Bender of Worlds

by Isaac Hooke

  He leaned farther out, and behind the robots, in the middle of the clearing, he saw the ominous black shape of the artifact he sought.

  I’ve come all this way for you…

  He gazed warily into the tunnels leading inside the different crystals that were in view, but he didn’t spot any other robots, or more dwellers. If there were any ambushers, they were keeping themselves well hidden.

  Staying low, Tane sidled over a little more until he was able to look down at his own three targets. Like the others, they were facing outward, though these were oriented toward him, if underneath his current position.

  He quickly ducked from view, realizing it was a bad idea to expose himself like that until he was ready to fire, especially now that he was within the ten-meter discernment range.

  He decided to try his new ID feature. When Jed had purchased it for him, the Volur had promised it would allow Tane to identify most dwellers and their weapons. He wondered if that included dweller robots.

  He leaned forward so that the farther robots were in view again and ran an ID. To his surprise, he got a page full of data. The chipmaker had managed to catalog one of these. Impressive. Then again, they’d probably simply purchased the data from the TSN.

  Name: Unknown

  Race: Dweller Robot.

  Model: Tarkwail Spider version 25e

  Level: 12

  Class: Combat Guard

  Offensive Weapons:

  Two fang laser turrets, 45-degree throw angle.

  Two missile launchers, 45-degree throw angle. Each launcher holds a complement of four deathfire missiles. Current number of missiles: 8.

  Shielding system: Energy. (35/35)

  Base Armor rating: 20

  Total armor rating (including shielding): 55

  There was no name, of course, since the public profile information wasn’t available when IDing aliens or their robots, due to tech differences. The identification was based solely upon the outward appearance of the target. He wasn’t sure how his chip derived the level and class, though. It was probably based on previous encounters by members of the TSN, and the difficulty said members had in terminating the Tarkwails.

  He noted how its shielding system was rated higher than the base armor, meaning that once Tane got through the shields, it would be relatively easy to punch through the armor. Then again, he didn’t even have to worry about those shields with the works he had in mind. Obviously these robots hadn’t been designed to fend off Essenceworkers.

  But the dwellers know I’m an Essenceworker. Why leave robots like these to guard the artifact?

  It was starting to feel more and more like a trap. He probably should have turned around and headed for the shuttle. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He was right here. Right here! He had led Sinive, Jed and G’allanthamas all this way for a reason: to attain the ability to remove his control chip. That ability was central to everything else going forward. If he ever hoped to rescue Lyra and Nebb from the TSN, he couldn’t turn back. Not now.

  He was just glad G’allanthamas had a distortion tunnel ready to launch. Tane and his friends would have to get the hell out of there fairly quickly, he was sure.

  His friends. Yes, that was what they were to him. Not team members. Not disposable pieces on a game board. Friends.

  And he would guard them with his life.

  He withdrew his beam hilt and held the D18 in his other hand. With the smart targeting mechanism, he programmed it to aim at the carapace of the target he was sharing with Sinive. He had to use the overhead map to signify the target, since it wasn’t currently in view.

  He glanced at said map and confirmed that everyone else was in position. Like Tane, they hid behind different crystals around the clearing, at a height that placed them above all the robots.

  “On my mark,” Tane said. “Three… Two….”

  He hauled himself past the edge of the crystal so that his targets were in view once more. He had been worried that breaking radio silence would alert the robots, but so far the machines seemed oblivious.

  “One…”

  He Siphoned though the beam hilt, activating his energy ax.

  “Now!”

  He squeezed the rifle trigger, and the muzzle twisted to the right, automatically targeting the programmed tango before firing.

  He released an Essence Missile at a second robot, and deployed his Fingers of Ruin reserve against a third. The Essence Missile seemed brighter and larger than usual, and the Fingers of Ruin work sent out three dark streams of unreality against his target, instead of the usual two. A part of his mind vaguely attributed the improvements to the level boost provided by the Feral Necklace.

  At the periphery of Tane’s vision Jed blinked into view, Chrysalium sword swinging. Dark smears from G’allanthamas also streaked across the clearing toward other robots.

  Tane ignored the distractions and concentrated on his final target. He planned to unleash another Essence Missile, but the robot in question had already reacted. The spider was streaking across the lakebed. Laser turrets and missile launchers swiveled toward him…

  Before he could launch the planned work, Dark smears of unreality rammed into the robot, sending it spinning away. Black veins crawled across its carapace, veins that promptly cracked open. The robot sunk lifelessly to the lakebed and didn’t get up.

  “Whoops,” G’allanthamas said.

  Tane glanced at the overhead map: it was already over. Every last one of the red dots had turned black. Tane surveyed the clearing. All that remained of the robots were collapsed wreckages lying on the lakebed.

  Jed was still down there according to the map, though invisible once again. Meanwhile Sinive and G’allanthamas had returned to the cover of their associated crystals.

  “We got them all within the first half second,” Jed said. “Except for that final robot.”

  “My fault,” Tane said. “I wasn’t quick enough. Guess that means we didn’t stop the machines before they could get out a distress signal.”

  “Probably should make this quick,” Jed agreed. “We’ll keep an eye on the surrounding structures while you do your thing.”

  Tane spared an uncertain glance at the crystals that enclosed the clearing, but so far the tunnels leading inside them were quiet.

  He stepped out of the Essence, holstered the beam hilt, and jetted downward. The artifact stood firmly on the lakebed in the center of the clearing. Similar to the previous artifact he had encountered, the base was slightly rectangular, acting like a built-in stand. Also like the previous, it seemed to absorb all the nearby light.

  He secured the D18 over his shoulder as he closed with the blackness, and lowered his shield so the energy field wouldn’t interfere. He reached out, intending to command the artifact to shrink immediately after he made contact, so that the team could flee.

  But the artifact had other plans, apparently.

  The moment he touched it, the world winked out.

  26

  Tane stood in a wide, open-air stone colonnade. The large columns were carved with intricately detailed trees; chaotic lines hewn into the stone around the branches and leaves seemed to imply that those trees were aflame. Beyond the columns, the purple dunes of a desert formed the immobile waves of a sandy sea. Underneath him, the tiles were partially covered in that sand.

  There was a large, human-sized boulder beside him. One side of that gray rock was bumpy and uneven, while the side facing Tane was flat and polished to such a sheen that it was essentially a mirror.

  He could see his reflection in that polished surface. Or rather, not his reflection, but that of Tiberius. The man appeared very old: his face wrinkled and weather worn; his hair little more than a few loose, white wisps; his eyes cloudy, as if tainted with cataracts or some similar degeneration. His shoulders were stooped low, as if burdened by the weight of the universe. He wore a robe covered in competing swirls of black and white, girded at the middle by a rope of similar coloration. On his feet were
plain sandals. Silver and black rings covered his fingers. He held long staffs in either hand, one silver, the other black.

  “My time here is almost over,” Tiberius said. He spoke words in a language that Tane didn’t understand, yet he knew the meaning instantly. “I wish I could have had the opportunity to meet you, my young progeny. But alas, the universe doesn’t work that way. Via memories, I can reach down through time to you and cross the galaxy to fight at your side, but you cannot do the same for me. I suppose it doesn’t matter. I am curious about you, though. What kind of person you are. The external mask of personality and body that you present to the universe.

  “But I suppose I don’t really need to meet you. I know you already, in a way. We’ve been through the similar trials, I suspect. Forged into the persons we are today by those who hunted us. Why is it that among every advanced species, there are always those among them who seek power and control over others? It is the immutable law of life, I suppose. Every alien race alive today had to endure billions of years of natural selection to become what they are. The competition for limited resources, the desire for status among peers, because of natural selection, these traits are ingrained within all life. We try to control these traits through culture. Some races are more successful at it than others.

  “But you didn’t arrive here to be lectured on the nature of life in the universe, did you? I will never meet you, we’ve already agreed on that. But you, on the other hand, need to meet me. That’s why you’re here. Respect well what I am about to give you, and use it only for good. I give you the gift of a knowledge that took me a lifetime to learn. Use it wisely, and you will always flourish. Use it for ill, and you will suffer. Trust me, I know the suffering of evil. More than anyone, I know this... the evil every single one of us is capable of. The evil we try to pretend we’ve evolved beyond. But the effects of natural selection cannot be denied. For all my complaints about those who seek power and control, I must admit to you, I’ve been guilty of the same at various points in my life, coupled with an anger that could consume not only me, but those I loved. I’ve stared into my shadow on numerous occasions and seen the darkness there.”

  The cloud of cataracts seemed to lift from the eyes of Tiberius, and he stared intently at Tane, as if gazing into his very soul. “You will encounter your shadow as well, eventually. And you will either emerge on the other side of that encounter and find enlightenment, becoming whole with yourself, or you will get lost in that shadow and never return to the way you were.”

  He paused, and then grinned. “Now then, on to happier subjects. Let’s bend worlds together, shall we?” He tapped the two staffs on the tiles underneath him, and the ferrules thudded loudly against the stone. “Dark and White Mixing. You already have some skill in this, otherwise you would not be here, the memory inaccessible. Therefore you already know how to use the flames of the Dark to contain the White. Very likely you drew the White through a large item of Chrysalium, perhaps a jump-capable shuttle, or maybe even something larger like the hull of a small starship—if you had a suitable piece of Darcanium to Siphon enough Darkness through in turn. And when the tornado of stellar wind erupted from that large item of Chrysalium, spiraling out of control, you doused the flames of the Dark so that they clumped around the growing Branchworks of the White, containing and stabilizing the tree.

  “But now instead of simply containing the White, I’m going to teach you how to intermix the two, merging a Dark timeline directly into the White so that you have a hybrid of both. This results in some far more powerful works than simply Dark and White on their own.” He slammed the staffs down and a slight breeze gusted, stirring the hem of his black and white robe. “So, to begin. We start a Dark timeline.”

  Tane, or Tiberius rather, reached into the Darcanium staff in his left hand and heat seared his core as the black, translucent flames of chaos erupted in three dimensions around him. He could see the flames that resided beyond the tiles underneath, and within the columns on his left and right. He began dousing those flames, selectively shaping and forming the resultant timeline.

  “At the same time, we Siphon the White,” Tiberius said.

  He stepped into the Essence through the silver staff in his right hand, and the stellar wind of the White gusted across his bones, erupting from his core in a long, wavering ribbon.

  “We use the containment powers of the Dark flames to restrain the White tree, and slow down its creation, so that it does not finish until the Dark timeline is complete. The tree wraps around the different flames in the timeline, trapping them inside, mixing the fires sourced from the gravity wells of the Umbra with the stellar wind of the Lumina.”

  Tiberius grew the ribbon in front of him into a sapling. He quenched several of the outlying flames of his Dark timeline, so that when the new fires appeared, they hugged the White Branchworks. He seemed to be growing the outermost Branches of the tree to match the current shape of the Dark timeline, so that when he doused the existing flames in that moment, they had nowhere else to go but next to the new Branches and Leaves.

  It was like watching a timelapse of a growing tree that was on fire. Except those flames weren’t detrimental to the growth of the tree, but life-giving. Tane immediately thought of a nature timelapse, which showed the moving clouds and the changing seasons—with snow becoming rain becoming sunlight and back again—while the tree grew from a sapling to a great oak. All the while it was surrounded by a halo of flames. Some of those flames floated around the tree, like sprites of fire weaving back and forth, forming temporary shapes with their forms.

  “Because of the time required to create a timeline of the Dark, the combined works always depend on however long it takes to prepare the Dark portion,” Tiberius said. “And since the White portion cannot be held in reserve, this means that when the combined work is completed it has to be released immediately. So while these works are powerful, the cost is their creation time, and their lack of any reserve capability.”

  And then it was done. The Dark timeline completed, and the White tree that was intertwined with it set in this universe.

  Tiberius released it. Thanks to the reflection in the burnished rock, Tane watched the combined work, which looked like a wreath made of white light and dark shadows, settle around his head. That ethereal wreath slowly sunk into the skin of his wispy scalp, with the light and shadow vanishing in turn until there was nothing left of it at all.

  Just like that, the scene changed.

  Tane resided once more beneath the hydrocarbon lake at the heart of the Cre’ite colony on Kharikhan V. He wasn’t sure at first if it was another memory, but then he realized he was back inside himself: he still possessed the same forward momentum he had had before touching the artifact, and he promptly crashed into the hard surface.

  “Oof.” As he bounced away slightly, he glanced at the time counter in the lower right of his HUD. Only a half second had passed since he had made contact with the artifact.

  He sunk to the lakebed and let his boots settle on the bumpy surface.

  Some new notifications appeared on his HUD.

  All Dark and White Mixing Level 1 Essenceworks gained.

  New Dark and White Essencework learned.

  Repel Nanotech. Level 1. (Dark & White Mixing Level 1 required).

  New Dark and White Essencework learned.

  Infuse Oxygen. Level 1. (Dark & White Mixing Level 1 required).

  Attribute up. Intelligence +1. Current Intelligence: 14 (26 with Beam Hilt I, Chrysalium Star rings, Feral Necklace, and Nova Bracelet I equipped)

  The first work he had been expecting, and he would use it on himself and Sinive as soon as the team was safely aboard the shuttle and on the way back to the Mosaic. But the second work was a surprise. Infuse Oxygen. That particular Dark and White Essencework hadn’t been shown in the original list the previous artifact had given him.

  Tane quickly reviewed the detailed description of the new work.

  Infuse Oxygen. Infuses a ten c
ubic-meter volume with oxygen. The rectangular volume can be centered around you, or positioned so that the volume begins up to one meter anywhere away from you. At higher levels, a bigger volume can be created, and it can be moved farther away. Stamina drain: low. Creation time: thirty seconds.

  He couldn’t see the use of it. He struggled to remember anything Tiberius might have told him about the work, but the man hadn’t left any obvious clues. Maybe the memory would come when something triggered it.

  “I got Repel Nanotech,” Tane confirmed over the comm.

  “Good,” Sinive said. “Can you shrink it so we can go?”

  “Yeah,” Tane said. He’d forgotten the urgency, thanks to that little interruption Tiberius had provided him with.

  “In the meantime, I’ll come down there and open up the distortion tunnel,” G’allanthamas transmitted. “Woman, come with me.”

  “Don’t call me Woman,” Sinive said. “I do have a name, you know.”

  “Come or stay, I don’t care.” G’allanthamas was already swimming down toward the center of the square.

  Tane rested a gloved hand on the artifact and commanded it to shrink. He was worried the artifact would disobey—sometimes it seemed like these things had minds of their own—but thankfully it began to miniaturize immediately.

  Tane was left with two items in his hand. One was the artifact, now the size of an apple, and the other a black ring.

  Interesting. That meant Tiberius was able to store items in these artifacts of his, not just memories, sort of turning them into bug out stashes.