My host walked at a relaxed pace a good five or six steps ahead of me. I followed tentatively behind, marvelling at the design of the corridors we walked along. There had been no thought given to any aesthetic look or feel. Every yard was cold, functional and black. The walls were not straight or flat. Things that were sharp or rounded or squarish or of multiple weird shapes and angles protruded from everywhere. The tunnel was also not straight. It curved and twisted and went up hill and down. At times a wall would open or the tunnel would end to reveal a wide-open space or the highway would become a long bridge over many deep ravines leading away to high towers in the distance before plunging into a new tunnel. I had no idea what everything did but it became apparent to me as we progressed that this was not a place for humans. There seemed to be no houses or really even rooms and where I saw various alcoves or wider areas there were no tables or chairs or places of privacy and rest. As if reading my mind, the thing ahead of me spoke, and because the red glittering eyes completely covered its head, I had the impression that its head was turned backward to face me as it continued walking.
“Function,” it said blandly. “Every aspect of this city provides a function for the purpose of our race.”
“And what is that purpose, may I ask?”
“Survival.”
“We very much want the same thing, then.” It did not speak further and continued walking.
Lights of every colour glittered at odd intervals, some brighter and some weaker and strange sounds issued from every intersection and byway. Without my host I would have been lost in moments. Machines of every size and description crawled, walked, ran and flew, each on its own errand and none pausing to investigate the heterochthon that stumbled along aghast at the fremsome architecture. We emerged from a tunnel onto another broad highway that looked out over the tortured spires of the city but still there was no sky to be seen above us. An impossibly-sized dome encased the entire city which extended for many leagues in every direction. Many more machines whizzed and rumbled by, some the size of my hand and others the size of a building, some that looked like long snakes on a rail, others that hovered along soundlessly just above the road surface and others that crossed the sky beneath the dome but far beyond the height of the tallest spires. After what seemed a furlong, and many changes of direction, we came at last to a large entrance to a building with its own spire disappearing into the distance above us.
“Are my friends here?” I asked hopefully.
“You will see them soon enough. First take your rest, refresh yourself and then we shall start.”
“Start what?” I asked, getting nervous. “Why am I here?”
“I will talk more on this later.” It moved back towards the door we had entered through. “I have watched you for a long time and have been waiting for you. She said you would come and here you are. You are our hope and our salvation in the darkness that is to come.”
A panel materialised in the space that had been the opening to the chamber and the thing was gone. I felt wary. Who was “she”? Those last words did not sound too different from what the Golden Goddess had said. If they allowed me to work with them and help them achieve their ends then maybe we would have a valuable ally against the darkness.
I looked around the chamber. It was initially just a very large circular room with a smooth black floor. But in an instant, panels moved and opened and machinery whirred and I beheld a lighted and colour-filled room with tables and chairs and decorative hangings and separate lounges, a library and then separate rooms comprising a bedroom and a kitchen and then a separate bathroom with a huge bath, basin and lavatory. I was amazed.
The lure of a clean bath was too much for me. I poured the bath, fresh hot water billowing from the faucet and stripped off robes. I turned the water off and slowly sank into the water. It quickly became dark with the amount of dust and dirt that had clung to me. I rested, cleaning myself with a hand-towel and thinking about the strangeness of this place.
“Me-khri. So-khri,” I whispered.
“Yes, my lord,” they said in unison, fluttering above the steaming bath.
“Are they safe?”
“Yes.” They hesitated.
“But?”
“They are being held in separate parts of the Citadel,” said Me-Khri. SoKhri continued.
“The miscegene is being held in a heavily guarded area. They have taken your friend to what looks to be a medical wing. They seem to be interested in his biomechanosynthetic enhancements.”
I had no idea what that meant.
“And Irirangi?” I said with a pang of worry.
“We have not been able to locate her,” said So-Khri. “It is possibly she avoided them and is hiding somewhere. There are no search parties on the lookout for her.
That was something then.
“Please try and find her,” I pleaded. “And tell me what the red-eyed mech does. I do not trust them.”
“Yes, my lord,” they said in unison and were gone.
Following my ablutions, I found towels and fresh clothes. I laid my torn and dirty yellow robes, which had been part of me for so long, across the bed but kept the black undersuit on. As nice as it was to feel clean, I still did not trust my situation. I found food in the kitchen consisting of various fruits and found a plate which I piled high and poured a large glass of water which I took to the lounge and happily began eating. My thoughts passed to my friends. What were the girls talking about? I waited for the mech to return and after some time thought that perhaps they intended that I should be fully rested and stretched myself out of the couch and slept a deep and relaxing sleep.
I woke with a slight start, thinking that perhaps I had overslept and was missing something important. I sat up and reached for the still half-full glass of water. Drinking that, I stood and stretched and walked to where my robes were laid out across the bed. They had been cleaned, repaired and pressed while I had slept and looked brand new. My staff was laid across the bed, the ever-present hole through one end as familiar to me as ever, although the thing it has become was something altogether new.
I changed back into my robes and sat with my staff across my lap, hand left hand absent-mindedly massaging the Kriya-Shakti at my throat. I did not have to wait long.
The panel in the wall slowly vanished and the thing was again standing as thought it had not moved from where I last saw it.
“Come with me,” it grated, as cheerily as before. “I want to show you what we are working on.”
“When will I be reunited with my friends,” I asked.
“Soon enough. They are each helping us in their own ways.”
I realised they were in complete control. But, for good or for ill, I had argued for this outcome. I would follow this path and see where it led. With what I knew, what was the worst that could happen? Even for my friends. Dorje was the greatest fighter anyone had ever seen. Tetsuko had a preternatural power and speed and by her own arts could leave this place any time. I worried most for Irirangi. Where was she?
I had been deep in my own thoughts as I walked along and without realising nearly walked into the red-eyed thing that had stopped before a large building. All around us, the frenetic activity of the denizens of this place continued apace.
“We are here,” it said, simply. A large panel dissolved to reveal a relatively wide and straight walkway ahead of us which came to another wide doorway. When we got there, I could see the walkway terminated at a high vantage point that looked out over a vast cavern. Below I saw the same military-style landing craft that I had seen in the dry land, arranged in orderly rows, and between them stood long orderly rows of the lost.
“You can see them, can you not?” It said.
“Yes, can’t you?”
“’Detect’ is probably a more accurate description. But we have now developed technology to ‘see’ them as you do. It really doesn’t matter following integration as the unified entity gains, to coin an aphorism, the best of both worlds.”
<
br /> A quiet revulsion was growing in me. I had an idea what was going on but was too transfixed by what I saw to think clearly.
“The synthesisation process is quite something to behold. Would you like to see it?”
“Yes,I would,” I managed to say.
He turned and walked along the elevated gantry to where a hovering platform greeted him. We both stepped onto the platform and it carried us at a height of many hundreds of feet above the ordered rows of ships to another wide area. I gasped to see literally millions of humanoid figures, completely homogenous in their look and heavily armed, covering many miles of the plain below, ordered into legions, waiting.
I recognised them immediately; the Sidus raiders that had attacked us as we set out from the monastery. That seemed so long ago now. I remembered how I thought them human raiders with close fitting armour. I laughed inwardly. A finger strike to the throat would do nothing to these.
We alighted before a massive building and wandered through it. I could see lines of the dead moving towards an area where long lines of what can only be described as complicated glass tubes stood. They rested on a base and from the top of each a mess of wires and other mechanisms protruded. The dead souls, at the prodding of more Sidus carrying blazing awl pikes, moved towards the tubes and walked into them, standing there for a moment before a blinding light grew within the tube. A loud groaning and cracking grew as the intensity of the light grew. At the same time, a mech approach the tube from the other side and stood in the tube occupying the same space at the dead soul. The booming thunder and the light and crackling energies intensified even more to the point I had to cover my ears and eyes lest I be deafened and blinded and then suddenly, darkness and quiet.
I looked towards the tube and beheld the Sidus within. It stepped out from the tube, as did the hundreds of others who had just been through the same process, and turning, formed a long line where, with a military order and efficiency, marched away from the line of tubes to join the millions out on the wide plain in the distance. I now termed this unholy amalgam as a preta-mech.
“What do you achieve by this?” I asked, sickened.
“Survival,” it said, again very matter-of-factly.
“This army will destroy the universe, not save it,” I said. “What good can come from this?”
“This universe is done. But our technologies have allowed us to escape the cataclysm which would end our race.”
“Did she promise this? You are being lied to,” I managed to say. “Why do you treat with them when they destroyed your homeworld?”
It remained silent. I could not tell whether it looked at me particularly or just at everything simultaneously.
“I have seen the history.”
“We destroyed it.”
I was aghast. “What? Why? You…?”
“We are not as naïve as you might think. We are not single-minded. Some argued as you do.”
“Civil war?”
“And we won.”
“You’ve won nothing. All you are doing is providing the master of the black land with swift victory. You will destroy your people to win his war for him and then you will be gone.”
“We shall see. But it has been proven. We gain everything and lose nothing in this transaction. But let us not argue. I have arranged a luncheon for you.”
I could not even think about food now given the depth of my misgivings. The thing had taken off again and I hurried to keep up. Another floating platform appeared before us and I stepped up onto it. The platform gently alighted and steered between more incredible towers aiming for a particularly high tower with a well-lit and spacious room at the summit. We set down on a wide balcony and I turned to look out over the whole city. The area encased beneath the dome was massive and the level of constant activity, as millions of creatures and transports buzzed along on their ordered journeys, was simply astounding. The creature waited patiently behind me. I turned and we headed into the warmly lit room.
The thing moved towards a large doorway and stood to the side of the decorative double doors, beckoning.
They began to slide back and I stopped in my tracks. The Sudarshana appeared instantly in my hand and I flung it forward. Stood at the far end of a large, ornate table was the Witch-Queen herself. Hideous to behold, and bathed in a cloud of noxious green-black mist, she held up a clawed hand and snatched the spinning Sudarshana from mid-air. She looked like she would somehow crush it so I caused it to vanish. I screamed at her and was about to leap onto the table and draw my staff, which was so much more, but she held up her other hand and by whatever foul magic she used I was suddenly held in a vice-like grip, writhing a foot from the floor with my arms bound uselessly by my sides.
She casually walked around the table, a foot taller than I who was already floating a foot from the ground. The green-black mist oozed from her. She leaned in toward me and held up a long, black, clawed finger which she gently ran down my face from my temple to my chin. It burned and froze and I screamed out in pain. She was hideous to behold. Her ebon face was hideously scarred. The green-black mist bled from her blood-red eyes. When she spoke, she revealed hundreds of needle-sharp white teeth, each as long as my fingers.
“Such power I sense within you,” she breathed in a deep, grating tone. “Such a waste.”
She looked towards my chest and gently lifted the Kriya-Shakti with that long, cruelly shaped finger while that black ooze poured from her. It stank and I simply could not breath.
“The source of your power? This is how you overcame my general?” She laughed, not a laugh of merriment or happiness, but one of derision and contempt.
“Did you think to best me with this trinket and your toys?”
I could not speak. Her magic slowly crushed me.“I think it is you who are bested. I know, in your innocence, you would try to help these…” she looked towards to mech who had brought me here,“things. But you cannot.” She looked back towards me, the evil black of her eyes bored into me. “They are mine now. And soon, you shall be mine also.”
She looked back at the dull necklace she casually toyed with. With a simple tugged, she broke the thongand held it in her palm. “I will keep this to remember you, the first mortal who has tried to stand against me in an eon.”
She moved effortlessly back to the other end of the table and turned to regard me.
“You will help them and you will help me. I promise you that you will knowpain, and then you will be free.”
I woke. I was lying on a cold, hard, metallic floor. It was quiet and dark. I slowly lifted my head and could discern the stark grey walls and what looked like two of the preta-mechs standing guard a short way from me. I immediately jumped up and ran at the first one which remained unmoving. I heard a distinct “no!” before I was catapulted back as thought I’d been whacked with an iron bar, my body afire with pain.
I felt arms round my torso gently lifting me up and dragging me a short way to where I could prop myself up against a wall. I looked up through painfilled eyes and beheld a person leaning over me, a steadying hand on my shoulder.
“Who?” I managed to say. He sat back on one leg with his hands and chin resting on his knee. I could vaguely see a face surrounded by long unkempt hair, a long moustache and beard and dark eyes. He was somewhat shorter than me, perhaps similar in size and build to Puk.
“I am Sukhothai! Thief, hunter, adventurer!”
“What are you doing here?” I said in a raspy voice.
“I did not say I was a good thief!” He smiled. “And you?” “It’s a long story.”
“Good. I like long stories. There is not much to do here.”
I looked back toward the guards standing with their back to us. I pointed,
“What was that?”
“Electric field. When I first came here, there was another who was here
with me. Within half a watch he tried to run through it and got fried. I thought
the same thing would happen to you.”
&
nbsp; “I’m not that easy to kill,” I smiled as I picked myself up.
“But easy to capture, no?” He smiled again.
I looked at him. “You are not from here are you? Your clothing and your
accent arevery strange.”
“I could say the same thing about you. I am from many places. I found
this ship many years ago and hitched a ride, thinking to see some of the
universe. But you would not want to know about some of the places it has
gone. So, I stayed aboard,hoping to one day see my home again.” “It flies?” I asked, somewhat disbelieving.
“Mmmmm. I don’t know if ‘flies’ is accurate. It is in one place, and then
it is in another. I don’t know how to explain it.”
“Do you know where my friends are?”
“There was another here for a short while, a tall fellow. But he was taken
away again, I know not where.”
“We need to get out of here,” I resolved.
“I have tried everything. There is no way. The ceiling is very high and
the walls are solid metal. A panel opens in the corner where a machine emerges
to collect bodily wastes. I waited one morning and tried to squeeze through it
and nearly got crushed by the closing panel. At least I get fed regularly. That
is something.”
I walked to where I felt the invisible barrier would be.
“Careful, friend,” came a warning from behind me.
I turned back to him. “I am Tashi,” I smiled. Looking back towards where
the two guards stood dispassionately, I knelt and then closed my eyes with my
hands together in prayer above me. When I felt my power, which surprised me
because I no longer had the Kriya-Shakti, I drew my hands apart. Between
them a glowing line appeared with became thicker, longer and more
substantial. I heard a surprised intake of breath behind me and smiled. I rotated
my hands and it began to spin, becoming a pure spinning disc of light. I
The War of the Realms Page 32