Void: Book Five of the Nightlord series

by Garon Whited

  “I would be honored to hear it, my lord.”

  “Got a power crystal?’

  “Of course.”

  “Mounted in the pommel of your sword?”

  “No, my lord.”

  “Enchant two crystals. One needs to be a battery and the other should hold the pull-apart spell. Mount them in the pommel and set them to cast the separation spell. It’s not an actual enchantment on the blade—it only uses the blade as a point of reference, rather than being built into it. You’ll have to turn it on to use it, rather than leave it running, but it occurs to me there’s another good reason to do it this way.”

  “There is?”

  “Yes. It won’t cut through your scabbard and fall out.”

  Sir Penza was startled, then thoughtful.

  “I had not considered that. I have never tried to sheathe my weapon while the spell was active.”

  “Trust me, I’ve had a very similar problem. This is worse, since it’s not limited to the actual, physical dimensions of the blade. Anything immediately in front of the edge is likely to come apart.”

  “I shall begin work on pommel gems immediately, by your leave.”

  “Sure. But, before you go, I’d like to ask some theological questions, remember?”

  “Of course. I will be pleased to give you my understanding.”

  “Who is the Lord of Shadow and what is his purpose?”

  “Purpose, my lord?”

  “You know the Mother of Flame. Fire goddess, sort of a sun goddess, blazing light of life, all that. The Lord of Shadow must have something along those lines.”

  “Oh, yes. The Lord of Shadow is the Lord of Mortals.”

  “Go on.”

  “Go on?” he asked, puzzled.

  “Look, sit down. My neck is starting to hurt.” We sat down. I leaned forward and gestured for him to continue. “Pretend I’m from some tiny kingdom so far away they haven’t even heard of money. Explain to me about this Lord of Shadow.”

  Sir Penza was a bit stumped for a moment. I suppose it’s hard to wrap your head around the idea of explaining beliefs you never think about. I mean, I would have a hard time explaining how I know the Earth orbits the Sun. I could cite examples of how it can be proven, but I haven’t done any of them personally. I take it on faith someone would have pointed out any errors in the theory by now.

  Of course, I’m standing on a flat world where the sun turns on for the day and turns off for the night. Maybe not the best example.

  “The Lord of Shadow,” Sir Penza said, carefully, “is the Lord of Mortals. Being neither things of pure light nor pure darkness, we are mixtures of the two. At either extreme, there is a purity no mortal can achieve. Those are the realms of gods.” The word he used was numenae, which meant something similar to the arhia or arhelu, at least in the sense it was an immaterial creature. The numenae are creatures of terrible power and incomprehensible motives. I wish I’d heard the term before calling them simulata. In short, the gods.

  “While other gods rule the air or the fire, the Lord of Shadow is the god of Men. His is power over the flow of destiny, to raise up or cast down, to watch the unwinding thread of life or cut it short. He is not a deathgod, although many worship Him as one. He is the one who guides mortals to live worthy lives, that we may prove we are worthy of the gifts of minds and hearts and hands, to use them for the betterment of ourselves and the world. He is a god of building, of creating, and of destroying to build better. He does all of this through us, to teach us, to help us grow.” Sit Penza shook his head. “I find it difficult to express what I am trying to say.”

  “As a Banner,” I pointed out, “you should have this all sorted out already.”

  “Forgive me, my lord. I find I am unprepared for such questions.” He shrugged, a palms-up gesture. “Everyone I have ever met already knows of the Lord of Shadow.”

  “Oh, stop it. Just… the next time you have a discussion with other Banners, consider the idea someone might not have any notion at all who the Lord of Shadow is. How do you talk to them? How do you explain?”

  “I see now the lack in my preparation, my lord.” He bowed and saluted. “I thank you again for Your guidance.”

  “And thank you for your help. You may go.”

  He rose, towered over me, bowed like a tree about to fall on me, then backed away and departed.

  They do grow them big in the Church of Shadow.

  “All right,” I said, once the pivot-door swung shut. “Don’t tell me you weren’t listening.”

  I was.

  “What’s the deal? That’s not what I recall from Karvalen Religion one-oh-one!”

  I’m sorry, but I’m still evolving. I may have sprung full-formed from a crack in your skull, or near enough, but I’ve been growing and changing, adapting to circumstances and the expectations of our worshipers! The sea-folk think of me as their fire-god, and I’ve had to adapt to that, as well as adapt to the under-mountain tribes regarding me as a soul-eating, hungry god of death, and to the humans with their varied notions of how a god of neither-light-nor-dark-but-still-pretty-monochrome works! I think I’ve done an absolutely stellar job, thank you very much!

  “Oh? How so?”

  The sea-folk accept me as a god of fire, but also as a god of knowledge and growth. The under-mountain guys are slowly moving away from purely death-god feelings and into the idea of me watching them with a stern and commanding eye, prepared to snuff them if they don’t adhere to my idea of destiny. And humans—well, I’m doing what I can with humans, and being a father-figure who wants them to help them grow up—individually and as a race—is about the best I’ve managed.

  “It never came home to me how many different hats you wear, or how difficult it might be to reconcile being multiple deities squished into a single one.”

  You have no idea, he assured me. I’m still evolving, not only from a theological perspective, but personally. I’m… not who I was in the beginning. If you had remained up here and survived—a virtual impossibility, given the multiple conflicting inputs—you might have become the who I am now. We’re different people, but we’re like one person meeting his alternate-timeline self.

  “We’re a lot alike up until the divine ascension. Then we diverge.”

  Pretty much.

  “How bad is the polyphase deification input you mentioned?”

  The three main religious viewpoints are now no longer so… dissonant. Out of phase. They’re coming into closer synchronization and not giving me major headaches from the off-pitch, discordant energy frequencies. I’m three different notes, but I’m not yet a decent chord. Eru Ilúvatar would not be pleased with me. I’m working on it.

  “Their views of you are coming into closer alignment, so their choirs of faith are singing closer to on-key?”

  Not a bad analogy. I’m still working on their tuning and some of them have no idea what rhythm is.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it was a problem.”

  You drink blood, I drink faith. You eat souls, I eat worship. You don’t ask me to dump heretics and sinners in your dungeon—although it wouldn’t be a problem!—and I don’t ask you to avatar for me.

  “I do hate to avatar, but if you need me to…”

  I might take you up on it, but I know how much you hate it. I won’t ask unless it’s important.

  “Thank you.”

  What’s next for you?

  “More of the same, I think. Diogenes will look for signs of military preparations while I get ready to drop the Knights of Shadow into unexpected places.”

  I suspected something like that. I’ll tell you right now, the Shining One doesn’t seem worried.

  “I figure he’s done here. At least, I’m hoping so. I suspect he’s taking what he can get before the rest of you kick him out.”

  You think so?

  “It fits what I know, but I’m not observing him up there. He might intend to stay. If that’s the case, he’s ramping up to take all of you on and
own the world. He’s got fingers in other pies, though, so he might not care too much about this one.”

  I wish I knew. He hasn’t been talking to anyone on the ground. He doesn’t have anything like you and I do, and he doesn’t have anything like Sparky and the redheads, either. I’ve been listening and I don’t hear him exhorting the priesthood to greater histrionics.

  “Hold on,” I protested. “How is he giving orders, then?”

  For my second wish, I again wish I knew. Is it possible the Church of Light came up with all this on their own?

  “Humans inventing the idea of broiling people alive in the Crucible of the Sun for the greater glory of their god?”

  I’ll take that as a definite “Yes,” he decided.

  I wanted to tell him humans wouldn’t perform such atrocities on each other without divine—or infernal—guidance. Sadly, the words stuck in my throat and refused to emerge. Humans do get awfully creative when it comes to doing awful things.

  “All right,” I said, instead. “Got anything you need from me at the moment?”

  I don’t think so. Anything you need from me?

  “Peace of mind?”

  Fresh out.

  “Youthful optimism?”

  You’re too old.

  “Cake?”

  We’re all out of cake. How about death?

  “I’d rather have the chicken.”

  If you insist. Later, though. You’ve got a sunset coming up.

  “What are you, my mother?”

  No, I’m trying to help out with common sense and maybe a conscience. It’s a tough job, but somebody has to do it.

  “Thanks. I’ll hit the waterfall and start work on some portable barns.”

  Don’t forget to discuss the logistics with Seldar, Dantos, and Beltar. You might want to get Nothar in on this, too.

  “I have a better idea. I’ll tell all four of them to talk amongst themselves while I stay out of their way.”

  That might work better, yes.

  “Glad we’re in agreement. Ciao.”

  Fī amān Allāh.

  “You’re not as funny as you think you are.”

  Apocalyptica, Wednesday, November 5th, Year 11

  Over the next couple of days, Diogenes ran the scrying table like a virtual spy satellite network over the Kingdoms of Light. He didn’t find any suspicious activity, either, although a lack of suspicious activity was, in itself, still suspicious—as was I. Suspicious, that is.

  Church of Light troops continued to garrison strategic points in H’zhad’Eyn and to hunt down guerrilla fighters. Ynar and Praeteyn, on the other hand, didn’t seem to have much of a military presence. Aside from constant traffic through the temples, everything seemed pretty mundane. Diogenes did get accurate population counts, military deployment, road network, economic and climatic data, though. I don’t know if I’ll ever need or want to know the per-capita consumption of wheat in Salacia, but he knows.

  I, on the other hand, spent the time with a couple of electro-flex tents and a bunch of BNC wands. The tents were the usual type. They could either squeeze themselves down into compacted bundles or expand into stiffened structures. Compacted, they were about the size of a rectangular bale of hay, only with easy-carry straps. Expanded, they had a footprint large enough for a dozen horses, two doors, and a domed ceiling. Getting the things tuned to each other wasn’t too difficult, but I had serious questions about which shift-spell to use.

  A point-to-point spell takes a minimal amount of work. A universe-to-universe spell needs a whole lot more. Did I ever foresee a time when it might be good to have a set of portable shift-booths suitable for transporting a dozen big horses or fifty people? From Carrillon to Ynar, yes. From Carrillon to… Denver? Or Flintridge? Or Arcadia?

  Perhaps more important, if I build inter-universal troop transport tents, will I want to use them? By making the things, I’ll make them an option. I might think, “Well, I could just bring in a couple hundred armored knights and stomp the problem.”

  Something deep inside me resists this idea. I don’t know why, and I’m not going down there to look.

  I built them as point-to-point shift-booths.

  I finished my troop transport preparations and stretched. I try to do most of the energy-intense work at night. Some of the finalizing and fine-tuning happens afterward, so it was still early morning when I had Diogenes take away the last set. I headed for the dining room in the residence complex and scaled a mountain of waffles, struggling through deep drifts of scrambled eggs and a small avalanche of crumbled bacon.

  Mary was already there, skating pancakes through a plate of syrup and butter. It struck me as a good idea.

  Later, after the chomping and slurping died down to more dignified chewing, she cleared her throat. I forked some more eggs into my mouth and raised an eyebrow.

  “Go ahead and eat,” she told me. “I just want to talk at you for a bit. Okay?”

  I nodded in reply and continued to shovel.

  “I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said. The part about not wanting to disappoint people. It’s why you do what you do and why you’re afraid to do anything.”

  “Not anything,” I corrected, around a mouthful of French toast.

  “Eat and listen. The impression I got—and I’ll accept corrections after I’m done, so shut up and stay shut up—is you see yourself as a monster. As far as the universe is concerned, you’re a villain. A lesser evil, maybe, but still on the wrong side of the line. I can live with that, mostly because you don’t want to be a monster. In many ways, you remind me of Frankenstein. He was viewed as a monster, but he didn’t want to be one. He just wanted to be loved.”

  I held up a hand to stop her, finished chewing, and swallowed.

  “Frankenstein was the scientist. You’re thinking of Frankenstein’s monster.”

  “First,” she replied, ticking off points on her fingers, “any well-read individual knows Frankenstein wasn’t the monster. Second, a moral individual knows Frankenstein was the monster.”

  I had to think about that one for a moment, but Mary continued.

  “Also, I told you to shut up. I’m trying to work through some personal issues of my own, some of yours, and one of ours.”

  I hunched down in my chair and continued to eat. Mary exhaled, puffing out her cheeks, and settled back in her seat.

  “Now,” she said, more quietly, “I get that you’re a monster. Even to other vampires—any of the three tribes, anyway—you’re a terrifying thing. Your tongue, all by itself, is way too much like a tentacle for comfort. It would be unnerving even to me if I didn’t like it so much.”

  I choked on a bite of waffle and hurried to wash it down. Mary smiled.

  “But monsters qua monsters aren’t necessarily bad. Fred is a pretty decent monster. He misses you, by the way. We talk every so often before I go to sleep. I could cite others, but I trust I’ve made my point. ‘Monster’ doesn’t equal ‘evil.’ Having said that, I’m now going to stab you with a couple of points, so sit still and take them like a man.”

  This should be good, said my altar ego. I felt his attention on us.

  Yeah, what he said, Firebrand added.

  I felt myself hunching a little lower in the seat. The last thing I wanted was an audience for this.

  Don’t you two have other things you could be doing?

  I’m still watching for movement on the Boojum.

  I’m just leaning against the table. Don’t mind us.

  Yeah. We’re good.

  My next thought was rude, but I didn’t project it.

  “My first point,” Mary began, “is about being evil. While I admit there may be a ‘pure’ evil, anything less than evil for the sake of evil is relative. You’re not as evil as some humans, possibly most humans. Don’t we measure a monster by comparing it to ourselves? —don’t answer. It was rhetorical. My point is, you’re a better person than you think.

  “Second, and more important, is this thing y
ou have about cowardice and disappointment. You say you go into terrible situations for people because you aren’t brave. You’re too afraid of disappointing them to be a proper coward. But that’s not cowardice. That’s love.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You love people. Some people. Okay, a few people. You’ve demonstrated you’ll go into danger for me. You’ll do it for Amber, too, and you’ve done it. No doubt you will for Tianna and Tymara, as well. Bronze, obviously. Lissette. Torvil, Kammen, and Seldar. Maybe Dantos or Beltar. Maybe T’yl. I don’t know about Bob, but I doubt it. If any of the others was trapped at the bottom of a pool of water, you would go in after them despite your aversion to sinking. Not because you’re afraid to fail them, but because you’re afraid to lose them. You love them and you won’t allow them to be harmed when you can do something about it.”

  I thought about it for a while. She had a point. I don’t know about good and evil. I’m kind of stuck in the middle and can’t see either end from here. But love? Do I do that? Maybe? I guess I do. I don’t express it worth a damn, but it’s there.

  “You may be right,” I admitted, slowly.

  “You’re darn tootin’ I’m right.”

  “I’m more afraid of losing the people I love than I am of disappointing them.”

  Mary replied with a screaming groan of frustration.

  “That’s not what I meant and you know it!”

  “Yes, I do know it. I’m also horribly uncomfortable with this discussion and I’m trying to deflect. Is it working?”

  Mary’s expression abruptly shifted from frustrated to concerned.

  “You’re that bothered by this talk?”

  “Sweetheart, I will happily discuss ‘us,’ if that’s what you want to do. I’ll blather on about relationships and feelings or even whether you prefer a welt or a bruise. I’m reasonably comfortable with all that. This, however, feels… feels… feels as though I should be lying on a couch while someone with an Austrian accent asks about my mother. I don’t want to go through psychotherapy. I’m not offended, I’m only uncomfortable. Intensely uncomfortable,” I added.