behind her back and replied in a sterner tone.
Menver stared at her, while the High Mystic said not a word more. Avallah turned her back to him and paced about the room. He knew that he owed it to Ajax to find out about his mother. He also knew that to gain any leverage with the Tuluhrai, he needed a symbol, something universal to blind them to his nekafi heritage. It was about time to become a main player on the grand stage.
Immediately the High Mystic froze in her graceful paces, her every muscle tightening at the Mage’s proposition. She snapped. The nightingale’s sanguine voice hit a high point never heard by any living Tuluhrai.
With a grin, Menver threw the sheet off, finally noticing that he had at least his tros on, and slipped out of the opposite side of the bed. His effusive show of self-preening needed to be forced. Witnessing the full sight of the damage the sapphire light had left on him shook him, but to see Avallah so rattled demanded every bit of showmanship a mage could muster.
Hands folded behind his back, the Mage then strolled right before the High Mystic and shrugged his stained shoulders, adding,
Her mouth opened to speak again, the darkening appearance of her eyes annotating a lack of her usual fire, yet Menver refused to even give himself the pleasure of hearing her attempt to backtrack. He proceeded.
the power that your ego allows you to speak of, you should feel what I feel—that something here is not quite right. Too many things seem off-kilter. Even instinct is too concrete a sensation for me to describe how I feel this. But there is one item that can be readily viewed. It is time to quit fighting with a hand behind our backs, Avallah. For centuries you and your predecessors have let your people fight as ghosts of their true power. I’ve spent my whole life finding my body’s pinnacle. Fighting the Shekethrum>—the word pulled a visible shudder from her —
The smile had easily worn away by this point, leaving his face set in another scowl.
<Silly wizard! Your bravado is great to bear an idea like that! Half of your body’s determined utaikna is still destroyed. Vedin’s body needed two weeks to recover one quarter of his prior to the crystals’ infusion. I cannot take my spells down from here; nor will I! You still wish its strength for your own, just as Vedin said you would!>
The Mage then moved back to the bed and sat against the wall, averting his eyes from her and looking back to his hands. Avallah said nothing in return. In a few minutes’ time, during which the Mage was too occupied surveying his damages, the High Mystic left the Mage to his solitude, so quiet in her exit that the only sign Menver noticed was the lack of her shadow sitting across his lap.
~~~
Rays of polluted sunlight spread angrily over the southern edges of KardeshNar’s shield-ring, painting stark, hard-edged shades in the retaken city. This day brought a rusty sunrise as the smog-covered sky mixed into the scarlet clarity of the city’s newly refined defenses. Buildings stood as tombstones in the quiet desert as no sound echoed, the sands absorbing the footsteps and movements of the soldiers patrolling the streets for Sheketh survivors. The Mage stood with his cuffs rolled up, his exposed skin filtering rays for paltry tidbits of usable power. Between his limited abilities to alter the near surrounding environment and his body’s strengths, Menver knew that the journey from Kardesh-Nar to his brother’s memorial was going to be, as he muttered to himself, “One hell of a trick to pull off.” For the memorial was in the far end of Luhirin, now one of the few provinces Avallah oversaw, being the border province to Uthanral, the throne on which the capital Yevuntuluhr was seated. Uthanral, he surmised but could not confirm, was probably what was keeping the Shekethrum from occupying every city they defeated. The pattern he noticed thus far was to raze and abandon, make worthless, and press on, leaving the bulk of the enemy’s forces to press on toward the Imperial Palace. It was no skin off his back to let the Imperial Palace be taken, but the possible omnipresence of the enemy did not settle well with him. Thus he decided to leave behind any technological artifices he had. Body heat and discharged energy would be the only things for them to track. And having told Avallah he meant to leave at sundown, the logical time to move, Menver knew that the patrols would be that much less likely to be keeping an eye out for him. Tightly cinching his pack, the Mage snapped his fingers and pooled about him a cloak of shadows before jumping off the declining ledge of his observation post and into an equally dark alley. From there he planned to skitter his way to the outskirts, to the ring, and pry it apart as he had Tehvoon’s main gate. So he did, tripping an alarm in his escape. Cloaked in the spell of Cornuvral, he ran from Kardesh-Nar into the Nethari dunes. Kardesh-Nar was known as the valley of sand, which the Mage could well see, running, sliding steadily downward into
the mouth of the Duri gorge. The gorge ran west to east, once a steep-sided, rocky canyon, now become a holding pool for windblown sands coming from the northern tempests. Its south wall was smoothly graded where the infinite granules piled up; its north wall was weathered along its top, but the body of it was still rocky and pocketed with clay. This gorge ran on for miles and miles, connecting Nethar to the great pebbled plain of Cer’Ku, the delta where the once dammed river Duri drained. The high cliffs surrounding the delta prevented it from becoming another sandy mess. Past that point was the Luhirin oasis, a small reflection of the forested anomaly that is Uthanral. But first he had to deal with the Nethari dunes.
~~~~~
Unable to his uncle, Ajax was completely unaware that the Mage had stolen out of the city three days ago, but he wondered if maybe his summoning before Avallah and the war general was tied in with his uncle’s reemergence. Rumor still stoked that Menver could very well be chosen to become the next champion, as Vedin was. Ajax was still kneeling before the commander and high priestess. They had been communicating in thought to each other for the last three hours, leaving him on a knee with no more of an idea why he was there than when he woke up to the glaring order in his mind to appear before them. He was directed to appear in the prescribed nekafi clothing: three straps of brown cloth, one about the waist, one the lower torso, and one the mouth. Much was wrong. Avallah never consulted with anyone in the Deltornir’s command; she told them what to do. There lacked a mental trace for him to lock onto, and he knew better than to tilt his head any higher than an apologetic bow to watch them. He knew there was to be trouble for entering the Capitol. His options for punishment were few, given the rules of the Law of Battle. His uncle, on the other hand, was nekafi with a residential ; there was a wide range of punitive measures the Tuluhrai could torture him with. Ajax decided not to think on it and chose to clear his mind. To “draw a blank,” as his uncle said now and again.
Ajax stood, head still bowed.
The voice was female. The High Mystic was choosing to speak to him. <We have agreed that you will have your citizenship removed, and you will be sent to the conscript legions. But there is a catch, youngling. We have decided to offer you a task that will aid the great Empire and perhaps regain a good standing in the esteem of your command. Do you wish to regain the title of Legionnaire and reentry into your crulaj, Ajax Torunthunai?>
When Ajax lifted his chin, he saw only the commander, fully armored with extended spear in hand. The High Mystic Avallah had already disappeared. Vaguely, Ajax felt some disappointment.
And Ajax started to understand. The commander sent him images of a man, a Tuluhrai engineer; the memories of conversations with this engineer; and his quest. Ajax blinked and understood what was to be done.
<Enjoy the hunt, mongrel. Now leave.> Ajax nodded, feeling a mix of joy and humility, and teleported back to his quarters. To the left of the commander, a different figure became visible, tall and lanky, minimally armored and bearing a tawny, unarticulated javelin. Masking the figure was a single plate of deltraj, curved to the benefit of the face, with holes bored only for the eyes. Colored trails weaved from the corners of the eyes down
to the chin. He tapped his spear into the floor and straightened his arm fully.
<So be it.> The conversing figures then both disappeared. Meanwhile, in the makeshift barracks on the opposite end of Kardesh-Nar, Ajax was refitting a gauntlet to his left arm. He was to report to the teleportation center by the docks in the second quadrant of the third-fourth circle. From there, he’d be sent to Ehyha’Kul, which was well past Nethar’s borders, on the western continent. After clipping his helmet’s face-plate into place, Ajax quickly wiped the edge of its crown and pounded his chest. He nearly smiled as well, thankful for the opportunity to clean his name of dishonor. The commander had ordered the crulaj technicians to repair his armor prior to departure. His spear was clean and sharpened, his gear pack bearing enough food for one week’s time and four collapsible tenting rods. Ajax also decided to put in a few synneural wires. Fiend-jamming technologies weren’t strong enough to prevent the mind’s signals from reaching the helm but proved to consistently interrupt commands from the helm to parts of the armor. Ajax did not wish to take the chance out in the western world. Ajax’s eyes, aglow with gratitude and determination, flashed but once before he disappeared altogether to reassemble with the whole of his being at the transporter center. The battle was set and readied for the Legionnaire.
CHAPTER 10
STARTING OVER THE CREST OF yet another dune, Menver was also starting to question the Tuluhrai need to worship their planet’s sand. It seemed to him that there was more than enough to make it pretty common. Maybe a tree was worth worshipping in this wasteland, but not the sand. Menver was three and a half days into his trek. Day one, he used no portals, no flight, no spells, trying to absorb as much light as possible to restore himself. He hadn’t slept either, staying awake with minute injections of power whenver exhaustion eroded his resolve. According to his map, there was still another couple days before he reached the Duri gorge. If by some miracle there happened to be a trickle of water left, it would make a good place to stop. Both blessing and curse, the blighted atmosphere kept most of the sun’s fury at bay but at the same time kept the heart of the sun’s energy away from Menver. Weakness still pervaded his body, and every step spent on metabolic energy angered him, as he knew especially that it was only his carelessness that got him caught in such a position. Stalwartly, he wore the miles on, gritting his teeth against the coarse, grainy winds that blew against him and against the endless dunes that slipped under his dirtied boots. He wasn’t but half a day’s journey from the edge of the Duri gorge when something worth his attention finally occurred. Sleeves rolled and head tilted up, the Mage started to actively absorb the nascent light when a particular feeling came to him, the same as he had felt in Tehvoon, as he had felt as a mere youngling back on Atlantis. It was the fear of hestos. At the peak of a particularly tall dune, Menver could make out in the distance Duri’s form. He moved to take a swig of water in preparation for the last leg of the journey’s first part, but just as the metallic fluid holder came to his lips, a tremor fifty yards away hit the ditch of the next dune. Weakened and in poor preparation, Menver did the most natural thing. He flew.
Several dunes ed beneath him, and beneath him followed the wakes of the sand-burrowing predators, waiting for the Mage to slip up and fall. But he would not. Floating several yards above the sand’s surface, the Mage started to call again upon the power of the storm, to cast lightning down upon the hidden creatures that would not rise; strictly to glass Tuluhr and give the hestos something of a barrier to deal with. Midway through casting his spell, a claw shot from the sands, open, with stinging barbs aimed and pointed at the Mage. Menver, being originally of Earth, dealt with a strain of hestos not absolutely like the pure strain found on Tuluhr, and he knew not until this moment that the females had barbs they could use as projectiles. No, the Mage knew it not until one caught him square in the left shoulder and knocked him to the edge of the sands, where they spilt into the Duri gorge, and the Mage, grabbing the arrow-shaft-sized barb, fell to the gorge, engrossed in both his pain and his misery. It was a strange poison that the hestos employed. Menver acknowledged it quietly in his mind during his fall; never had he felt so peaceful during defeat, and he had never imagined his final moments, after so many years, would occur with complacency.
~~~~
Ajax stepped out of the shimmering light of the portal to the other side of the world. He hoped to see something different, but his geography lessons had taught him better. Ehya’Kul was as dry and lifeless as Nethar; no province was truly and exceptionally different besides the holy province. The teleporter left him standing on a wide-faced butte facing over the red, rocky plains that constituted much of Ehya’Kul’s character. The wind brought strange scents to his nostrils. Part of him—the slice that was still young and exploratory—wished to seek out their sources; the part that led the rest told him to carry out the mission. All specifications loaded themselves to his descending visor, so what
was not directly pumped into his brain as memories became constant visuals next to the sensor array across the visor’s screen. Ehya’Kul was the unfortunate target after Nethar in the Fiends’ campaign to ruin the homeworld. Because of its topography, Ehya’Kul was the home of many of the off-world transmitters, observatories, spaceports, and even the abandoned space elevator. Towers used to punctuate the sun’s rays as they peeked through the winding trenches and buttes of Ehya’Kul. None of these had been spared by the Shekethrum, their wrath extending even to the cliff faces and mountains, which now allowed little interference to his short-range sensors. This also meant Ajax’s electronics would be easier for the Fiends to detect. He felt it necessary to risk a quick sweep of the area for any sign of operating Tuluhrai technology. In this vastness, finding a single soul by signs and tracks would be near impossible. Ajax marked his position and ran due west, leaving his gear behind. He needed to leave it as an image for his mind to focus on for his return. Kardesh-Nar’s teleporter was set to reopen a guarded portal every two days for the next eight days. Nothing had ed on his sensors. But the topographical map displayed over his left eye zoomed inward to a scale of 250 square meters and thrust to him the knowledge of a cave system ten kilometers away. He peeled his armor back to minimum coverage and let his long legs take care of the rest. Another quick sweep pinged nothing, not even a Fiend alarm stick, which they planted in conquered areas like pollen in a breeze. They were simplistic individually but highly effective in network. Luckily for Ajax, his armor picked up nothing still. His next worry was hestos. Fortunate that Ehya’Kul was not as favored a habitat for them as Nethar. With his luck on such a streak, Ajax naturally worried. Coming to the end of the butte, the lad slid to a halt and started the climb down. The dull tips of his toes caught and scratched the rocky hide while his elongate fingers held fast to every ledge and nook they found. It would be mostly an upper-body struggle, and Ajax wondered—the only time he ever would—if his uncle’s human physiology was actually better suited for something like this, with those five fleshy oddities at the forward ends of his feet. His eyes narrowed as he allowed himself to drop down to a sizable ridge a meter below his soles. Immediately he cast a spell of invisibility about his body; rather than use his own power reserves to bend light around him, this “magic” his uncle had taught him had its pleasing benefits.
In a squat, he surveyed the western facets. The sun was arcing toward the edge of the sky, and the filtered rays cast magnificence across the horizon. Were his mind any less severe in its ways, Ajax would have smiled at the sight. Looking beneath, he noticed the slope wasn’t too steep—not so much to make a fast descent too dangerous. At this thought, the lad did smile, and he snapped forth the retractable fingers and talons from his right gauntlet. Stretching up to a stand, he spun back on his heels and hopped slightly back, whipping his arm out to catch the side of the smoothly eroded butte. A violent tug jolted his arm nearly from its socket, but the talons held fast. Keeping an eye looking down the length of his free arm to the ground below, his visor clouded his vision with a warning alarm, energy buildup detected, and the lad’s reaction came quickly: a quick shield went up to absorb the attack, the talons detached, and he kicked away from the butte to make a short free fall into a portal, settling him on the ground and in a defensive stance. Spear in hand and left gauntlet’s shield activated, Ajax spun about on his heels, waiting for his helmet to pinpoint the attacker. A second ed with no indication. He dashed forward while forcing himself invisible, deenergizing his shield at the same moment.
Ajax reappeared, staring about.
Every cell in his body wanted to pummel this scientist and leave him a battered mess. Mission and honor held him at bay. The rocks seemed to move, walking toward Ajax, and their exteriors faded to reveal a black-armored figure, the cloth of the Renrurai, the Cult of Science, wrapped about his waist. His arms bore large plated gauntlets that extended to a bulky degree past the width of his arms, and Ajax noticed the edges of some sort of onyx carapace set on his target’s back.
command now need your service. The prototype technologies you provided have been very effective against the Fiends. Our Empire asks you to set aside pride and accept your role in our civilization’s defense. Yeventuluhr and all the cities of the sands need you. Those who refuted you are gone. The free path to regaining your position is open again, Lord Engineer.> His anger, disguised as it was, swayed for a moment. The universal unfairness of his being chosen to deliver this gift elevated itself to conscious consideration.
The engineer stood still, tilting his chin up slightly, appearing to be watching some figment high and above. Ajax rolled his shoulders back and dug his heels into the ground, unsure whether to expect another volley or a speech.
Six mechanical arms shot out from the engineer’s back, their tips, gun barrels, lighting up as the weapons’ pack charged. Ajax vaulted aside, raising his left arm up for a shield. The engineer protected himself behind the large energy wall generated by his right gauntlet, while the left, Ajax finally noticed, threatened someone else with its two gunports. Three of the weaponized arms followed Ajax as he rolled onto his stomach and shoved himself back to a stand. The lad was immediately jealous of the engineer’s armor, if not confused.
Though the question was not directed toward Ajax, the Engineer’s thoughts were broadcast so loudly that any receptive mind within a mile would have heard him. At that thought, Ajax realized that the whole of his mission had changed; the Huroonai were never dispatched for objectives like his. Ajax snapped his wrist, engaging the claws and gun. He knew the importance behind the engineer, but maybe, he hoped, the commander saw him as a traitor, which would be a stupid
move, yet better for Ajax. The assassin was hidden still to him. But the trajectory of the engineer’s weaponry gave the Legionnaire an idea of where he stood. And better still, the Huroonai rarely capitalized on their exclusion from the law prohibiting fighting cloaked. <Jenrua, return to the High Mystic Avallah. You are to provide the knowledge for the proper modifications to the city shield-rings. ing to your computer is the location of a primary teleporter with enough power to return you to Nethar. You are safe so long as you do not stand between me and the hybrid. I am told you will face no reindoctrination to the Law of Battle.> The thoughts lingered as strong echoes in the Legionnaire’s head, enveloping his heart and squeezing his ribs. The Huroon had been sent for him, for Ajax, who fought and bled and continued to fight for his home, to defend what he had been raised to love, who woke up every morning to the spit and curses of his brethren yet still adored the blessed sands. It was either the commander or the priestess that had sent this one for him. The engineer was probably nothing but a matter of convenience for him to find; there was no forgiveness for defiling a capitol. Rage began building in his throat, and Ajax readied his spear. To the engineer, Jenrua, he cast the message
<Jenrua, go back to Nethar. If I live at nightfall, and you refuse the High Mystic’s authority, I have been chartered to consider you a traitor. The exclusion on your head will not help you then.> <Scum, both of you. Thick-headed and weak-willed. There’s obviously no choice … but when the two of you are dead and gone, my machinations will still stalk this world, and each member of both your castes will wear my armaments. To threaten me is to threaten Tuluhr itself!> The Huroon made himself visible at those words, he and Jenrua staring deep into each other’s eyes. Ten guns were pointed at the hunter; he clung solidly to the rock wall, holding his javelin parallel to his waist. He snorted at Jenrua. The engineer took a step back. Ajax could hear the six-gunned pack humming at an even higher pitch than before. Another snort and the Huroon let go of the rocks, dropping to the ground a meter away from where Ajax originally landed. He raised his javelin once to the engineer. Psychic static issued between the two; Ajax could read none of it, but the outcome said everything. Smartly, the hunter
dropped the javelin to the side, and immediately the engineer snapped the mechanical arms against his back, stepping into a portal, presumably to wherever the Huroon had directed him earlier. This left Ajax’s double-edged spear almost trembling in tension as he gazed headlong at the lithe form of the hunter. Fully 263 years had ed since the Huroonai purged the Deltornir of subversives. Their battle efficiency against legionnaire combat veterans was far from flattering to the imperial ground forces. There had been stories of legionnaires besting hunters in combat, but the number of those tales did not encourage the lad. Gripping his spear tightly, Ajax recalled his one master advantage: none of those other guardsmen were him.
<We will find that out soon enough.> Arcing his hand across his chest, the Huroon threw half a dozen small knives at the lad, who, upon seeing movement from the hunter, already was on the move, leaning back and dropping into a crouch at the same time. The daggers barely missed the chin of his faceplate before Ajax heard the hunter land on ground level. Caught in an awkward position and falling back, Ajax ran through his mind the hunter’s possible distance and the ground the lad could clear in a backward roll and quick thrust to his feet. Enough of a push could send him just outside of the Huroon’s jump range. Ajax then landed on his shoulder blades, kicking himself over to catch himself in a one-palmed handstand and flip back to a defensive stance. The tips of his clawed feet touched the dirt; a point punctured his upper abdomen, following him as the lad backpedaled. The Legionnaire had, in the standoff, forgotten to engage full-bodied armor. Pain concentrated at the blackening hole in his body. Hands came clenching down on the javelin’s shaft, letting the Deltornir-issued spear fall aside. Ajax grinned beneath his mask. He roared. The bellow of the Legionnaire sounded off the rock walls. Unfettered strength filled his sinews; his feet clenched into the
ground, halting his backward pace just as he braced himself against the hunter’s force. Ajax pulled the javelin from his body before the Huroon stopped his charge. He flung it aside, and the weapon flew a few meters from the Legionnaire. Drawn in close, the Huroon was left open to a full-handed slash from Ajax’s claws, which cut grooves across his enemy’s faceplate. The hunter leaped away; Ajax fired off a shot and disappeared. Ajax rematerialized in a column of light. As soon as his feet hit the plateau’s surface, he ran, a lone figure with a dusty wake, sprinting against the shadow of the setting sun. It was hardly rational that in a time when soldiers were few he’d be the target of the Huroonai, yet the reality was he was fleeing on foot from what would fairly likely be the cause of his death. Was setting foot in the Capitol that mortal of a sin? Why? Because of the ruddiness of his blood and birth? Because he, of all the Deltornir, was stricken with the curse of imperfection? But what should such a thing matter in the final days, at the bedrock of cooperation that is survival, that the blood of his ancestry should obfuscate his desire, the desire of any young warrior who loves his home and childhood, his land and his family, to fight and protect them to the last of his strength? He did not understand. Where did it come from? What was the root of it all that made him, an otherwise superb and proud servant to his people, a stranger and outcast? Between blinks and heavy breaths, his attention turned to another matter, first considered when the hunter first appeared—one that caused him to bite into his lip in self-damnation for forgetting. For all the times and prior fights, Ajax had trusted in the abilities of his suit’s sensory equipment, never once doubting it. But after the engineer’s display, mistrust crept through his system, as well as an unusual feeling, like the one he had encountered when ambushed by the hestos, but found more in his arms, legs, and breath, away from his abdomen and chest. As if his enemy were reading his apprehensions, several targets appeared across Ajax’s display. A mental change in the visor’s imagery showed him nothing, but caught in a logical loop, it continued to flash neon blue warning symbols. It mattered not to the lad anyway. The plateau he chose to jump to was reaching its end, with the hunter somewhere in the vicinity, playing tricks on his armor’s mind. A change in tactics was at hand. Near the edge, the Legionnaire came to a skidding halt and turned to face his
attacker, visor up to avoid any confusion. His glowing eyes fluctuated at a frequency resonant with the light swirling around him, collecting and solidifying into his defense. An all-angle shield was necessary against an opponent who could strike from any possible direction. Both hands generated and held on to orbs intended for exploding through the hunter’s torso, if things went the lad’s way. Something flickered off to his right, a quick form that faded with lingering illusion just as another appeared high and above him. Ajax called the visor back down. Though it filtered out the holographic ghosts of the Huroon, warning flags appeared in every possible direction across the display. Neither natural nor artificial sight was reliable against the Huroonai. Instead, the lad had to wait until the exact moment of the strike, at which point it would be reflex versus reflex. Above, a sound different from that of the wind, something caught in the breeze, forced Ajax to glance up just in time to see the javelin’s point aimed for his crown. It pierced the barrier easily, hitting Ajax’s shoulder near the collar at a fortunate enough angle to glance off the armor and spike into the ground. A moment like this was rare to find. The Legionnaire dissolved the two orbs and shield with quick shakes of the wrists and drove his right shoulder into the hunter, throwing him off balance long enough for the lad to seize his weapon. He turned on the Huroon, hooked the shaft behind the hunter’s knees, and then gave it a quick pull to knock his enemy down. Down went the hunter, but in his fall he clasped his hands together and shot forth a blast of energy that caught Ajax clear in the chest, tossing the lad onto his back three meters away, armor charred and organs bruised. Blindly swinging his arm across his body and whispering pained words, the lad stoked a fire in the ground that grew in height as it sped toward the hunter. Another arm movement and the blaze grew another several meters and spread to the left and right to create a fifteen-meter-wide wall. Regardless, the hunter ran through it, six-inch claws in both hands engaged and bared toward the lad. Ajax flipped his palm forth and let go three successive blasts, twitched his hand down, and fired off a charged shot from the gauntlet. The hunter raised his own gauntlet shield and blocked the first three with ease but was paused by the force of the last, giving Ajax time to scramble to an attack. Hunter and Legionnaire met with finger-splayed slashes as black droplets sprinkled through the sky.
Ajax had ducked low, putting his left forearm into the bend of the hunter’s right arm and grabbing him by the bicep, while using the engaged talons to catch the other arm by the wrist. Before he could cut through the hunter’s tendons, the Huroon snap kicked his talons into Ajax’s lower abdomen, growling as the Legionnaire refused to let his grip go. Ajax twisted around the hunter’s wrist and felt the hand fall limp. The Huroon, drawing silent, brought the points of his toes to the outside of Ajax’s left knee, popping a tendon from its place, and as the Legionnaire crumpled, a roundhouse knocked his left ear deaf; the horizon became dizzying for Ajax to watch.
If the magnitude of pain still was any indication, Ajax knew not to move his leg, instead spreading his arms out to get a better grip on the ground. As a Legionnaire, he did not know fear defined, nor would he recognize it even if instinct bested training; and as a Legionnaire, he knew not to let any pain or blow overtake his ability to fight. Lying down, collecting himself, was a failure to his years.
The hunter called back his javelin from where Ajax had displaced it. He tucked an end beneath his arm and left the far point nudged between skin and breastplate. <What should that mean from you? Before, you claimed you would be the one to kill me. Now you are your deficiency. Make up your mind, Legionnaire. You know the ways of the Huroonai. I need an epitaph for a military kill. Make it cohesive.> Ajax snorted from beneath his faceplate and scowled, and an angry derision built from the depth of his throat, darkening his words.
where the eyes will not watch me. And to whom do I owe allegiance? My home. I owe it to my home! It is all that is mine, hunter!>
CHAPTER 11
IN THE EARLIER AGES OF Tuluhrai civilization, magic and sensationalist superstitions kept control over the people, much as conviction in technological might did in the current age, or so Menver convinced himself through his studies. Many nights, sitting on his tidy bed in Jurda, he meditated on the race’s history. Earth was so very full of inconsistencies, so full of compromises, and goods and evils, and yins and yangs that coming to a world like this was entirely a culture shock. He never adapted to it, barely tolerated it, but at least grew to acknowledge the single-minded approach. Something at least could be said about the cooperative way that different areas of society were handled. This coming after thousands of years after such a starkly different era. Truly, there once was a time when clans bore different individual cultures and the Tuluhrai were not the masters of all local star systems. Menver noticed that although there was a fervent religious belief among the Tuluhrai, it was almost indistinct from the same blank-faced confidence they held in their strength and superiority. He felt total belief but no spirituality; an emptied religious shell. Somewhere, it had faded; either it was stamped out by the establishing central government, or the people simply let it go, which could have aided or been irrelevant to the mass homogenization. If once there had been something lost, there would be something to regain. With the powers at the Tuluhrai’s disposal, Menver was ready to agree that they had gained some sort of access to a greater power, either through visions, divination through seers, or by direct . His curiosity had grown over the first few years of mandatory residence, and it so happened he kept as an amulet a shard of the Vishok clan crystal. It took months of observation to determine when and where security in Jurda was most lax. All he needed was a split second to get outside of the city and then to quickly warp to the gate temple. That second was found, and he fooled the temple’s protectors just long enough to cast the incantation to return to the world of Fordin, to the exit gate Delkurnas. The reason for all this deception was that in Fordin he knew an archmage who could help him in accessing the memories of the crystal, for Menver had a theory: if the crystals mined held an apportioned piece of Tuluhr, as the legends say, then maybe it could provide insight into what the original Tuluhr-creature was, if it was a creature at all.
When he returned to his apartment, Menver had trouble sleeping for the next three nights. He caught glimpses of the truth that sat just on the outside edges of a blurry memory; the scenes from the crystal turned into vague impressions that left in him a conviction and fear. At least he knew the truth—he was aware. Duri gorge was the location of Tuluhr’s descent, where his might split open the planet upon first touching down. Its walls were lined with caves that housed no animals or bones from ones long dead. For all its time, even when the gorge ran full with water, no fauna were ever recorded to be living within the gorge. Except, for the time being, one. Tucked in an alcove, to stay in the shade, sat Menver. Between toxin-induced delusions, he tried to work up wrath at himself for the consistent shaming he had put up with since leaving Tathanhla. The hestos hadn’t made themselves apparent in the last few hours, and he surmised that he lost them. His magic was able to heal the wound left by the barb, but the hallucinogens flowing through his system would need time. Menver used the rock against his back to keep steady while standing back up. A quick check showed that his body still sorely lacked a full complement of that utaikna Ajax talked about. He stumbled out from the alcove and back into the fading sun, confident that he was at least well enough to attempt to restart his journey. Night would fall soon, and he didn’t anticipate leaving the gorge before moonrise. He walked as far as he could while daylight lasted, pausing to take a knee here and there to straighten out his senses and keep the voices down. They started to mumble at him the moment he left the alcove. The right-thinking part of his mind made a pledge that he would bludgeon to death with a crowbar the hestos that barbed him. Menver scratched at the healed wound and looked skyward. There was a glow seeping from around the clouds that he hadn’t noticed before. “Ah yes … sounds and sights galore. Wonderful.” Shaking his head, he shuffled down the length of the gorge, careful to stay close to its side wall. Luhirin was still too far away for silly voices to hold him back. For the next several hours, as the sky’s light waned back to dark, Menver reflected much. Something kept the hestos at bay; what, the Mage did not know, but the farther he walked, the more of a draw he felt to the gorge. The vision
from years ago said there was merit to the Tuluhrai religion. It was hard to ignore the ebbing sense of anxiety that sent goose bumps over his skin. But he knew that he was not ready for it yet. Whatever “it” was, whatever was watching him or calling him or simply making him insane, would make itself apparent. Of that, Menver had no doubt at all. Until that point, the bare whispers on the wind were aggravating, even more than the chitters of the hestos on the ridge. On the eighth hour after emerging from the alcove, the Mage could see the end of the gorge. Smiling with tired accomplishment, he shuffled to the side and found some meager shelter among several boulders. Between their varying sizes and arrangement, in between them all was a space just big enough for him to nestle down in to sit and rest his head against stone. By them, he found and cut a small scrub brush, which he used to cover the overhead in case he overslept well into sunrise of the next day.
Squeals and screams woke the Mage from his rest. Before he knew what he was reacting to, he had shot out from his enclosure, riding a beam of light to rise above the gorge and lord over the landscape. Below, a pack of hestos surrounded three beasts that were historically used as pack animals. Menver didn’t know their name, but it was difficult to mistake the fifteen-meter-long serpentines. He shook his head and looked over his shoulder, in the direction of Cer’Ku. The delta was now quite visible, a shimmering vista colored from millennia of deposited sediment. Confidence fueled the Mage, who felt invigorated after the night’s rest, which had provided him a better recovery than any previous night. He pointed to a spire-like rock in the distance and pressed it to his memory. As the Mage focused on the rock, his body disappeared to teleport to that memorized point. Cer’Ku, luckily, happened to be a deserted area. Intent on squeezing as much good fortune from the delta as possible, Menver tapped into his rebuilt stores and short-jumped across the desiccated land. Bright fireworks of green flashing across the skyline were to be the only excitement that Cer’Ku saw for months prior to and after the Mage’s travel. Menver was aware of making himself a living beacon to the Shekethrum, and he knew that Luhirin bore the potential of being a Shekethrum staging ground. A smile crept across his face at the idea of it. Luhirin was where he would test the
reunited swords.
~~~~~
At the Huroon’s words, the Legionnaire’s adrenal glands emptied themselves into his bloodstream.
The full power of an enraged Torunthunai flooded Ajax’s veins, and with movements so quick as to awe the hunter, he took the javelin by its shaft and slashed it away, both cutting into his own chest and throwing the hunter off his feet. Even with one leg operable, he still sprang up quickly. He leaped back and skyward, throwing his open hands before him. The hunter was standing again, with a quarter breath’s notice of what was coming. Seething and enraged, the Legionnaire glared down at this Huroon, the one who would kill him. Ajax could feel his strength leaking from open wounds, every droplet taking with it precious reserves taken directly from the sun. He called his cells to let go of the rest, to unleash his power; the Huroon cast a shield for protection, but it was no use. Ajax Torunthunai dropped a pillar of his wrath down upon the hunter and incinerated the being within its armor and mask. A faint breeze ed the Legionnaire by, pushing against him faintly. Exhausted beyond memory, he fell easy to the wind and lay gasping on the ground. To his abdomen and chest he placed a glowing hot hand, cauterizing those wounds. Had he the ability to recall it well, he would try his uncle’s healing spell—yet the Legionnaire always thought them less worthy than magic that dealt combustion. He onished himself, thinking, <Stupid, stupid me.> He squeezed his eyelids shut and forced his armor to extend to full plating. As well, he commanded the computer to ensure the right leg locked itself straight to spare his knee the pain of movements it was currently incapable of doing. The golden armor followed orders and encapsulated his broken body to its fullest extent. Ajax rolled his neck toward the horizon and stared at it with a strange sense of renewal. On this day he slew one of the Huroonai. Broken-bodied though he was, the knowledge of his accomplishment raised him upright with a din of popping ts. Only a few of all the legionnaires of all the imperial armies could boast what he had done. Despite his betrayal in the high plateau, there would be
something for Fe Soothurai of the Deltornir to his service record as a point of pride. As for his uncle, Ajax did not dare tell him about it yet. Menver would bring Mohdchar down if he heard the details of what had transpired. He did not know that on the other side of the planet his uncle was walking off the effects of a hestos’s dart. In due time, the lad would tell him, but for the rest of the legion, to stamp his worth, Ajax wanted a trophy. A Huroonai Mask of the Crying Eyes would be beyond worthy. So the lad took his prize from his enemy’s helm and peered through its eyeholes. He smirked and opened a portal, half expecting to see Lord Jenrua waiting for the same exit to appear. Disappointment sat in Jenrua’s place at the other side, but the lad minded it not. In the windy heights of Ehya’Kul, four tenting rods concealed beneath their invisible shroud a most tired and beaten warrior. Asleep, he was free to roam the breadth of Tehvoon without his armor and his blade, his face relaxed from hate and anxiety. In blurring images of markets and faces, he comforted in two pleasantries: his mother waited for him; his uncle sat quietly with open books and new lessons. Away forever from the reality of those things, the waking world afforded Ajax one night’s peace.
~~~~
Luhirin’s outer border was marked by the striking field of sand grasses, which waved with the ing graces of the wind. After years of not seeing natural grassland, the mage halted so that he could watch their choreography. Ages ago, this was probably the bottom of the shallow lake where Cer’Ku emptied the Duri River. By what resource vegetation to this level still existed, Menver did not know, and it was honestly not a field of study that interested him. His proceedings went by more slowly in Luhirin. The Tuluhrai incapacity for building navigable metropolitan areas annoyed him, for at least on Earth he had the sometimes convenient interstate system to help him find his way. Tuluhr was a planet made of civilized nodes. Shielded cities with the past’s relics scattered between, glowing arches that marked transportation nodules, and the occasional actual town, mostly of outcasts, were what the planet had to offer. At least Menver was getting close enough that he might be within a portal’s
range of the shrine. Were he at full strength, he could make the distance and renew himself with the sword to return to Kardesh-Nar. But the series of short jumps had weakened him enough to keep the shrine out of distance. He tried but could not keep stable a single portal. On foot and in daylight would be the day’s age. Even the sound of the reeds being parted by the calves of his tros was an appealing, and missed, sensation. It allowed the Mage the presence of mind to consider the path. A distance of 730 miles stood between Cer’Ku and Leyern if he traveled in a northeasterly direction. Around 280 miles south east of Leyern was the battlefield where the armies had massed and surrounded the Destroyer, the very spot where Vedin fell and his shrine was soon erected. Difficulty lay in the decisions Menver needed to make. He could cross much of the distance by short-jumping when and where he could, risking detection and possibly being caught while depleted; or to take the long haul as his legs could manage and go through more food and water than he would otherwise—all of this without considering the means of return. Nothing more than guesswork left Menver with hollow assurances that he could replenish himself by feeding off either sword’s strength. Grass as far as his eyes could see. Menver would be on foot for hours at least. As the hours wore on, signs of Shekethrum ing became evident again. A Driniri fighter lay in twain some hundred meters away from the Mage and debris would catch his attention with blinding rays glinting from still-shining hues. An hour after ing the grave of another Driniri, the horizon broke with the silhouette of something noteworthy, something for the Mage to lock onto for teleportation. Reemergence held him over the gutted body of a Shekethrum frigate. Its silver flesh was peeled down its lateral line, exposing multiple compartments that could entice a more foolish person to enter. If the famed guile of the Tir Korcath could be derived from their Shekethrum heritage, then Menver knew that to set a curious foot into the ship would be to set foot into a nightmare. Sometimes, his experience would remind him, nightmares return even after one wakes from sleep. Lights within the ship activated, and scores of disturbances appeared on the
intact portions of its hull. Where the disturbances appeared, the outer skin recessed and became fluid, allowing the extrusion of strikingly ornate singlepiece blades, matching any craftsman’s finest decorative weapon. “Oh no …” Menver said upon observation of their design. As the blades rotated in their liquid sheaths, he frantically tried to teleport or portal his escape, but he was so close to the capital ship that its dampeners stopped his attempts before he could refocus reality. He stood at ground zero in the crosshairs of a still-active ship’s weapon system. His chest heaved, his head spinning to every direction for an exit. The words for the Cornuvral stealth spell poured from his mouth, slightly muffling his presence. He ran. Beams of gray and sapphire cut the ground around him, and the Mage, aloft, surrounding himself with several layers of shielding, ducked and soared, dropped and spun as best his telekinesis could throw him. Luck provided him an enemy that was more crippled than he first thought, as many of the blades did not fire. He kept his eyes on the ship, afraid for a moment to turn around and make a final push to get out of the dampeners’ range. A shot came from overhead, forcing him down; the Mage thrust a hand down to counter that and came to a standstill, avoiding the path of another beam. His skin was burned from the proximity, his clothes warping and bearing embers. Crying out, he threw a hasty bolt toward one of the gun placements, halting it not at all. A spray from somewhere off to the right caught him in the side, penetrating his first three layers of protection, searing his arm and causing anguish to fill his lungs. Using a sudden gust of determination, he flung himself backward in a beeline, routing the strength of his shielding to his front, collapsing the several layers into one solid jade pyramid that covered him. He threw back small orbs into the open parts of the ship, praying to hit vital power conduits. His hopes were dashed instead as the different beams found him there and took aim. Wracking his mind, he wrought fire from the ground to confuse the ship on the infrared level and forced a dozen pitiful standstill illusions of himself to appear in various locations along the firing line. Palpable now was the drain on his body’s systems. He pushed himself as fast he could. Crossing sprays of antifighter fire cut across the barrier, destroying it upon impact. If another bolt had impacted, it would have burst through and cut the Mage in half. His life was spared by his inability to provide enough surface area to target. The most primal of his senses felt out toward the great expanse of the world and
its ways, fervid in its search for the open area, where space is no longer bound so tightly by the ship’s mechanisms. It was nearing, but every second he spent away from that border was a billion opportunities to become charred. Cornuvral was wearing off; his focus was waning. He dropped to ground level and flew off again before the frigate left a crater in his shadow. The sightless border was at his fingertips, so close he began to actually reach for the untouchable. Behind, the frigate retrained its guns on him; before him, the dull haze was lifting. A final gust and he pummeled his fist beyond the ship’s field; his mind locked on to the first thing he saw in the distance and crafted a portal for that point. In its shade, Menver slumped against the bark of a lonely tree, the only tree as far as his eye could see. Through the quiet, as the breeze ed by, a groan tugged his ear. But all his senses, reaching out to the planet around him, found no one there but him. The Mage stood and kept himself propped against the tree. The wind around him picked up more; as it did, his heart beat faster, his skin grew tight and cold. He started to walk away from the tree. His feet bore down and snapped some dried twigs lying on the protruding roots, but Menver managed only two steps before he stopped again, finding his fists clenched tightly. It had suddenly become harder to ignore the pressing thoughts that were coming to him, questions originating outside of his control. One more step taken, and he was propelled to scream, “Yes! I am going to take the blade, and I will fight with it! I will get rid of the Shekethrum if I have to, if it means my survival and the survival of the last of my family!” His shout appeared to have the proper effect; immediately the pressure cleared, giving him the presence to shortteleport to the end of his sight’s range. The presence of a single tree was indicative of Luhirin’s influence, meaning that the land around Vedin’s memorial wouldn’t be out of portal range for too much longer. The dangers of being detected by a Shekethrum patrol weighed less on him now than the dangers of traveling confidently undetected. Predators and ships and heat and madness started to be more humbling than an organelle-killing staff tip to the chest. Hours ed before the sun started to creep low enough that the Mage’s skin scraped at the bare offerings of the sky and forced him to remain standing. The true Luhirin surrounded him now. The reedy grasses he encountered were thick here and brushed against his forearms; flat-topped trees stretched across the landscape, and the unmistakable twitter of life grew. Golden spires also grew more in Luhirin than elsewhere. These were the deenergized beacons for the Tuluhrai actually opting to take land skimmers for travel. To his right, glimmering in the haze, was the skyline of Luhirin’s broken fortress city, Danru
Nar. Seeing it, Menver marked its appearance in his mind for shelter, but he doubted the Shekethrum had completely abandoned it as was their usual tactic.Considering that Danru Nar was closer to the Throne of Tuluhr than the Nethari cities, Menver imagined that Shekethrum presence would become thicker—just not so much so to pick up a random biological on foot that did not fit the Tuluhrai profile. “One more night’s rest,” the Mage whispered to himself, crawling up to the base of the nearest tree, “and I’ll get to see,” as he lay down, “who’s magics are mightier, Avallah.”
~~~~
In the morning, the Mage cut away a swath of grass for a clearing free of shade in order to reenergize. He bit down the last bit of true food he had, and his water was nearly depleted. Yet there was no worry in him; once the sword was his, he would be unstoppable. With the swaying reeds undulating with the wind, and a few actual clouds standing out against the hazy atmosphere, memories of Earth came back to the Mage. How many ages ago there was a brief span of his life, a relative minute to his year, where he once appreciated lying in the grasses. How he had actually been tired of his hatred and relieved himself of its burden to be with a woman. Her name was no longer a memory, but here he thought that if he sat long enough, maybe it would come back. She was dark haired, he could still recall, and dark skinned. Impossibly, she made him smile daily, and his heart, to his initial shock and disturbance, rattled his demeanor and set him on edge when he approached her. At this he faintly smiled, far removed from those days by over a thousand years and incalculable distance. It would be a guilty pleasure to linger, thinking over more pleasant days, if he weren’t also trying to absorb as much energy as possible from the environs. When satisfaction enabled the last of his cells, the Mage took to his feet and flight, hovering fifty meters from the ground to survey his direction of travel. No danger was so apparent to be seen or felt, and despite the journey so far, that was enough for the Mage to shoot forth toward his goal. The ground became a homogenous blur beneath his sight while he was borne to
the start of true greenery, the oasis forest of Luhirin. A grin crept on his face; the temple was near, inside the forest. A flash of green coursed across his body from head to toe, boosting his speed toward the temple. Miles ticked away; Avallah’s wards started to leave a thickening taste in the Mage’s mouth. Nausea was to settle in the moment he saw the temple, and he knew that to put his foot on the actual grounds would require a major dispel. That lovely woman knew how to make her point. Even with time and war, the wards were just as he ed; as soon as Menver caught the seven spires jutting their maroon peaks from the forest canopy, a welling hit his stomach, and he descended, gagging and coughing. “En kapra me helera, en kapra te helera,” spoke the Mage, gripping his sides. The nausea wore off immediately, and he continued on his way. As Tuluhrai temples went, the one dedicated to Vedin was small, with a plain exterior made of extremely large carved pieces of red rock taken from Ehya’Kul, which is where the family Torunthunai originated. Seven spires of the same rock stood on thin bases, spread evenly in a radius one hundred meters from the temple’s centers. They plumed outward in smooth curvatures toward the sky and, nearly at their top, came starkly inward to create obtuse points. In the middle was the temple itself, similar in style, an artistic pentagon with a base thinner than the structure’s actual widest point, which sat a meter from the ground. The corners, doorways, and windows were lined with still untarnished brass. Its walls bent inward from their foundation to create a steeple that broke above the canopy higher than the spires and higher than any tree in the forest. Having stopped Avallah’s warning, next would be breaking the seal set by the spires. More than simple decoration, they were anchors that kept the temple’s defenses alive against unwanted blood-types. Menver first bent down and flicked a pebble toward the closest spire. It clunked against the side of the rock structure and fell to the ground without reaction. Curling his lip, Menver formed a small explosive in his hand and lobbed in the same direction. This received the expected result; it fragmented against an invisible barrier, unleashing a shockwave that did no more than rustle the small bushes encroaching on the temple grounds. To his advantage, the Mage had spent years in Fordin learning the methods to manipulating nature. Normally ineffective against the lording powers of the Shekethrum, here, against a simple stone structure, they would finally become useful.
He clapped, forcing the powers of the land to reach up into his clenched hands and fashion a mallet made of rock, root, and soil. Vines sprouted and routed themselves from his ankles to his knees to hold him fast. Secured, he raised his hands high and brought the hammer down, smashing the ground with a growl and reddened face. Again and again he brought his arms down, pummeling the planet. Around him, the earth started to shiver; the stone spears surrounding the temple quivered. The packed soil at the base of each depressed more and more with Menver’s every strike. Rumbling earth gave way to sinkholes, several, each opening its widening maw with staccato motions at the rhythm of Menver’s hammer strikes. Menver’s body rocked with every hit, leaning as far back as the roots would allow and flinging forward to crush the ground, trying to reach deep below the spires’ foundations. Three strikes more and the spires began to tilt. Eight more past that and the sinkholes began to touch each other. Thirteen later and they began to fall, consumed by dirt and exposed root. As the anchors sank away, the ward lines Avallah had drawn started to burn a hot orange, exposing themselves to Menver’s sight so that he might proceed with the next step. Dismissing the ivy anchors, he stepped toward the nearest line, removing his saber from his side and channeling through it a portion of his power. The opal blade took on a dark light, blazing with his unacknowledged emotion. Hate and wrath filled the saber, and for the first time in a thousand years, the Red Eye of the Tir Korcath opened, peering at its target from the top of the hilt. Menver was wholly unaware of this, focused only on ensuring his blade bore enough strength to cut the lines. His teeth did clench at the thought that Vedin again, as always, had the honor of a temple dedicated to himself alone, while Menver of the dark had to undergo all this trouble just to walk the area. Only two people remained who could even wield the sword, and both were forbidden to do so by the High Mystic’s law. Spite for her law began to summon his wrath. This he suppressed, back to the inner chambers of his heart, to feed into his veins, to his arms, and to his blade. “Avallah! You thought you could keep me away from the sword of my brother, the sword that was rightfully mine the minute he died. This is to show you and all your ignorant race never to doubt me again.” The Red Eye glared; Menver dashed forward, arcing a blade of fire behind. Orange fire leapt from the ward lines and met the rushing olive blaze. Menver’s lungs tightened at the clash, and he forced more of himself into the blade. Here, at this moment, it was a battle of potential; of who had the greater
brute power, the Mage or mystic. Images of her sneer raised themselves, fueling his will. In a breath, he ed the arrest party that had shackled him in his own home. In a downward slash, the saber cut into the ground and shattered the ward line. Unwilling to waste a second, Menver charged through the breach, stabbing and cutting away at the weakening walls; as each was cut down, the next fell easier. Breaking the fourth wall dissolved the rest of her ward, leaving open the temple itself. Uttered softly came the Mage’s next step: “Reveal to me, will of the world, the hidden things that no man can see.” A blue haze came over his vision, revealing the traces of the broken wards around him, but his concern lay in the temple’s entrance. He was unsure what traps Avallah might have set on the building itself. There was no door to the gaping ten-meter-tall opening, so he assumed there would be some sort of extra security. But seeing nothing on the exterior, Menver stepped through, saber first. The Red Eye of the Tir Korcath shrieked and shut as soon as his boot touched the inner portion of the temple. Menver shrugged. A place sanctified by the Tuluhrai was not going to be friendly toward Tir Korcath enchantments. Lined against the sanctuary’s walls were small statuettes of the pure-blooded Torunthunai from history, re-collected to show the ancestry of this half-breed champion from afar. This was briefly fascinating to Menver, who was without emotional bond to his lineage. Centered on the bare, simple floor was the casket, sculpted in a relief of the warrior in his full plated mail—the body of Vedin, the twin, the Lightbringer and Chief. Before Menver lay the Immortal Warrior—a man ed so differently by various peoples, known as everything from a god to a cook to a drunkard, and again, to a champion. The Mage, caught in the stifling silence, put his sword away, unable to look away from his brother’s tomb. Stuck, alone in this room, adrift on a foreign planet. Had he decided to take the time to contemplate, the Mage probably would have taken a seat to meditate for days over the chronology of events that took them both so very far from home. Maybe after the planet had been purged, he would do just that. The Sword of the Ages and Eternal Blade rested atop the casket, sealed in glass. Vedin’s favorite, the Sword of the Ages still lay in shards from absorbing the Great Destroyer’s attack. ing it was the Eternal Blade, the sword’s longlost mate. His finger gently brushed the glass case. His expectations were high that he would be thrown backward in pain, but perhaps not just yet. He had no illusions
about this part being painless. Squinting in thought, the Mage took a step away from the case and paced a circle around it, mumbling with outstretched hands the creation of a protective spell. He fumbled around in his pocket for a star-shaped jade, a relic from Fordin. Placing it on Vedin’s sculpted feet, he walked one more circle around his brother. Looking at the ceiling and throwing his hands high, he gave a push to the air, whispered through his teeth, and set his hands on the jade. If his with the case or the weapons were to set off a trap, the Fordin jade was now energized to fire off a saving disarmament spell. Safe now, mostly, from arcane threat, Menver cast about him and Vedin a solid-walled shield, should any automation still be waiting. The glass case lifted away from the warrior’s tomb with a flick of the wrist. Arranged on either side of Vedin’s wrapped body were the proud Eternal Blade and the Sword of the Ages—broken into thirty pieces. Glimmering against the shield’s glow, the Sword of the Ages flashed a sign of life across its shattered skin. Menver, caught in the rush of finally having the relics to himself, plunged his hands in quickly, carelessly, until his knuckles brushed his brother’s side, at which moment he froze. Menver had never been close to Vedin; he was a nemesis to him nearly as often as he felt indifferent toward him. Touching Vedin here brought Menver’s heart to a plunge. He leaned over Vedin’s mummified visage and retracted his hands from the grave. Guilt struck his heart over his brusqueness. With a wavering voice, he whispered, “Brother, I know swore that I should never have these. You must understand. I and your son are still stranded here. They lied to us, and now our lives can end any minute because of their games. I’m taking these, Vedin, so that we may live. Know that … we will miss you. There are dozens of ways you should have died, but here? So far from Fordin and your friends? From Gwen? You deserved so much better than this. Trust I will make amends for you, for us, for the flickering match that is the House of Torunthane.” Gently touching his brother’s forehead as a farewell gesture, Menver again— slowly, reverently—reached for a hilt, needing the Eternal Blade first. The Eternal Blade was to be the primary catalyst to create the union. Were it not for his witnessing Vedin manufacture the Holy Blade immediately after the breaking of the Sword of the Ages, Menver would think this whole plan a monumental
waste of time. As he had done outside, Menver transferred a portion of his energies through to the Eternal Blade, watching its jeweled body intently. When ready, the amber stone set in the body’s base would shine and light up the engraved infinity symbol at the blade’s point. Power seeped to the tip. The Eternal Blade began to shine, triggering a wave-specific photosensitive alarm in the ceiling above that shot at his position eight deltraj-tipped spearheads. Faster than that was the speed of the Mage’s thought; he phased out of and back into the material world during the spears’ flight. They caught the ground where he stood and nothing else. Still holding the Eternal Blade, he continued about his work. Menver placed the Eternal Blade, now ripe with energy, back atop the fractured Sword of the Ages. Here Menver was no longer proceeding with total confidence, for he had only once watched Vedin unite the two. He gave his brother an uneasy glance, whispering, “Let’s hope this thing likes me well enough, hmm?” The second time the Holy Blade was created, it seemed a willful act of survival on behalf of the great weapon itself. So Menver hesitated. His intention was to flood the Eternal Blade with a quick power surge and pray his need to its semiconsciousness. What made the procedure fine-tuned was the nature of the power surge. It wasn’t a brute transfer or attack energy that Vedin had used. Menver had sensed the flow was two-way. The Mage would have to, in the process of transferring to the weapon, establish a connection between the two in which he and it were of the same primitive will. The established union at this juncture was critical: without communication between the mage and the weapons, formation of the deadly artifact was impossible. Deep breaths pushed his chest to ready his nerves. Reconstructing the Holy Blade would set him equal in power to any of the Tuluhrai greatest, and no Shekethrum could defy him. Smiling, the Mage welled in his heart power impregnated with raw emotion. He took a breath, and another. As he yelled a short “Ha!” sharp-crested waves ran down his right arm into the Eternal Blade, each wave stretching tendrils of energy to the lying fragments, tugging at their shining hues to induce a reaction. Dreams of Atlantis, of Fordin, of wrecked cities and silver ships, interstates and restaurants, a lifetime of frustration and greed, desire and loneliness, and abandonment and rebuttal soaked into the crystal latticework of the Eternal Blade and spoke to the Sword of the Ages of the bearer’s life and person. Inquiring, the sword broke into the Mage’s mind and linked the needed connection, memories flowing back and forth between the
two. Menver caught pictures of Vedin’s life he never knew, from the time after Atlantis’s sinking to their reunion some couple hundred years ago. The Sword of the Ages had an aura like Vedin’s, bearing neither wrath nor hate, only dejection toward its role; Menver could feel its pain from being shattered and its sorrow at the current state of Tuluhr. A pause occurred, during which the Mage saw nothing from either weapon. The pause ended with a beam of light that flooded the temple’s innards and poured forth from its open door. Menver dropped the Holy Blade to cover his eyes. Underneath his boots, the temple’s tiles started to shift—some disappearing, others sliding in position—throwing his footing off. A pit opened to take him, while thin, wiry arms spun out from the walls to snatch the Holy Blade. Sharp wails from below pulsed at him. His inner ears pounded from the sounds, destroying his sense of placement. Tumbling, flipping in the air as he fell into the unknown, he cried out for the Holy Blade to come to him. He snatched several tiles with telekinetic grips and hurled them around the blade to knock away the thieving arms. Being pummeled senseless by a sonic hammer, the Mage managed only to stop his descent into the tiled whirlpool, floating faceup with his hands out to catch the blade. But more wires grew from the tunnel walls and wrapped around his arms and legs; Menver teleported from their grasp and attacked the unknown depths with a single double-palmed blast. Watching for the Holy Blade, he pivoted his arms around, scarring the tunnel walls with rapid-fire shots. But from below, a rebuke of orange light consumed the whole of the temple’s inside just as the Mage’s fingers wrapped around the Holy Blade’s hilt; his eyes reflected off the side of the legendary weapon, and satisfaction filled them just before the orange glow of Avallah’s last weapon snipped consciousness away from him again.
CHAPTER 12
WHILE MENVER WAS FALLING TO the temple’s depths, Ajax lay in a restive state on the high rocks of Ehya’Kul. Days ed over the roof of his tent before the wounds had subdued sufficiently to allow minor functionality. On the eighth day, the grand portal to Kardesh-Nar opened. During this last opportunity was when the lad broke down his tent and limped into the gold embrace. Uncertainty addled the young soldier’s mind. Returning to the city alive, when he should not be; victorious in mission still, when he was predicted not to be, left him wondering if he would be greeted by cheers or spears. The other side of the teleporter was empty—save for the device’s operator, who paid Fe Soothurai no attention. Ajax limped by him, growing now more wary. At the end of the hall was an intracity teleportation booth. Slumping against its wall, he thought out to its synneural control pad to take him to the military hospital. Healing would have to come before reporting if he was to survive a simple meeting. After he programmed his destination, a brief flash sent the Legionnaire to the next quarter over, rematerializing him in an identical booth. He walked into the open bay, where hundreds of small beds, set in tight columns, ed the injured. Curative-cocktail-filled stasis pods lined the walls. Among these walked initiate mystics, istering magic and medicine to broken Deltornir and Creornir. Almost dazed by events, he initially ignored the mystics as they approached him, until a hand and shrill voice caught his attention.
She was a small woman, pallid, with intensely bright white eyes that flared with indignation. Her body appealed to the lad, but to look her dead in the eye did not provide an attractive sight.
Ajax shifted his weight from one foot to the other, too exhausted and dizzy to truly feel insult at her clear disrespect of his pain. Past events had taken their toll, and in this place, picking another fight was not worth it.
An hour later, a different cloth came to Ajax’s bedside. Without introducing herself, she set a paralyzing spell over the lad, which was standard to do to the wounded. She tapped the silver bracer on her left wrist, a device that could override the control functions of the legionnaire armor. Quickly she set about running her healing hands over the lighter wounds, sealing the open crevices with the spells Ajax should have known. For his knee and deeper cuts, miniature arms scurried frantically from her bracers and into the tissues, stitching and pulling at connective tissues and muscle fibers, welding connections and burning away dead debris. In two hours’ time, the mystic sat up and left the Legionnaire newly scarred and fully repaired, aside from residual soreness in places. No longer suppressing pain, Ajax returned much of his focus to reading the general state of the world around him, to put him back in touch with the ways of reality, which was when he picked up a new power nearby. It was strong, very strong, and concentrated in a small area. When the Destroyer roamed, the beast cast an aura of incredible radius that obscured the lives of those around it, and this was just as white-hot. Ajax crept from his bed and slowly prowled to the elevators, cautious to analyze this power every step of the way. He looked around and noticed that the mystics and the broken continued as though nothing were out of the ordinary, perhaps either ignorant or indifferent to this source. Closer, Ajax sensed two familiar energies around the blazing star: the High Mystic and his uncle.
Ajax bounded back to the other end of the open bay, by the teleporter adjacent to the elevators. He skidded against the back wall of one and directed it to take him to the fifty-eighth floor, where high-ranking officials were tended to. It couldn’t move any faster for him. The metal doors opened, and Ajax jumped out, his
metal-clad feet screeching on the tile floor. Two legionnaires monitoring the ageway challenged him and ordered a halt, but he ran through them nonetheless, mentally screaming out for Menver. The strange power was clouding his senses even more. His thoughts rang out against a wash of others’ broadcasting an alarm, deafening him to the lower-level brainwave calling a halt to all fifty-eighth-floor security. At the southern end, down the west-facing branch, third door on the right, the lad buckled down to a halt, catching the doorframe for , and burst through, peeling away his mask and helm. “Uncle!” High Mystic Avallah folded her hands over her crossed legs and gazed at the poor Legionnaire with an odd smirk. Menver simply looked startled by the boy’s entry. “Ajax! You’re back! Is everything all right? Did you do whatever favor Avallah told me you were set to do?” “Yes … no. Uncle, why are you here?” Menver exchanged glances with the High Mystic; she might not have known their language, but Menver had learned by testing her over the last two days that she read enough of the underlying currents to get the intent of a conversation. “You see, Ajax, I decided to do a naughty thing and deceived my poor hostess here. But I did it all for the best reasons, because I knew she would have done something silly like stop me.” “Wha—” “I’m getting there, Ajax. I went to Luhirin, and—” “Luhirin! But that’s—” “Yes, yes, Ajax. Please.” Menver sat up, peeling away the sheets from his torso, and continued. “And went to my brother’s shrine.” Ajax’s expression went from frightened excitement to concerned awe. “I brought it back, Ajax. I have it. I don’t everything. I … I falling, through a blaze, I was falling. I calling for the Holy Blade. An orange light consumed me, inside which was fire and machines trying to tear me apart. I don’t think I ever hit the bottom, but I did certainly black out before I could have. It was honestly
too much, lad. Avallah can explain the rest.” Menver leaned over and whispered to the High Mystic.
She nodded toward the Mage, who picked up where he imagined she had left off. “So as you see, Ajax, I am quite alive and here, and no one knows how or why. What I am sure of is that Luhirin has in it something new—a living force never before acknowledged. Is it coincidence that the Shekethrum have abandoned the province altogether? Maybe they found a better area from which to attack Yevuntuluhr. But I am of the opinion that this war has gone past its mortal warriors.” Ajax’s wonderment had his body in a lock, and even his own story, important as it was, seemed not worth telling after all he had heard. And when the Mage pulled away the rest of the bedsheets to reveal the golden blade, the Legionnaire completely forgot his tale and dropped to his knees in worship. Avallah slipped off the bed and took to her knees as well. The smooth curve of the multiplated golden sword shimmered. Where the fragmented Sword of the Ages combined with the Eternal Blade, soft red traces decorated the Holy Blade’s body, lines that pulsedin color. Menver’s eyes darkened and lightened in tune with the blade, and the gray lines from his shattered utaikna disappeared with every pulse, from his arm through the rest of his body. He took the weapon and rested its head against the inside of his left forearm, sitting up fully in his bed.
“The House of Torunthane has its birthright recovered, Ajax. Stand and be proud. We are the only two entitled to wield this weapon. Us, the nekaf and the hybrid. Can you believe such a thing?” Menver smiled to Ajax the smile of a man finally able to give his child the gift he always wanted. Ajax slipped an unsteady foot under his knee and stood, taking darting looks between the legendary weapon and his surroundings, unsure of the level of sacrilege he committed in not genuflecting before it. He moved only because it was at his uncle’s behest.
“Uncle … I …” Ajax hesitated at the sight of the Holy Blade, finding his tongue only with his head turned aside. “It is hard to accept all you told me. I have to tell you my story in my own language.” “Sure, Ajax.” The Legionnaire, caught in the sensation of the Holy Blade’s presence, did not consider that the High Mystic was still in the room with them; nor did he consider the privacy of simply thinking at the Mage, as excitement let slip from his tongue,
Menver’s knuckles whitened around the Holy Blade, but Avallah cut him off before the questions could come. <Wielder, I was present when your nephew was sent out, and I swear to you on the honor of the Hetlurai that this was not the case. I authorized no such thing. Tuluhr needs every functioning member of the Deltornir; I would never call the Huroonai out on one of our own, not now.> “Ajax, probe her mind now.”
Ajax peered into her thoughts, felt her fright, and immediately knew that she was blameless. The entire meeting with her and the commander replayed in him from her point of view, and from start to finish, there was no deception. He nodded to the Mage that the High Mystic was refreshingly innocent.
“Ajax, who sent you out there? It was not her?” “No, the commander of the Kardesh-Nar garrison. He is of Utirirai, the Lofty House. I do not know his name. Not meant for me to know.”
Menver started to pace about the room, surrounded by a crackling that stiffened the air around him. <What is this Lofty bastard’s name? What god-damned house feels like it can call hits out on the Torunthunai?> She rose, breathing shallowly in the thickening air. Menver’s rage precipitated throughout the room and bowed its walls. Even the light dimmed, except around the blade. For the first time she could ever recall, the High Mystic felt scared. <Menver, please, calm yourself. I will tell you if you promise not to kill him. I can feel that is your intent; it is written all across your thoughts. He will face an inquisition, I promise you that, but I still need him alive. His name is Cwethnesh Utirirnir. His family is one of the highest on the planet. They are few, like your house, selected for roles of command. They have spent generations honing the characteristics that make them leaders. Kardesh-Nar needs him.> All light fled into the blade, such that for a moment in the void, all one could see were the three sets of eyes: enraged, frightened, and stunned. Menver relinquished the blade and set it against a wall, restoring the room, and moved to grab his clothes. Avallah reached out and pulled Ajax out of the way. She guessed that the Mage would force them to the Capitol to Commander Cwethnesh. Had she known the idiocy the commander had attempted, she would have relieved him immediately and assumed control of Kardesh-Nar as well. Menver put on his tunic and leather vestment, tugging hard at the cuffs of his gloves. His ragged hair was slicked back into a ponytail, and his saber strapped to his side. It felt lifeless around the Holy Blade, but its notched edge could still cut skin, making it still worth its weight. “Ajax, put your mask back on.”
She waved her arms about and sang a low mantra—the secret verses that convinced the ancients to let portal-travelers through their seal. Another golden gate was created, and the three entered.
~~~~
Three floors below the sky roof was the large, circular office belonging to the commander. Transporter pods lined its walls to allow efficient arrival and departure of all of the Kardesh-Nar Command: military, religious, and civilian. A large throne sat in its center, covered in a veined network of wire, ing a large helmet enabling it to feed its bearer every sensation of the city. Whoever led the city knew its pains and progresses as well as any person can feel the sting of a scratch or fullness of the belly. Kardesh-Nar and its mortal brain united through the spine of the Capitol. Sitting in this throne, Cwethnesh knew that something unique had occurred. Already he had sent a flight of Driniri to survey the grounds from above, and a new Tulryr unit had been activated and set to standby in case of a fight. Kardesh-Nar’s sensory grid had been active, but now he paid more intent attention to it. Whatever was wrong with his city would be corrected with a hammer strike. No signs of Fiend survivors had been seen since the day they retook the city, and the commander would be damned if he allowed a life to be spared. Three days ago, Jenrua and the Deltornir’s finest stealth squad were dispatched to Mohdchar to modify its defenses now that the majority of Nethar’s forces occupied Kardesh-Nar. Commander Cwethnesh was informed by the Lord Engineer that both the mutt and the hunter met in Ehya’Kul, but he knew nothing more of the interaction. Having heard from neither, the commander felt it best to inform the Huroonai’s local chieftain of the disappearance and let them lead the search. Abruptly his actions became fruitless. A portal cracked open before his throne, spitting out a pair of mongrels and the High Mystic. Before he could react, the city’s connection flew away from his crown and the Holy Blade pointed at the bridge of his nose. Thoughts pinged back and forth across the room faster than any vocal communication. Speed was the element keeping Menver blind to the ensuing conversation.
of assuming command? If we lost Vedin’s twin, that hybrid would be the only one left allowed to assume the relic weapons! Imagine them lost to our civilization forever! You’re just as your superior Nes-Sharith, replacing intelligence with ferocity. I do not have enough soldiers left for your mentality, Cwethnesh!> The commander’s eyes widened with fervent awe.
The commander pounded his chest at the High Mystic and regarded the Mage.
Menver winced at the sudden preferential treatment. A disgusted snarl came on him, and he twisted the blade about so its edge rested on the neckline of Cwethnesh’s breastplate.
Menver paused for her acknowledgment.
Rolling his shoulders back, he leaned in toward the commander, speaking through gritted teeth.
The commander felt no qualms against taking his knees. His heart trembled in honor at witnessing the reformed Holy Blade of Tuluhr. Should he die, he could rejoice in feeling the pure emanations of their god’s forged body. The blade was everything, and Cwethnesh could not falter or lie before it.
“Ajax, did you hear and understand all that?” Ajax, moving to the Mage’s side, nodded affirmation.
Menver twitched at the words and yelled,
The Mage was shaking.
<Were he pure, there would be no issue, Wielder.>
Menver quickly drew the blade away and turned, yelling, frothing at the corners of his mouth. He focused his aggression on the walls with exhausted punches. Ajax shot a look over his shoulder to Avallah and blinked. He turned his eyes first to the floor and then to the humbled commander.
Reverence for the Holy Blade kept Cwethnesh calm. His voice was the model of
equanimity and peace.
Menver frowned and considered the commander through a deadly glare. The room waited on the Mage’s reaction. Seething, he heaved low, angry words to the High Mystic.
Beckoning the Legionnaire to follow, the Mage exited the grand control room. Throughout the Capitol, many moved to accost the pair, but all bowed before them. As more of the occupant Deltornir saw the Holy Blade, more excitement and exclamation silently filled the air. Thoughts streamed back and forth in celebration among the Capitol’s guardians. Ignorant of this, Menver took no shortcut out of the Capitol, and indeed left through its magnificent doors in defiance of the ancient guardians themselves. The right hand bore the fulfillment of the House of Torunthane. Their inheritance set them free.
CHAPTER 13
GATHERED AROUND COMMANDER CWETHNESH WERE the available subcommanders and leaders of all sects of the Tuluhrai military wing, the High Mystic, and the Mage. Cwethnesh held the throne, as it was his charge, but all ears listened to the High Mystic, who glided about the room, paying glances to each of the assembled as she spoke.
Menver pursed his lips to prevent a smile; her aura brightened to coerce them all.
—she waved a bejeweled arm to the Mage
One of the Creyanai flight masters chimed in.
we have become!> Commander Cwethnesh added,
The whole room sounded in unison a yes, which both impressed and bothered the Mage. Next to speak was the Creornir’s leader.
<We have not sent scouts, and our knowledge as of now is pure speculation. Your spoken word belies foreboding, leader of our honored Creornir. If our forces cannot retake Jurda, Denmeth, then how will we be expected to save Tuluhr’s tomb from them? The Fiends may be set inside Uthanral in wait. Do you not our planet’s sorrow when the great beast, the Destroyer, came and slew our Empress? We failed her, Denmeth. She survived since the day our race knew thought, and we allowed her to die by our own creation. We will not fail her memory.> No one wanted to argue or follow that thought. Each was alive when the Empress was killed within the palace. Keth-Kelin, the Great Destroyer, who bore a name more hated and more evil than the Shekethrum, who slew all of the Royal Imperial Guard, whole legions, armored battle groups, and Creyanai strike forces, and who annihilated whole cities. Leyern was its last. It was too difficult for any of the proud to reconcile what the demon had done. Only Menver had the mind to break the relapse.
Cwethnesh replied to all for all,
in bringing this city back to its former war-glory. Take the battle to Jurda, and you will have more than you need from my city. The shining blades of Tuluhr will raise the dead bodies of our enemies on high while the holy war birds rain punishment on all who are not of our blood! Go, take the Tulryrs, take Jenrua’s newest creations! The Huryrs wait for battle!> Avallah crossed her arms beneath her chest and nodded appreciatively to the commander. Menver tapped the Holy Blade thoughtfully. All about, the representatives bellowed and roared, whipped to fury by shame and prospects of revenge. Avallah had the consensus she needed. She spread her arms to present a three-dimensional image of Jurda, manipulating it as her mind allowed. What she presented was a barren city, not a light glimmering, much of it in ruin. In hologram, the Kinitral’s path was still quite distinct. The industrial sector was leveled. It appeared Jurda could not provide the new fleets that they were all previously so excited to have, but if sufficient infrastructure remained, maybe, Menver reasoned, they could still piece something together in time. One or two new ships were better than none.
The Mage, for once, was happy to be corrected by her. She continued, discussing the broken armaments and what the possibilities were of bringing portions of the city online during the siege. So long as no dampeners were in place around Jurda’s capitol, they could drop in a shield modifier to seal the city just as they had done in Kardesh-Nar. And with Jenrua’s generosity, they would deploy the Huryrs to the attack. If the Lord Engineer’s ego was correct, the Huryrs should deter the Kinitral and any other heavy weapons sent by the Shekethrum. The key would be sealing the city first. They would need to block out any reinforcements from being directly transferred to the city and bring its defenses back online. So long as the shield held and the city’s energy grid stayed online, Jurda could protect itself. This was an opportunity robbed in First Strike. Ground came with the usual platoons of Veshun and Tulryr. Jurda also boasted squads of fast-attack sand speeders. These were the flying knives of the Creyanai. They were the Drishiri craft, fully automated and needing no pilot. And lastly, if the mortal element should begin to fail, the Automated Guard
could be brought to life. No military leader enjoyed that idea. The purposes of the skeletal robots: to fight when no living soldier remained to fight, to fill in the ranks when no ranks existed. Using them conceded failure. And as with Kardesh-Nar, the stranded nekafi would be forced to act as a diversionary measure to split Fiend forces. Menver decided to appear with them initially, but to cut his own path once he felt the nekafi were sufficiently safe. Denmeth pointed an armored finger in the direction of the Mage’s shadow.
Cwethnesh barked toward Denmeth,
Menver, oblivious to the tune of the conversation, was surprised to see the High Mystic’s aura reach out instantly to capture the whole room, with his exception. She held it there, arms out and nodding from side to side in silent monologue. Clearly Avallah had words for them all, though she appeared to be spending more of her hidden strength on the tensed forms of Commanders Cwethnesh and Denmeth. In times like this, the Mage truly wished he had the extra lobe to engage in mental games.
~~~~~
With the conquering of Kardesh-Nar, Menver had learned a great deal more
about the Tuluhrai. Since he’d been in only Nethari cities, it was his assumption there were cities in the other provinces where the refugees had escaped to. Even after spending decades on this world, none had made him aware that the planet was riddled with underground complexes. Certainly it made sense now that not all their civilization should stay above the sand. It was hot, without shade, and water was scarce everywhere in this part of the planet. Underground refugee camps the size of metropolises, warehouses the size of cities, and yet this escaped him for all these long years? Strolling down the avenues of debris, his ignorance made Menver laugh. Laughter was nice, a break. Of tomorrow, anxiety and worry bothered the Mage. In his heart, he knew the battle would not be as clean as the last. Enemy numbers and positions were to be tabulated soon, and the details hammered out over the next several nights, if it took so long. Memories of First Strike singly came back to Menver. Strolling through scarred lanes, images of Jurda were too easily goaded to revival. Many of the skyscrapers here had lost their peaks but still loomed high enough to cover him in shade. The Mage walked up to a broken Veshun and touched its golden body. Its cool touch motivated him to place his other palm on it, to walk them both around its exterior. Pessimistic, he doubted many Veshuns would still be functioning at Jurda’s outcome. Halfway across the city, Ajax waited for any sign of his uncle. The lad had been instructed to wait for him at the mess hall for the Seventh Crulaj. When his arrival began to tax the lad’s patience, Ajax left the squat, tentlike building and stepped out into the blowing dust. Outside, Ajax’s comrades milled in the winds. No thoughts lingered in the air. Wind aside, the day was lifeless; the city’s military, its only people, seemed intent on rest and conserving their energies. Ajax sympathized. Even though he wished as much as anyone to purify Tuluhr, the Legionnaire was feeling the never ending fight wear on his nerves. On the other hand, he would never say so, or else confess that even the mighty Tuluhrai could be worn down. Maybe the rest of his crulaj was silent because they too feared itting such. Maybe, as his uncle always intimated, this was his people’s twilight. Generations of complacency followed by the crippling blows dealt by Keth-Kelin could have left his race weak and vulnerable, unable to stomach the major defeat handed down by the Fiends. Ajax wondered if even Keduyin was being affected by this lull. Keduyin was too full of battle rage to sit idly like Ajax. Reflexively, the Legionnaire scanned about the area to see if Keduyin was about; if the larger
Legionnaire caught his smaller hybrid counterpart standing about relaxed, Keduyin would likely route the adrenaline from Ajax with violent means. “Ajax!” The lad swung about to the calling voice, expecting a giant palm to slap him in the chest. Instead it was Menver, who waved as he approached.
“English for now, and aloud. There’s been too much back-and-forth that my ears couldn’t hear, and it would be nice to talk in normal fashion. Anyway, sorry. I lingered too long in the meeting with the upper command. I don’t know why really. At least they all spoke. The telepathy bothers me after a while; I never know what is really being said. Did I have you waiting long?” Menver wiped the grit off a nearby bench and took a seat. Ajax followed him but refused the relaxed posture. His reply came through a wandering mask, Ajax preoccupied with the business of those around. “It was longer than I thought. You are usually fast.” “There was an argument, I think, which delayed proceedings until I got tired of the whole ordeal. My feeling is, Ajax, that the Deltornir will be taking a hard offensive against Jurda within a few days. My premonitions are subtle when it comes to this one. I feel nothing concrete, just a vague anxiety that runs up and down my spine whenever I start recalling First Strike. Jurda will be a very nasty battle.” The Mage glanced at the Holy Blade’s grip, taking some heart at its very sight, although it still hadn’t altered his blurred glimpses of the way things would be. What sat in his heart most was one memory—a single memory of a fateful premonition he had in Fordin thirty-two years prior, of a monster, a man, and a child. Menver smiled disconsolately at his nephew and sighed, knowing that at the very least, Ajax should be safe. Becoming self-conscious of his plasticized expression, the Mage hurried to change the subject, quite unwilling to let the future get the better of his mood. “Did you happen to find us any food in all this time, or were you waiting on me?” “Waiting. I do not know what you do not like.” “Hmm. You’ve a good point there. I don’t think we’ve managed the opportunity to be selective in the last good, long while, have we? Let’s go see what the
Deltornir has to offer and pray for the least amount of fuss possible. Care to guess if they’ll yell at us first or drop to the ground and grovel?” “Grovel? What is that?” “Ah, never mind. It will probably be the grovel one. News travels fast among connected minds. You’ll see what it is shortly.” Ajax shrugged. His eyes reflected his mood: dull, opaque, a tried and tired dim. The best excuse he could come up with as his uncle beckoned him into the mess hall was that, in the end, he had some soft human blood in him, and it should be reasonable that he could not keep up with the full-bloods. But as rows of a hundred sets of lighted eyes turned, glared, and went wide at the presence of the Torunthunai, Ajax bit fiercely on the inside of his cheek and told himself that should he ever demonstrate such weakness even to himself again, after all that he had been through, he would impale himself on his own battle spear. Ajax Torunthunai would forever refuse to consider such hollow spirit. At the same time, the Mage meticulously ran through his memory, trying to piece every scrap that might brighten the fog hanging over Jurda. In the area of his consciousness below the depths to which the sentient mind can dig, the Mage knew the attack on Jurda was not to be a clean one. Dread hid behind his falsely jovial expression as he filled a bowl for Ajax and grabbed a pair of small rolls of yenuo. It was simply far too early in the evolving history for anything to appear with clarity. Behind the duo, the mess hall restored itself to the ambient sound of dishware moving, silverware being handled, the shuffling of food to mouth, and not a single conversation being carried.
CHAPTER 14
ONE DAY AFTER THE MEETING, portal-hoppers flashed their way to scanning distance of Jurda and relayed back to High Mystic Avallah updated maps and readily-detected enemy numbers. Two of the nine bipedal cameras exploded before they could broadcast their findings. From the several returnees, the Tuluhrai command gleaned the following: Jurda was not abandoned, as were its Nethari brethren; nor was it any further damaged after the Fiends removed its native defenders. From topographical snapshots and electric readings, a portion of the manufacturing sector was repaired and running. The High Mystic ground her toes into the Capitol’s flooring upon seeing the report; high on her list of vows came burning down anything that felt the Fiend’s touch. On day two, the Deltornir sent two stealth teams to survey Jurda’s outer rim. All individuals of the Tuluhrai war bands returned alive with nothing remarkable to report. They neither saw nor sensed any Fiends, hestos, or active synneuralbased devices. Perplexed, given the destruction of the portal-hoppers, Avallah had the stealth squads’ memories searched through by prying lower mystics. The High Mystic met again with the relevant military leaders to divulge that the Deltornir’s finest had found nothing. Three days later, Commander Cwethnesh reported to the same circle that all transmissions to both colonial and native forces still reached deaf receivers. Whatever lay beyond orbit was not answering, Uthanral was not answering. Nethar’s army was alone in this fight. To offset that, he displayed in all their minds what the Capitol was feeding his: five hundred thousand Deltornir and Creornir being briefed in formation, and the streets, city-wide, stocked with the glorious chassé of the full host of Tuluhrai war machinery. Whatever should occur in the confines of Jurda, it would occur with their fullest effort. On the fourth day after the meeting, Menver entered his barracks room with a wipe of his exhausted face. They moved him from the nekafi quarters in the Deltornir’s grunt barracks to the top floor of the command suites located on the other side of the residential region. It was so far flung a cry from his apartment in Jurda that Menver actually managed, on his first night there, to push the
weight of the war from his shoulders. His new living space comprised three rooms, being the central sitting area and two ading bedchambers. Walking between two rows of planters toward a circular sofa in the sitting room’s middle, Menver tossed his coat, vest, and gloves in a trail behind him. A snap of his fingers beckoned the preprogrammed response of a pitcher of water and single cup to appear in a hover above the sofa. Forward of this, set in a V and facing the back wall, were two long couches, affording seating for eight on each, with a view of Kardesh-Nar through the suite’s twenty-three-by-three-meter window/wall. Bored, the Mage unsheathed the Holy Blade and lobbed it at the sofa. It was heresy in the eyes of the full-blooded religious to be so casual, but the Mage needed to test his connection with the blade. In its quick flight, Menver threw his palms out and tried to wrap a telekinetic grip around its handle, as Vedin had always done. But the blade landed on the threaded cushion and bounced away. Menver ran his tongue against his left molars. His eyes narrowed as they always did when confusion set in. The Holy Blade’s scimitar body was pure deltraj with the exception of the red jewel in its base, which is what the Mage concentrated on. Folding his hands behind his back, the Mage lifted with his mind the three seats, several tables, and two statues, and poured himself a glass of water to sip on. Secure that his powers were still active and in control, he set all these down and pounced on the blade, focusing on the jewel and the ground below it, trying to grip even the air, resulting only in the red-eyed crystal winking back with a quick glow of light. Shaking his head, the Mage took a sip of his water and paced. “Do you me? Is that it? Does the sword inside you still hold a grudge?” Menver bent and scooped the Holy Blade up. Had the Holy Blade not accepted him as its Wielder, it would have opted to stay on the ground, and no amount of strength would’ve allowed him to move it. Vedin, though, could call the blade to him at will. The Mage set the Holy Blade on its side on the floor and walked away from it, pouring himself a new glass with his hands. On the fifth morning, the High Mystic phased through Menver’s locked door to find the Mage red-eyed, arms out and growling at his hallowed charge. She rested a hand on his shoulder and spoke in his ear. By the start of the fifth afternoon, he was in the midst of a restful dream behind a closed door, while in the visiting area, the High Mystic stared at the large city and its stoic, militant life. One hundred thousand pairs of feet left their marks in the sanded streets. A
small smile touched her lips. Though no Wielder, she was still one of the Empress’s chosen High Mystics, one of the twelve. Her eyes shifted and focused on the physical scenes of Kardesh-Nar while her mind entwined and spoke of both hidden things and concerns with the memories of the Holy Blade. By the time Menver rose, Avallah herself was sitting in a disconsolate daze and it was Menver’s turn to beckon her to rest. She remained immobile. Menver stepped around the couch to sit beside her, and as he approached, the High Mystic quickly took to her feet and walked away from him. Before he could ask her what was wrong, she vanished. A sigh on his breath, the Mage looked over his shoulder and saw the blade standing on its tip, gazing out at the city below. On the sixth day, the war committee met one last time to settle on their plans. It was agreed the Fiends would suspect an attack and that, in response, they should prepare to have portal dampeners set immediately. Options were few but varied. Commander Cwethnesh offered the idea of opening several large-scale portals, sending mimic drones with EMP disruptor bombs in accompaniment. In succession, the bombs would fire off to temporarily disable active Fiend technology and transmit a signal indicating the bomb’s detonation. With the opening made, the Tuluhrai forces would teleport to Jurda in unison, requiring a coordinated citywide effort to open so many gateways all at once. Once the attack force was through, the dampeners would drop in to seal off the city. The EMP effects would be temporary and limited only to Fiend technology and the blighted factories. The seventh day saw to the final preparations. Spears and armor systems were checked for proper folding, gauntlets and helmets for targeting calibration and connectivity. All of the foot soldiers augmented their synneural helmets with hardwiring to prevent the same communication jamming that afflicted the Deltornir in the first attack on Jurda. Tulryrs and Huryrs took their positions by the southern evacuative teleporter, while three Yekrathnir cruisers and their single Veklanir dreadnought prepped for flight. At night, the glowing rods of munitions crawled along kilometer-high walkways, adding a simple sign of life to the dreary skyline of windswept architecture. Soon the night swept her dark skirts aside in another bow to the oncoming dawn, who slowly clamored through smoke-drenched outer spheres of the planet. A million eyes opened at once in response, giving light to meet light, beginning the eighth day.
CHAPTER 15
VIDEO FEEDS FROM THE MIMIC drones showed a quick and thoughtless Shekethrum response to the holograms and radiating illusory energy signals. All of the Jurdarai sky lit up with plasma fire and ion beams. A shield generator installed on the bomb-bearing drone kept it alive just long enough for the EMP weapon to carry out its design function, and soon after the initial drop, all signals from Jurda cut off. Immediately, Commander Cwethnesh gave the signal— amplified by the Capitol—to all living, fighting Tuluhrai to ready for combat. Kardesh-Nar went dim as every teleportation device in its power grid lit alive, the portable ones siphoning from the grid flashing open. Echoing from the city’s roof came the thundering sound of Creyanai warships forging their own path toward Jurda. Standing imperiously on a multiplated war sled, the High Mystic commanded her vessel as first through, its cannons humming with their first shots in waiting. Behind, a dozen Huryrs followed with two Creornir squadrons above. Within one minute and three seconds, the whole of the Nethari reclaimers poured into Jurda’s streets, calling with an avenging din its invisible tenants from their hiding places.
~~~~
“Terrible,” came the immediate thought to the Mage, midstrike, as he cleaved a Fiend’s arm in half and brought the Holy Blade about to finish his foe off. A pair of dazzling blues came at him, and a flick of the blade set a protective field about him. “How is it, after so long, that the fight still requires real blood? Even with so much machinery, war devolves back to man versus man.” In the battle between the Holy Blade versus Shekethrum artifice, the sapphire lights were sucked dry by the blade’s appetite. Before their holders could react to the surprise, the field collapsed around the Mage and lit the damage lines along the blade’s body, and with a swipe, a planar arc of electricity sliced through both
Shekethrum. The Mage had fanned out from the High Mystic’s war sled to cut a way toward the city’s library. Bodies fell in his wake, and mercy fled his heart. Above, a portal opened, another soldier jumping through, two arm-mounted rifles pointed and firing at the Mage. From the shadows, two Shekethrum magic casters phased in unnoticed behind. Menver broke the barrage with a flat shield and was raising his sword arm up to stab into the descending soldier when he felt matterless bonds whipping around his wrists and ankles. The magic casters splayed the Mage’s limbs apart, their robe-encased hands twisting him like a puppet. Not even this could rouse the Mage to ire, instead getting a smirk from him. He dropped the Holy Blade from his grip and tore himself free from his bonds with an imioned display of his dark energies. His aura radiated his strength, his eyes olive furnaces that saw only entertainment in his opponents. Without hesitation the Shekethrum warrior charged at Menver with his staff’s blade aimed at the nekaf’s throat. Laughing, Menver pumped a fist at the warrior, who died in the crack and boom of a lightning bolt. At this the magic casters faltered, and they then synchronously drew Z patterns in the air, calling at Menver’s feet tongues of fire soaring several meters high. With a wave of his hand, the Mage calmed the fires down. He turned his wrist and shoved his palm at the two, sending the flames in streaks along the ground back at their masters. Just as the spell turned on them, the two took to the air and pointed their palms back at the Mage, bombarding him with an energy hailstorm. Menver lifted off the ground and skimmed backward, snapping up the Holy Blade in his left hand. He chose not to muscle through their attack and disappeared from their sight. This weak illusion would grant him at most only a minute, more than enough time to sidle along the street, up, and behind the other magic wielders. Being his first encounter with the Shekethrum’s forbidden artists, the Mage felt some regret in finishing them both with cutting blows by the Holy Blade. With more dead behind him, the Mage walked onward. Updates on the battle across Jurda fed into his earpieces. Over his right eye, a thin lens displayed anything he asked it to; currently a city map with overlaid radar. Cwethnesh assured him nothing that truly remained hidden would be picked up on such a small device, but the major battles and movements would . He zoomed in to an area of a square kilometer, and nothing appeared around the Mage’s position, but the static sensation of other beings brought the hairs on his arms to end and a wariness to his heart.
Neshazt, six of them, burst through overhead portals just as a full Shekethrum platoon appeared in a half-moon formation barely two meters away. A lull in motion gave the Mage time to consider a strategy against them. Mortal beings are easily killed, but Neshazt could be beaten only by large-bore cannon fire. Menver considered the pulsing energies of the blade and the feats Vedin had accomplished with it. Menver slid his left foot behind him, took a quick look at the Neshazt exuding their viscous roots, and charged the group of giants before him. Thrusting his left hand out, he knocked them back with a wedge-shaped shield, using the opening to jam the Holy Blade into the midsection of the one to his right. As blade and debilitating light came on him from all angles, the Mage called on the sands, became consumed in a swarm of grains, and vanished in the toppling of a dune. Not fooled, the Neshazt formed a circle overhead and sent their cutting beams in several layers of counterrotating rings. Glass shards flew in their waking trails, while the platoon took shelter against each other’s backs, guns readied and nerves unflinching against the Tuluhrai demon. But the Mage traveled across through the planes, his torso reappearing in the midst of the Shekethrum platoon with a tremendous swing of the Holy Blade all around. Just as quickly as he appeared, he fell back down into the grains of the sands, while the platoon fell in among itself, bereft of legs. Menver drew up from the ground in an alley three blocks away, hidden briefly from the fray. He focused his mind on the writhing ring of soldiers and tucked two pairs of fingers into the air, prying open a portal. In it, he dropped a highly concentrated mixture of his own energy and mage fire. Several seconds later, he was shifting with the sands again as an explosion incinerated the platoon, leaving him with the Neshazt alone to contend with. The library was his destination; he did not need to fight the liquid-covered abominations unless they trailed him. Taking this into consideration, Menver teleported away, hoping something easier, such as the Kinitral, would be waiting for him on reemergence. Instead, at the library’s steps, a melee met the Mage, with the nekafi conscript division being torn apart by a slightly smaller force of Shekethrum foot soldiers and spell-casters. As soon as he had materialized, Menver’s heart stopped. The poorly armed nekafi struggled with all their natural strength, but swinging lights from sapphire tips crashed down on the unsuspecting everywhere in the morass,
adding a wailing grief to the ever-present battle tone. Menver brought the Holy Blade to bear, and into the dim atmosphere, a brightening beacon carved through the clouds, rooted in the clasped grip of two leather-gloved hands. Immediately following the display, a group of Shekethrum splintered from the main force. Menver stabbed the blade between his feet and sucked in a deep breath, bringing his hands into his armpits. Arcane words seethed between his teeth, his hands thrust out, and the earth beneath the Shekethrum cracked and opened. Unfazed, they hovered over its maw, pausing as the Mage assumed they would. He flicked his palms to the sky and threw them upward. A tidal wave of raw, consuming power engulfed the hovering men, and they fell dead into the closing fissure. But as the tendrils of his wrath dissolved and the sand kicked up from the ground blew away, the nekafi division was revealed to be on the verge of loss. Menver’s vision cleared just in time to see a red-skinned nekaf stuck to the barbed end of a Shekethrum lance, lifted high and screaming. “Getrau.” Menver produced his saber and blinked away into the middle of the fray. He came in immediately behind Getrau’s opponent and sank both sword tips deep into his shoulders, removing them once he let go of Getrau. The Jortashan nekaf’s eyes glimmered at Menver. “Shh … sheshe … nnznrrr.” These sounds were followed by a lazy loll of both his tongues from the bottom corner of his mouth. Menver moved to apply a healing hand while time still gave him the opportunity. A quick muttering of words began to stitch the outer skin, but simpler tissues always healed first. Internal organs with extensive damage took time. Time was unavailable. The moment Menver began to concentrate, the lighted end of a Shekethrum war lance clubbed him underneath the chin, sending the Mage reeling away, his weapons at Getrau’s side. Menver shoved his attacker away with a telekinetic blow, but as soon as he moved, he himself was knocked into another barrel roll. Menver fired hastily from a fingertip, catching only a shield’s surface. Caught in the moment, he lost his focus, and fired still another series of ineffective shots, playing a game of brute force against Shekethrum technology. Wrapped up in this, he did not see yet another lance bear down on him. A razor’s edge ran into his hip, lodging there and puncturing through the bone. The Mage howled out his pain, and his eyes ran black in shock. Menver trailed the lance up to its bearer’s face. In a move too quick for the Sheketh soldier to counter, Menver put an unbreakable telekinetic grip on the soldier’s throat and snapped his neck. He took in a quick survey of the area,
making sure there were no nekaf directly next to him. With the area confirmed clear, the Mage burned the ground and everything near him with an inferno of green fire. In its safety and occlusion, he pulled the lance from his body. He growled, staunching the blood with a quick hand and spell. There still wasn’t enough time to deal with shutting off the pain or piecing together the bone. Getrau needed help. The last of his forebearers needed help. Menver broke through the fire’s embrace, throwing flames into the face of any Shekethrum near enough that he could broil their skin. Getrau lay on his stomach a meter away from the oily pool of his blood. His body was a ragged mess, pierced a dozen times more by the overzealous. Menver’s brow creased. A deep-set frown appeared on his face, settled, and then began quivering in rage. The lines on his forehead and around his mouth stretched and deepened. His saber answered its master’s call and came to his left hand. Menver bent to retrieve the Holy Blade in his right. Menver knew his limits; he was no master healer. Around him, nekafi were being cut down by the Shekethrum giants. The pathetic armaments given them had failed to pierce a single Shekethrum body shield, and few had been given weapons made for handto-hand combat. On a quick decision, the Mage tucked both swords into their scabbards and abandoned the scene. In an apparent act of cowardice, he disappeared with a flash to take refuge on the balcony of a high-rise overlooking the mayhem. Time against him, thoughts scattered, and every act taking away from his reserves, Menver considered, while calling up a wellspring of power to his ready, that maybe Ajax was right. Maybe he was mad. Swiping his arms out, Menver used his madness to rip open twenty some holes in reality. The nekafi below, caught off guard, fell through them, and the Mage sealed them shut before the Shekethrum could shoot into the doorways. This left only the enemy, Menver, and the steps to the library; the battlefield was now finally the way Menver preferred. Scratching runes into the air, he whispered, “Kurneryl op manketh disuma dekral cornuvral.” Into the mass below, forty holographic Menvers met the Shekethrum in an agile display of distraction. A growl on his lips, his lungs shuddered and his heart rate spiked. His skin began to sweat as he called upon a greater portion of his reserves. Sickly tendrils of olive and black snaked from his shoulders down the lengths of his arms, coalescing into swimming pools of ethereal hate at his palms. What he had failed to do the last time in Jurda, he would do now. The pillar of chaos broke through his soul. Veins engorged and squeezed themselves dry with the ing flood of power. Forty faces looked up
at the Mage and grinned; fifty others hissed and screamed while pointing weapons. Darkest fire fused with lightning fell on the Shekethrum as a waterfall, meeting defensive fields and crushing them, meeting flesh and dissolving it. Beneath the Mage’s wrath, only ashen armor and discarded lances remained. Menver teetered forward against the balcony’s railing and took the moment to strain against his lungs to keep their rhythm ordered. He withdrew the Holy Blade to gaze into its tempered side, finding in it instant strength to steady himself with. Having cleared the entrance to the library, he noticed a Driniri fighter wing overhead, lining the sky with smoke trails. Acknowledgment, perhaps? Shrugging, he leaped away from the building and proceeded within the library’s depths, on a hurried mission to find one of the Hetlurai’s most treasured scriptures: Telne Tuluhr Utr Corma (Of the God’s Means).
~~~~
Ajax strangled his spear, mashing buttons, causing it to shift from Kinla to Shinla and back again. Reports had already come in of the nekafi division’s unauthorized retreat and the subsequent defeat of the Fiend unit they had engaged. Cheers sounded upon receipt of the clarifying information that it was the Wielder, Menver Torunthunai, who had killed them. In the meantime, the Legionnaire watched as the Tulryrs marched out into the city’s central hub, the Yekrathnirs took positions on high to pinpoint and bombard the enemy, and Driniri swarmed about to engage their targets. And what of the Seventh Crulaj? They had burst through their individual portals with blood on their mind, spears ready, roaring and snarling for a challenge. Yet the Fiends answered with no challenging call and left the position undefended. Adrenaline refused to stop pumping through the young legionnaire’s bloodstream; every second made him more and more agitated. Keduyin was nowhere to be found either for a prebattle spar. The more he walked in circles, the more he noticed the odd looks given him by his brethren. Ajax, in the end, could not abandon his old helm for the Mask of the Crying Eyes and instead had the Huroonai engravers adorn it with the same
garnet lines of tears as would be on a true Mask of the Crying Eyes. Nothing could have made Fe Soothurai stand out more. In the blowing wind, with nothing to attack, Ajax stood, turning his mind back to the previous day’s conversations with his uncle—conversations about today. He spoke much about the flexibility of fate and would switch topics to today’s battle. For the amount of concern Menver held, Jurda seemed no harder to attain than Kardesh-Nar, which, compared to Chartev Nral, was a lightning victory. Here in the dock section, the high towers were broken, the loading bays cracked, and equipment damaged and scattered. Ajax grunted in disgust with the illogical mindset of the Fiend. Hatred built in him the more he considered their process of entering cities, leveling them, forcing their people underground, and then leaving. They stole nothing, used nothing, simply destroyed and carried on—acts of a cold and evil people. Ajax swung his spear about, hoping, wanting, to exterminate all evil. Surging from his restless will, a roar to all echoed forth from the depths of his chest, catching only the eyes of his own people. He continued to snarl and attempted to refocus his mind on his conversations; anything to keep from becoming overagitated and straying from discipline. The day before, while his uncle sat, Ajax stood across the table, ripping a mouthful of yenuo as Menver spoke about Jurda. “Ajax, tomorrow—and listen to me—I need you to stay in with me. Whatever we were supposed to try during Kardesh-Nar, I need you to keep up with it tomorrow in Jurda. If anything, anything, seems like it’s getting too much for the Deltornir, tell me; let me know where in the city you are, and I will be there. I know Jurda. There is no quarter in the city that I shouldn’t be able to reach. Are we clear?” The Mage was still bent over his food but was looking up through the tops of his eyes, expecting a quick and rigorous affirmation. Ajax tapped his foot on the stone floor and bit away another chunk of yenuo, offering only a nod of his head. If there had been one inescapable factor in every battle, it was the inevitability of this conversation. Not above self-reflection, the lad could sense his brashness settling in, and it was out of no disrespect to his uncle’s care for him that Ajax didn’t resoundingly assuage his feelings. Ajax simply felt that he could only kill so many Fiends before “being careful” seemed moot.
Secret agitation always accompanied any conversation they held. As much as the lad appreciated all of his uncle’s lessons and his care, communication remained inefficient and frustrating. True mindspeak was an impossibility, English a daily lesson. Ajax too frequently found himself unable to fully convey his meanings, hindered by the alien tongue. During this conversation, with his uncle so overly concerned about another battle, Ajax was not going to let his feelings go without proper justice.
His uncle’s expression dropped at the change in communication. Tapping his fingers against his table, his head lowered, the Mage replied,
Ajax bowed his head to not look his uncle directly in the eye, but his temper was starting to rise at the received reaction. This was unnecessary.
rise from the valleys and eat us all. But I have nothing so detailed, do you understand? Are we clear? rel="nofollow"> Ajax shook his head with utter disappointment. Between bites, he thought aloud,
The rest of their meal had gone on in silence. Ajax growled. Memories of that meal caused him more and more anxiety. Lingering over every sentence gave him no satisfaction, for he gleaned no further insight about whatever his uncle was withholding. And the restlessness of waiting compounded his anxiety. His ears perked up at the sounds of superheated plasma, ion lances, and metal punching against metal ringing down the alleys and streets to his crulaj’s position. He busied himself separating and reconnecting his spear. Maybe this was what his uncle had referred to. There was no good battle when in its middle a fighter had the time to decide which weapons to use.
~~~~
Alone, Menver stalked through the unlit rows of books of the city’s finest library. Most of the collection was available to synneural booths that accessed the library computer; through the computer, most of the planet’s knowledge could be gleaned. But what the Mage sought had never been digitized, never bound to cold electronics. Its secret speech still lay in living paper, set inside a crafted book written untold generations past. Three wisps accompanied the Mage, two on either side to keep his flanks covered, and one several yards ahead to keep his pathway lit. A stacked series of his curative spells swallowed the majority of his pain and plugged the puncture through his hip flexors. He could do this without any extraneous concern. The motivation for this diversion wasn’t entirely clear to the Mage, other than that he knew the book was here and his heart was stirred to fetch it. It made no logical sense, yet he was driven. Before the day’s end, it would be in his possession.
Luckily, he knew that the book, though important, wasn’t nearly so dear to the people of Tuluhr as was the Holy Blade at his side. Any magical wards here could be quickly dismissed. Physical traps, automated guards, or even hidden living sentinels were all inconsequential at this point. He knew very well what hells he had managed to survive thus far on the planet; there was nothing in their arsenal left to pose a challenge. Menver reached the hub of the magnificently large library and looked down the spine of the nearest transport tube. A historic building, it actually had an elevator system in its center that could take its patrons down the 20 basement levels or up as high as the 150th floor. Everything below the surface was dedicated to printed text. From Menver’s position, outward and upward there was nothing but room for synneural access booths and artwork. Despite never having seen it, Menver was once informed there were several auditoriums in the higher levels. The Mage was sure that if he had been raised in Tuluhrai culture, this would clearly have been his favorite spot in all of Nethar in which to spend his endless time. Snapping his fingers, he blew out the bottom of the elevator to expose the empty shaft. His forward wisp moved in the entrance’s direction. Menver noticed no one was particularly attracted to the blast. Regarding the large tube again, the Mage sent the wisp down its length to reveal any endangering obstacles he might encounter if he chose to simply jump in. Menver had no exact idea where this book lay, but he did know the minds of the Tuluhrai. Their love of grandeur and propriety meant that this book would stay somewhere obvious, where natural curiosity would lead a person such as him. Glancing down, he stuck a foot over the descent and let himself enjoy the free fall. His capacity to enjoy something such as this while war waged above perhaps could be seen as immutably cold or crazy, but part of his experience said that this should last for but a moment of his total consciousness. A quick swipe of his hands kicked up enough wind to cushion his landing, leaving the Mage with his three wisps at the bottom of the grand cylinder. Six statues of the six previous guardians surrounded him at the base of the library, their weapons pointed with regard to a vacant doorway. Menver smiled. The Shekethrum, Menver realized, were not a brilliant race, just exploitative in their enemy’s reliability. Of the God’s Means lay on the other side of the ghost-lit doorway. Wisps went ahead to set the Mage’s path, and his vision clouded over to see the things he normally could not.
Menver wetted his lips. Despite considering the tactical advantage to using the book in conjunction with the blade, whenever Menver asked himself why he felt so compelled to find it, the reason escaped him. But as the rumbles of the battle above echoed down to him, he cared less for a reason and more for just the acquisition. In a few minutes’ time, the Mage would hold the deepest of the Hetlurai’s secrets.
~~~~~
Steam swept off the protective plates covering Ajax’s body. The siege started, and he found himself caught off his guard. When movement returned to his hands, the Legionnaire pulled a cable from his collar to his helmet and a separate one to his left gauntlet. A Kinitral plowed through the neighborhoods to their position to launch a synneural disruptor in his company’s midst. The first volley killed many. Ajax’s self-shield caught the shockwave, which flung him to the open center of a blast crater. Biometrics of the rest of his platoon indicated that most had died or were on the verge of death. Ally positions near him were dwindling, until four new signals appeared. The Legionnaire managed to push himself up to his knees to witness the maiden fight of the Huryrs. Several of them suddenly appeared as the Kinitral was readying its cannons for a second barrage. As soon as they did, without hesitation, they surrounded the Kinitral, which immediately took its aim away from the Seventh Crulaj. Strafing fire caught the nearest Huryr across the chest, reflecting off a defense field entirely unlike any the Legionnaire had ever seen. Instead of the whole encoming field that all ships and machines used, this appeared to cover only the torso. More absorbed shots revealed it was not only the chest, but the machine’s whole body, an individual shield and generator for each major portion of the body, with this one Huryr suffering more direct fire than any Tulryr before it, and the machine did not care so much as to move out of the way. A spear fired forth from its hand. Razor tipped, of synthetic deltraj, it pierced the Kinitral’s deep hide. The others followed suit and vanished immediately—no portal, no bright energy display; they simply blinked elsewhere. Never having seen such technology before, Ajax dropped his guard in surprise.
The master engineer must have been a designer of miracles, for all that the lad had been taught denied the ability to truly traverse distance without explosively breaking third-dimensional barriers. But his awe had to be cut short, for the Kinitral still rumbled and roared, rotating about to bring its forward end toward his unit’s position, readying to run them all under. That is, until a cold warning piped into his eardrum, a sounding from the departed Huryrs:
Something occurred that Ajax could hear but not see. Something moving within the great behemoth’s hide, which the injected spears were responsible for, started the roving death-bringer’s end. The golden-hued pikes rotated and drilled further in, and though Ajax could not see it happening, their shafts opened up, releasing in the bestial belly rows upon rows of explosives spilling forth into its bowels. <Evacuate, legionnaires! Evacuate!> spat the cold voice of the Huryr, and the Legionnaire Ajax transported himself to the Seventh Crulaj’s secondary command, dazed and as shaken as a legionnaire could be. According to his computer, the Kinitral had been destroyed.
<Stupid hybrid, just go!>
In a heart’s beat, the lad was ducked within the covering slope of a crater. Fiend fighters darted overhead, crisscrossing burning trenches into the ground as they made their es. Ajax returned fire from below, hitting ventral shields with several meaningless shots. A warning alarm immediately bit into his ear with images of an incoming missile, leaving him just enough time to roll back onto his hands and quick-teleport to the other side of the Kinitral’s husk. Behind, a building wall slid into the crater he occupied, kicking up a cloud of dust, debris, and sand thick enough to obscure any clear shots into the opening portals of Fiend footmen. As Ajax clambered back up, he set his fire rate to automatic and started spraying at random into the haze. To his left and right, radar showed he was more or less alone. He transported away from the bulwark of the Seventh Crulaj left in the area.
The Legionnaire decided to brutally force his way through the situation. First he found cover behind a large pile of rubble.
Fiend Neshazt teleported around him in response, eight of the spheres in all. Ajax knew that if he were afforded the opportunity to consider circumstances, he could think of some strategically superior plan that would render all his enemies ruined. Yet with small-arms fire pummeling his suit’s arm shield and draining its reserves, and the Neshazt flinging daggers down upon him, Ajax could only come to one solution: unbind the fury. Stone, sand, and smoke blanketed the area. His concentration pulled away from the guiding voice of his computer. It threw up the invincible barriers of the mind to force an uninterrupted path to the core of the Legionnaire’s body, to disturb the untapped reserves of his self. Memories resurfaced in the instant, pulling by strings the vile emotions suppressed by training and pain. But the forward part of his focus grabbed those strings, coiling them together to draw the scattered, blurry pieces of his past together, to initiate his only means of escaping the situation. Anger. Anger and unrelenting hate were the only self-sustaining emotions that could be borne both alone and accompanied. They required no one for help and nothing for . By wrath alone, a man could energize his every day and see his missions met, driven on only by the spite his anger demands. Dipping into that cup, Ajax released every unit of his body’s power. His mind released its lock on its perception of time. He crouched into a ball in the epicenter of the Neshazt ring, Fiend soldiers reaching him with their lances, and Seventh Crulaj forces now walled behind the unfettered fire of hovering aircraft. In this fight, it was Ajax alone.
~~~~
Metallic fragments from the ceiling above refracted wisp light into an array of a thousand beams. From the sound and vibrations this far below, it was becoming obvious to the Mage that haste needed to be his modus operandi. He had to
believe that this book, of any book on this planet, would contain the means to get the Holy Blade to open its full strength to him. Vedin had centuries to get the sword to communicate with him, making the full-formed blade open to working for Menver’s dear brother. Menver looked about and found a smooth-walled pillar to lean against. “Yes, yes, I’m looking for it; just give me a minute.” Menver’s inner voice took a different tone, speaking against his conscious self. “Have I not found you your weapon? Am I not fighting against the filthy invaders you despise?” Biting his lip, Menver skipped a few chapters ahead and then began thumbing carefully through the aged, brittle pages for the intended script. “Trust me, I will find this stupid spell, if only just to silence you!” Rocks started tumbling through the elevator shaft, reminding the Mage of the current situation. Nodding toward the shaft, he commanded a wisp to zip around the shaft bottom in a star pattern to reveal any invisible beasts. Finding the meat of the incantation proved difficult, as the book rambled on and on within its pages about the history and lore—things unnecessary at such a moment. Half the book was scribed with nonsensical images depicting nothing, just an ensemble of lines that formed an increasingly complex and meaningless shape as the pages advanced. Flipping back to the beginning, he thumbed through the pages faster. The images built on each other, but it was all nonsense, not the sort of thing he needed to attempt deciphering now. He huffed and ran his hand through his hair. The Mage paced around the book’s tomb, wholly ignoring the dusty debris being shaken loose by the battle above. He paused to watch with a glinting eye. “This is bothersome. But …” His eyes glimmered as he caught sight of a particular page. “What is this? ‘Unlocking the God’?” Menver shot the Holy Blade an amused glance and smiled. “Such an astoundingly direct title for it.” He lowered his voice. “If this isn’t it, then I don’t know what I’m looking for.” The incantation was simple and required only that the be attuned to whatever artifact he or she held. Being a Torunthane, Menver believed he had access to the nature of the blade by default. As his eyes scanned to the next page, he found that it did require one more thing: a crystal. Fate was a kind deliverer when it wanted to be. The Mage removed his amulet from beneath his shirt and rubbed the treasured shard between two fingers. He called the wisps to him and arranged them in a triangle overhead to make a lamp. With the Holy Blade in his
right hand and the amulet in his left, the Mage began to whisper, in the echoing depths of the city, the quiet incantation.
~~~~
Ajax trembled, squatted down on a knee, and ducked behind his suit’s shield with his arm up, ready to fire at what moved next. His skin held an unnatural pallor, the glow of his eyes ebbing into a near fade. It was too difficult to think, too difficult to keep his thoughts straight, but in cold spite, the lad sneered, which turned to a seething grin. He was the only thing left moving in the area. His instrumentation was fried, his suit now incapable of shifting through levels of protection. Emergency power brought up the secondary computer, giving him a tactical snapshot. Local enemies were annihilated, his suit’s power had depleted to a level of 6 percent, and more of his crulaj had ed the area. Thought patterns streamed through and around him, taking and leaving images to bring him back to speed, but he could not maintain them. He needed time. Wrath had sucked away every stored photon from his body—a state he had never reached before. Reinforcements had dragged to the area portable defense field generators to protect against strafing fire from Fiend craft.
It was Keduyin, lifting him up like a boy by his armpits.
Welcoming the help, the lad tightened his knees once Keduyin lifted him to his standing height. He rubbed his palms together, knocking together metal plates and brushing sand away.
Images and words started to run deep. In a flash, Keduyin transmitted all he knew of the battle: positions, pain, troop formations, losses and gains, buildings he had seen crumble, the breath and feel of every explosion that had scarred his skin, and the debilitating pain of being stabbed by the azure light of the Fiend. Ajax staggered, addled at the inrush by the parts of his humanity. He saw Keduyin’s outlook on the battle lines; their forces consolidated into a single thrusting point and drove through the series of Fiend defenses to reach the city’s center. Stealth squads were already attempting to enter the Capitol and rearm
Jurda’s defenses. But doubts ran across the rippling waves of the Tuluhrai thought-scape. None were certain how the torn wall of the eastern ring would behave with the shield active. <Scatter!> Ajax cocked his head just as the alarm penetrated his mind: missile flurry being tracked and on its way to their position. His very first step faltered because of shock.
He backpedaled and ran, too drained to craft a portal and having absolutely no faith in the portable defenses to save him. The lad grunted at Keduyin to run as well, but the larger howled, clapping a portal open. Ajax felt the rage emanating from Keduyin in waves, yet the sensation was brief. Keduyin hurled Ajax through the portal with a fierce telekinetic boom, and as the lad struggled to recognize his new surroundings, he also saw, in flashing lights, the missiles landing where Keduyin had just stood. Analyses of the warheads’ payload scrolled through; a Sheketh equal to KilrothYuir was boiling the skin off those who could not, or did not, escape. Ally numbers faded across the city. Numbers flashed across the screen, serial numbers detailing the disintegrating platoons and how many yet remained. Lying back on his rump and palms, with a zero flashing across his retinas, the lad decided he did not know what was causing his chest to sag inward on itself or his intestines to twist themselves. The lad could not define his first sensation of sadness.
~~~~
Menver laid his hands across the blade, paused to wring his sweating palms, and looked at the book again. A closer rumbling than before was the only sensation coming to the Mage. The words had left his lips, the Holy Blade still in his hand, his talisman clenched in a palm, and yet nothing occurred. “Speak to me now! I did as you bade me; I gathered the instruments and said what needed to be said! How has the god been unlocked, tell me!” Menver threw the book on the ground and incinerated its podium on an angry whim. Finally his mind returned to Jurda, a calming wave taking him over. Realizing madness stole some of his vigor, the Mage took premeditated steps back to the grand chute leading to the surface. He felt the urge to stop and look behind at the book he’d left on the floor. In his bones, the blade sang to the Mage
the same song, a tune no different from the one it had sung when he’d reunited the two halves. Yet a new sensation was carried in the stagnant scent of the basement. Nothing dramatically new surrounded him, but the Mage thought for a moment that perhaps he was no longer alone. The wisps flew circles about him, and he conjured a spell of detection to seek out any auras alien to his own. In the drab olive glow and thick floating dust, the only thing he could realistically sense was his own paranoia. Menver looked at his newest treasure and back toward the entrance. Prioritization shifted to the surface, and he scratched his head, feeling oddly sober. His thoughts resettled on Ajax stuck in the fight. “Ajax!” Amid his concern with the strange compunctions guiding his hands, it dawned on the old one that the lad was still on the surface, dealing with the repercussions of his ancestors. Menver dropped low and flung himself skyward, toward the library’s ground floor. Confusion remained as to the point and purpose of his being there to begin with. And in his confusion, a very distinct voice spoke directly to the Mage’s quiet mind:
~~~~
Streaming reports concluded that the northwest portion of Jurda was under sudden quarantine. Avallah’s technicians were reputedly furiously working on reprogramming the city’s defense systems to shield the affected portions of Jurda. All nonmechanized forces were being ordered to fall back to the southeast, as the leaders were unwilling to sacrifice either the offensive or their soldiers. It was up to Huryr, Tulryr, and Jurda itself to pare down the Fiend forces. Most of the weaker constructs were directed to shore up a perimeter around the Tuluhrai soldiery should the Fiends push the attack. This was all news great and grand to the soldier-lad; none of it made to him any sense or difference. Keduyin was dead, the Seventh Crulaj annihilated, and his heart refused to beat. Ajax had no idea what uncertainty was broiling inside him, why his training could not penetrate the paralysis keeping him from regaining his stance to rend his foes. His uncle had spoken of many emotions given to the Earth-bred nekaf. Was this one of them? Muscle fibers twitched in his calves and
biceps fruitlessly; the lad was frozen in his seat. Some of the staggering warriors looked at the lad, many spitting words of contempt at the cowardice of one wearing the hallowed a Mask of the Crying Eyes. In the sky, three Yekrathnir cruisers bombarded the afflicted portion of the city with plasma bombs, cannon fire, and cutting rays. Diligently they circled to hold back and destroy the plague left by the Shekethrum. Avallah’s ringing voice encouraged her patrons to take heart because the city’s shields would soon be up to seal off Jurda from any further transgression. Hearing such, the lad grabbed his spear to prop himself back up. His eyes tried to cut through the detritus kicked up from the Yekrathnirs’ fury; with so much debris in the air, only his suit’s computer could decipher the goings-on downrange. Ajax punched the side of his helm to see if it would reset. Where the Deltornir was forced to fail, the Creornir scoured anything not under direct Tulurhai control. Keduyin had banished the lad to a park, its outer perimeter blocked by a wall of Veshunai. Past them lay an open walkway thirty meters across that encircled the whole of the city. Farther than the Veshunai, the lad could see only the poignant, dull tips of Jurda’s skyscrapers, sullied by the dust clouds summoned by the Creornir onslaught. Powerful in appearance, the constant leveling eventually seemed the attempt of a fruitless, empty despair. No matter how often they sounded the cannons or how many machines they put between themselves and the enemy, the fight never grew out of its basal nature—that flesh must die in order to satisfy the fight. Ajax lost sight of the volley’s purpose. He jogged farther into the safe zone’s defenses, looking for the nearest regimental leader. Bodies hustled about, ing equipment boxes about to stage the local command center. It took a single button press to transform the incongruous metallic boxes into whole antennae s. Within a few minutes, the Deltornir had established their new center. Fifty soldiers within coordinated attacks with the will of the mystic guiding their minds, their voices carried to the entombed captains of the Yekrathniri. As soon as the ephemeral walls of the camp phased in around the commanders, the Yekrathnir pulled away from the quarantine zone, leaning in on top of the lad’s position, allowing the dust to finally come to rest. Through it all, Avallah’s voice could be heard, through the dust and confusion, piercing the ideation of death and fear, cutting infectiously to the roots of his consciousness, to provide her word. < … will never win our holy ground! Their attempt to taint our great city with their poison will not deter us but raise our
furious wrath against them! Who are they to destroy our places? <My soldiers, in our history, during nearly every Ceremonial War, we have pushed the filthy Fiends from our world and back to their own galaxy, leaving our ships in their orbit to show them our dominance! This time, those beasts broke the Law of Battle! They have forced us to show our daggered hands, to prove we will not be moved from this world, as the rocks of Ehya’Kul stand immobile, as the jungles of Uthanral have remained unchanged since our people left the sands! I cannot yet tell you how the Fiends managed their many cursed advances. I cannot promise you that at the end of the day they will be gone from Tuluhr. I can tell you what I know and what I foresee, while I leave the burden on your shoulders of seeing these predictions made reality. <Much of Jurda is now dead to us all. We have lost already much of what we won. The shield-ring is nearly active, and soon the city itself will deal with the plague running its streets. Fiend reinforcements have not been detected outside the dampeners’ range, but we refuse to drop our guard against them. And indeed my people, deep within the city, our symbol of hope treads to seek a means of restoring us to our rightful place as the unconquerable beings of this galactic realm!> Ajax had heard enough. All of this had been more than enough. The lad had been happy in quick strikes against isolated Fiend patrols. He had been able to tolerate the idea of his mother being stricken off the planet’s face with no explanation. Even waking up the next day, broken and bruised from beating to death one of the Empire’s assassins after all his loyal service, he could deal with. Sullenly, the lad sat back down on his haunches and meditated. In time, with Jurda apparently progressively becoming theirs, he hoped some meditation would purge his emergent weaknesses from the rest of his hateful, burning blood.
~~~~~~~
An explosion of unexpected magnitude, a fury not yet seen, hammer-clapped through the punctuated din of the battle and blasted loose rocks and dirt away from the great library’s base. The Shekethrum had repositioned themselves to
defend the library. Their intent was to use the great structure to their backs as they created a hold perimeter against the advancing Tuluhrai. “AJAX!” A sphere of rage blew out from the Mage’s body to buffet the invaders down to their stomachs. <Meet me in Luhirin.> “To hell with you and Luhirin! I’ll go when I’m damn ready!” Two Neshazt probes and three of the Shekethrum mechaloid hunter-killers turned their attention to the Mage just as their soldiers regained their equilibrium. Three swipes of the blade, and its radiating edge cut to pieces all things before him. His eyes narrowed, the debris clouds now impenetrable and the sounds of the battle now seeming farther off. The tone had changed, and static also now tinged the air. He looked at the blade. A surge traveled from him to it and back, a line of communication. Power gathered in from the Holy Blade to his body, awakening each molecule of his being; It told him where it sensed Ajax, what stood between him and his nephew. Menver blinked. Holding the sword at the fore, the Mage burst through Jurda as lightning, his physical being transcended, a torso riding flame. Everything he ed was a blur, his mind managing to piece together fragmented images after the fact. Everything around him was dead and dying. Golden soldiers lay still in puddles of their own cytoplasm. Kinitrals, Neshazt, Sheketh fighters, and soldiers were outlined in pale blue spheres. The Mage cared not; he clenched his jaws, pumping hate, worry, anxiety, anger, and fright into his union with the sword; behind and aside, all that was not him felt the power of the blade; all that was not of his blood and bone perished to his emotion, and nothing was important or carried meaning. In the singularity of his mind, whatever was not Ajax must be put aside; the blade acknowledged this. His wake cut through the ranks of the enemy. An arrow of fire burned from the eastern ridge of Jurda through its center, and the streets cowered under him. Words tried to enter his mind, but he could not separate them from his own thoughts. The High Mystic pleaded at him from the safety of her war sled, yet her voice was nearly silent and inconsequential. Two Huryrs blinked into his field of sight. He sensed the beings within and their vicious approval. Quickly they vanished away from him, leaving before him the last of the Kinitrals of Jurda.
Sheer size and strength of shield meant nothing to the Holy Blade of Tuluhr. Jurda, after all this time, would belong to the Tuluhrai; and Menver Torunthane, the outcast half-breed elder, the forgotten son and shunned guardian, would be the one to restore it! The Holy Blade forged itself a wide swath to greet the Kinitral. The machine bore its large guns down at the fleeting beam of dark light, intent on cutting it down before it could breach the great machine’s defenses. Turquoise beams pinpointed Menver, the incarnate Flame of Tuluhr, and crashed against the rugged plates of the blade’s energy. In counter, the engraved symbol brightened and drank in the Kinitral’s offering. Suckling from the offensive, the blade grew only stronger. Menver tapped into the synergistic bond and forced the Holy Blade to open up its wings; the spear-point made by the Mage now grew, the head of the spear growing to envelop the city, several blocks on each side. A blue haze crackled and snapped overhead. A new static charge filled the air and polarized the floating particles. Menver took it as a sign. A final pulse rippled throughout this new form and thrust him into the mirrored bow. Jurda’s shield-ring, reborn, alive for the first time since First Strike, made its approach. As Kardesh-Nar before it, Jurda, the lost megalopolis, retaliated with the furious vengeance of a wounded animal. Towers struck up through the sand, guns emerging through opening ports, taking aim, and immediately firing in all directions. Even the groaning eastern wall seemed to understand how dire its predicament was and forbade itself from giving way. And sailing under the pennant glow of Jurda’s revival, the Mage pummeled through the Kinitral until, on its other side, he left the mighty beast carved in half. Several dozen blocks of city stood between him and the lad, the poor lad, whose pain flowed in the lighted stream of communal energy shared by all Tuluhrai. For once, for the first time, the Mage felt the uniting power that was born in them all and given through the death of their progenitor, the being that beckoned him, called him toward Luhirin. Menver understood it all now. The Holy Blade, the crystal, the images and words that he touched the day he knew Vedin was to die, all came to this union. Each fallen Tuhlurai’s energies were swept into the stream’s currents and toward Luhirin; Keth-Kelin’s death provided the impetus; Tuluhr was growing again. All that Tuluhr could see, the Mage now skimmed as a navigator felt across a map.
In it all, his heart still beat to save the last of his family, the only one who shared his blood. A final push through a gusted cloud revealed the wall of Veshun bordering the quarantine zone. Cannons were raised and immediately lowered. On the other side of the line, Tuluhrai, too stern and bitter-raised to feel stunned, gazed at the torrential wraith that the Mage had become. Two arms stuck from the middle of his cyclone, blade and amulet in his hands. Neither he nor they moved; he too uncertain of their reception; they too uncertain of this creature’s identity. <My warriors, stay your doubts. It is our new champion. It is the Wielder of the Blade.>
<Wielder? Who is this that floods your thoughts?>
Menver took the Holy Blade up high and slashed at the air. Its winds picked up and carried away the floating energies of his soul and left him suspended as the nekafi body that the Tuluhrai were familiar with. His eyes continued to burn. Whatever bond he had with the stream of energy was severed, the brief ability to sense all things touched by Tuluhr gone. His mind and memories remained his own. <Wherever you are, Avallah, do not concern yourself with that voice. That one is clearly becoming aggravated with me and is trying to wash through all our thoughts until I do what it wants. What it does not understand is that it can wait. It will wait. Do you understand?>
Menver pursed his lips and dropped to the ground. The untasked of the Deltornir made ranks around him and raised their spears in deference. Meanwhile, the others sat motionless in communications with their computers.
Machines maintained the defense. Warfare seemed to be grinding to a halt in the secured city of Jurda. One soul, though, approached the Mage, its gait weary and slow. It was the sullen step of a beaten child no longer caring for praise or onition, inextricable from the focus of his shame. “Ajax. Ajax! Are you all right?” Menver ran up to the lad, putting a head against the cold metal of his mask. Sand-clotted blood marked and dirtied the lad’s armor. Ajax rolled his shoulders back. His spear was held loosely in his hand, the tip drooping to the ground. “I am not hurt, Uncle.” “You don’t look it at all! You look quite miserable. What happened to you? Do you need me to heal you? Have you any broken bones, cuts? Ah! But you’re on your feet, walking … oh, ha, I couldn’t be more relieved! Thank you for staying alive, Ajax; thank you!” Menver embraced the lad warmly, patting his back before stepping away. “Yes, alive. I am. You are too. That is good.” As they spoke, a crowd drew near. “Well, yes, I think so too … what is wrong? Something isn’t right with you. Tell me.” “I must use my own language.” <My weakness found me, Uncle. My impurities found themselves at the worst time. I should have saved Keduyin when he saved me. I wear the mark of the Empire’s finest, and I have felt utter humiliation. My peers have looked down on me while I was at my most shameful. I do not deserve what I wear. I do not deserve the anger I have shown them all for looking down on me. They were all right. I am a nekaf. Weak and impure as the rest.>
Menver had to look at the Holy Blade in wonder, disgust appearing on his lips in consideration of what he’d just heard.
attention? I know you’re not easily beaten by anything. I do not at all understand where this is coming from. You and I, by ourselves, survived the Nethari desert without any ! How many battles have we won and walked away from? I wonder, is there a touch of lunacy circling your mind?>
News like this was nearly intolerable to Menver, mainly because he could never stomach how narrow-minded this people had made themselves to be. The Mage inhaled deeply and looked about. He hadn’t noticed until this point that the dynamic sounds of the distance had finally quieted. A few flashes here and there rang against the interior of Jurda’s shielded dome, yet in general it was quiet. This victory was more than they had imagined possible during their quiet conversations as squatters in Tathanhla. So now he had to choose his words carefully.
Menver silenced the lad with a swift smack to the jawline of his mask. No words seemed adequate to deal with the melancholy, especially as he looked over his shoulder, seeing where the colonnade of Veshun had erected a barrier between them and the rot simmering over the other half of Jurda. Staccato sounds, sudden and aching, echoed from the dead zone. The city’s automated defenses had finally come to life to fight the remaining foes. To this, Menver turned his back. He grabbed Ajax by the wrist and walked him into the crowd, through the numbers, to the ramped entrance of the closest building. Ajax gestured as though to speak, but Menver waved him off, shaking his head dully. No shots from outside the shield wall rang; no rippling explosions to herald the enemy’s reinforcements sounded. Jurda, sealed, began to deal with its parasites with compartmentalization, cannon fire, and suffocation. Satisfied with the city’s hold, the colonnade stepped forth through the barrier into the quarantine zone and beyond to aid in the extinguishment of impropriety. A Yekrathnir settled in the air space above them, and the echoed mind-speak of company commanders radiated to their people, mandating they organize the ranks. Slowly, Menver
pulled Ajax down to sit beside him and pulled the mask from his face. The Mage stared the soldier in the face and spoke to him, eyes locked, with determination: “Ajax, you will learn. You will learn that this life you are a part of is not so rigid and simple as you have been forcibly taught to believe. The ideals and strengths this culture has forced on you since day one are not the only ideals and strengths out there in this universe. You are like them, but you are not exactly as them. You must take heart in that. In the rage and structure that you have thrown yourself into believing, you have forsaken the possibilities of potential, flexibility, joy, and sadness. What is the point of blind pride in a place or a thing if you cannot emote over the quality that makes it worth fighting for? “You have spent such a short, short time alive, and believe so earnestly you know all that there is. You have let the narrow convince you that there are no possibilities outside what has been explained to you. But, Ajax, you are more than these people are. They have built their whole culture around the ideal of strength in numbers … don’t you see? That is why they must build into their young that they must embrace strength and calculation and pride and nothing else. Alone, by themselves, they are nothing but shadows of traits. These are hollow beings! Stop trying so damned hard to delude yourself into becoming some stringent, one-sided creature. Embrace the totality of being alive. Embrace being who and what you really are. Believe what you want to believe in, take pride in being Tuluhrai, but do not, Ajax, do not ever disgrace the rest of your bloodline by shunning it. And to these, these shades of men who stare at you with such judgment? Who the hell are they? Who will they be to you in one, two, five, ten, twenty years from now? Do you truly believe you will see every single one of them again? Ajax, Ajax … we have Jurda, but that is it. This conflict that runs us will not end here. Do you know where this will turn to next? Do you think I do? We don’t. Avallah or the generals or some other power may decide where the Tuluhrai will set their eyes next. But believe me, Ajax, at all costs, my priority will be the safety of my family. Do not sell yourself short. Do not ever disparage yourself. Stand up, shake the sand from you, and acknowledge that you are different from these, and that this is what you have been, are now, and will be. And that this is quite all right.” Without a word, Ajax took the mask in his hands and stared at it. He removed the rest of his helmet and disconnected the communications line from it. Watching the horizon, he slipped the mask’s tabs back into place and then lifted the whole helm into his field of view. With the rallied survivors in ranks before
him and the Creornir settling into a hovering formation, it seemed that the fight had come to a stall for them. Jurda, meanwhile, cleansed itself of all intruders undesirable.
CHAPTER 16
Two days had elapsed since Jurda’s recapture. Their numbers had been reduced since the quarantine, a loss of nearly 30 percent of the fighting capable. Armored , machinery, and aerial had depreciated by 40 percent. Ajax, awaiting assignment to a new crulaj, sat among the busied Hetlurai to undergo medical repair. Thus the Mage was left with the mystic in the dusty loneliness of her throne room. At the deepest point of the last two nights, the whispers chattered in his head, encircling reminders, pricking at his consciousness of his promise to return.
Here she broke off to pace about the breadth of the oval room. Its lush red carpeting quieted her footsteps while her robes dragged, picking up dirt and debris in their swath. Menver sat on the lower step leading to her old throne, the Holy Blade held by a hand, its ever-sharp tip twirling in the floor.
<Wielder!>
Menver twirled the blade clockwise, counterclockwise, and back. His attention didn’t seem to waver from the galloping circular carvings he left in the floor. On the other hand, he couldn’t take his mind away from this puzzle.
Menver said as he pulled his talisman out from his shirt.
He hesitated.
The High Mystic stopped in her pace and pulled on the gossamer sleeves of her outer robe. Quietly, she snapped her sleeves high into place on her shoulders to leave her arms bare. Then she continued, with but a hint of impatience. <We are lesser for our travel through time, Menver, not removed. In every one of us, as you know we teach, Tuluhr lives on.>
earliest days, no one ever attempted to capture that energy. It does not leave as heat. There are no visible reactions. So how does it leave? Where does it go?>
She eyed him with a confused expression, nigh disbelief on her unblemished face.
<Mage. Always speak plainly to me in my throne room.>
Menver let the blade go to give his hands a quick clap, mad jubilation on his face.
The mystic’s hands fell to her sides and then came together again, her fingers entwined across her navel. <Wielder, there has been no time such as this in our recorded histories. Please, Wielder, acknowledge to the depth of your heart that what I say is with the utmost deference toward your status as the Wielder of the
Holy Blade and with bountiful respect for your deeds. However, you must recognize that the touch of madness is clearly on your brow. You suggest our deity is manifest? You suggest Tuluhr is alive and sits in Luhirin while we, the Tuluhrai, are devastated, our cities destroyed, our massive populations hidden underground in stasis, and the fleets of the eternal enemy looming in our skylines, and that our Tuluhr, our great god that bore us all, just sits lazily underneath our sand to watch us die? Is that the suggestion you wish to make, my dear Wielder? For if it is—if it is, Menver, I must suggest immediately that you suffocate those vile words, that you choke them down as a thought never to be brought up before any breathing Tuluhrai ever again!>
Menver stepped around the room with his palms toward her. His heart beat a little quicker than before he brought up his true belief. Her reaction was not quite what he had imagined. The High Mystic’s attention suddenly shifted. Briskly, with grace, she ed by the Mage without a word or an explanatory glance. She approached the chamber room’s doorway, to its right side, and threw a hand up to the hollow. Immediately in response, a light shone in the hollow; it wavered and spun and spiked and inverted. Slowly, eyes narrowed with curiosity, the Mage walked up behind her, peeking around her left side.
<Wait, Avallah!> The mystic stopped and bent her head toward him, her hair split along her shoulder.
<Something I must tell you, that in all this I have managed to forget … I have it. I have the book. I have Of the God’s Means.>
She beckoned him over, and the Mage accepted. Silent at first, she brushed her fingers along his face. After several seconds of looking him over, she whispered,
~~~~~
The War Committee assembled on the balcony outside the very chamber room in which previously the Mage and the mystic held their conversation. The barely moved, only now and again casting their eyes upward to the shield-tinted skyline. The stars, as ever, were not out to be seen. Streaks periodically lit the sky: broken orbital stations and the husks of ships finally making their way to Tuluhr’s gravity. Avallah spoke, apologizing as customary for the crudeness of her gestures, ensuring that Menver was aware of the conversation.
Nethar is safe. Uthanral holds the highest symbolic importance. Should the other remnants of the Creornir and Deltornir on the planet hear that Uthanral is returned to the hands of their fellow Tuluhrai, then the courage of all will soar. It is a detriment to the pride and will of all to know that our great capital is not under our control.>
<Jurda’s factories are operating at a paltry thirteen percent. We have no incoming resources. The Deltornir lacks adept scouts to seek out stored spare parts and fuel from the less occupied cities. There are enough subterranean storage modules to ready the build of a warship. Small arms and medium-sized siege craft I can build. If it’s the Deltornir’s choice, I can reduce the number of new standard battle armaments to give them a more improved design. The Emperor did not authorize their widespread fabrication in time to stockpile, and we are, again, low on modular stock. You will have more Tulryr. You will receive none of my Huryrs without the appropriate … materials.> Avallah, attentive to his words, eyed him coolly after his pause. Menver watched her body language. Enough arguments were had between the mystic and himself that he was skilled in knowing when she held whole distrust for something said. <Jenrua. Your best efforts will have to suffice with the resources provided and only those resources provided. iral Denmeth?>
<Wielder, may you honor us with your input?> At this, the Mage decided to quit staring at his boots. He hesitated. The Nethari campaign had gained so much momentum that this, the recapture of Yevuntuluhr, all the way in Uthanral seemed a logical step to the victorious rampage. But as he raised his hand to gesture his preparation to speak, a gnawing anxiety crept into him. Yevuntuluhr
was not where he needed to go. The blade, growing warm in its scabbard, knew this, and the book, with its temptation of forgotten knowledge and truth, called him elsewhere. Yevuntuluhr was perhaps correct for the Tuluhrai in order to regain their home: no goal could be worthier! On the other hand, for the Mage, his calling was elsewhere. There was no question in his mind at this juncture; Luhirin was where he needed to be.
If there were truly a moment of distrust to be had, Menver could see that Avallah chose this to be it. Her golden eyes settled directly on him, unwavering, narrowing, and her presence in the room began to cloud his perception of the military commanders. On the balcony, with the ambient sounds of an undead city beneath and above drifting off, there were but two people in all of creation, so far as the Mage was able to perceive. No word or thought entered his mind or ear. Wrath, though, was tangible. Was it minutes that ed by? Or was there no lapse at all? A mental fog was setting in from the High Mystic’s direction, cut through only by the beacon of her voice, broadcasting in a quiet rasp throughout his consciousness: <Menver Torunthuna, you will speak your intention here! Yevuntuluhr stands at our mercy! Our capital, my capital! If you think to abandon us now, you will not. You have not received so much leniency as to leave us when this victory is so close. I cannot allow it! Speak your mind only if your mind is bent on lending us the blade in Yevuntuluhr! Know this too—you will speak.> He reached to his temples and squeezed as hard as he could as fire set into the orbits around his eyes. A ring of pain circled his head. At last he understood where he stood among the High Mystic’s priorities. No fault could be given; nor could he let her dissuade him. He struggled to keep his composure, his neck trembling under the weight of her aura. Through his gritted teeth, he growled, <My input, my esteemed peers! I am to go to Luhirin with the Holy Blade and the sacred book Of the God’s Means, and I will provide for you your salvation! Tuluhr is out there! You dragged me out to this planet of sand as a backup against Keth-Kelin! It is beyond coincidental that I still live, your war notwithstanding, and now have both the tool and the knowledge to revive your progenitor! You want your damned
capital? Then let me give it to you by going to Luhirin. The Nethari High Mystic confirmed my suspicions for me, the voices in the valleys spoke to me, the book corroborates for me, and the blade is my proof of destiny. This was meant to be.
The crushing force surrounding his mindscape immediately relented. He could see their faces easily now. Avallah’s expression remained the same. The others turned their backs to him. Cwethnesh faced him yet, though staggered, the glow in his eyes shallow, his hands gripping the balcony’s rail tightly. Menver wiped some sweat from his brow, unaware until his speech ended that he had been perspiring. The assembly’s various expressions were impossible to discern through the masks of war. The Mage began to wonder if his sudden fervor (where did it stem from?) was too much for their sensibility (surely he sounded mad!), putting him in the terrible position of being a religiously misguided genetic throwback. <Someone had better start speaking to me soon. The zeal of your people is frightening. The less wise would not think to worry at this moment. As of this moment, your silence has me very much worried. Listen. Experience is the best teacher of all, Tuluhrai, and there is absolutely no experience to guide us through these times. Too many variables have aligned with such a magnificent design to let this be simply a series of random events, so I entreat you to believe that this is of a guided intent. This is meant to be.> Commander Cwethnesh quietly replied, <Wielder, your deeds have won you great honor in the Deltornir. You alone, the man who slew a Behemoth. I send my perceptions to you and do not sense that your intention is to abandon us. This is not meant as dishonor. The nekafi desire to flee is not unknown to us. We will write very highly of you in our annals. The tragedy that is your madness will be