by Marc Mulero
It choked him violently, dragging him this way and that like he was being jerked by a noose around his neck, leaving him to claw at his own throat to try and get it out. What a useless attempt. His eyes bulged red. Those seconds before the lights went out, that desperation, it reminded Mulderan of everything he’d been working to curtail: death itself.
Lines of age plagued Vistice’s face as his gifted Ayelan was ripped from his spine. Rol was not all accepting, it seemed. This was not the new host it sought.
Mulderan watched through hardened eyes, wondering whether the smoke would fulfill its claim and take his scientist’s life. “Stop,” he demanded.
And it did. Rol ceased the rush of crimson and calmly lifted the aged man back to his feet.
“I… I saw everything I needed to see. The smoke showed me all. It has such immaculate plans. Perfection through intelligence. It will further our cause,” Vistice’s shaky voice spoke before he coughed up a heap of blood. He clenched at his chest. The intensity was too much without Ayelan fueling his soul. “Carry us to greatness, my lord.”
He fell to the floor and his body slowly disintegrated from skin, to muscle, to bone, to dust.
Mulderan’s nostrils flared with fury. “How dare you take my assets away!” he shouted, having a mind to turn from the geyser and abandon this madness.
But Rol had already taken what it needed unbeknownst to him. It had enough to offer an alliance now, since its prior investment – Asura and Jason – had failed horribly.
Within thinner mists of haze, darker smoke formed to saunter toward him.
Mulderan didn’t flinch. A cheap rouse.
But then it fell into something twisted on all fours with an arched back. It was considering Mulderan… flirting with him, realizing that its losses had to be cut and a new reign had to be pursued. A new vessel, yes, one to carry on evolution.
There, this cat-like smoke demon was reforming into a more hardened woman, a soldier, stretching its arms to be bizarrely long enough to wrap his head and slip a coating of smoke over his eyes.
What he saw was a gateway into somewhere else, showing him the city that he’d built - Nepsys. Its golden spires and carved streets. His vision then zoomed out to an aerial view, where Rol teased the Grand City’s expansion over an enormous plain. A kingdom meant for this mutated New World.
Seven voices at once whispered into his ear, “Let in.”
Pins and needles pricked his skin in his first semblance of fright.
“Let… in,” the voices continued.
Still, Mulderan did not move.
Within Vistice, the smoke peeled through Hiezer history to find the needed link. In its best understanding of Mulderan’s lineage, a new voice rang through.
“This is the fate you seek. This is what all of your scars I’ve inflicted have led to.” The Ripper, his mother’s voice, was loud and clear.
The mold had shattered. Mulderan was undone. Fear had finally found its way to the Highest of Lords. Then curiosity, then acceptance.
“Drop the Geldhooks. Coordinates are my location. We’re tearing a piece of this land. Consider this the most sensitive payload we’ve ever transported.”
The hooks dropped and Mulderan defused his smoke repellent.
Part III
Ode to the Worthy
Chapter 18
The spiral of silence was unraveled. Deafening actions of the elite caved the pyramid of hierarchy, tearing down the barriers that once kept eyes blind. The masses who bought into the Hiezer regime had now slipped from their grasp. Quarantine could not hold. But was it ever meant to?
The Hiezers’ grand scheme to wait out the storm behind the Gates of Eternity spread like wildfire, leaving Sin and Rogue forces to conspire together. Dactuars bridged the top, the Sins joined those at the bottom, and the Rogues connected everyone in between. The world followed, banded and loud.
The golden city welcomed its leaders with gleaming spires. They’d returned with one man short in exchange for the upper hand in all that was to come.
Mulderan ordered for a contraption to be built in the hours it took to transport the Heart of Rol to Nepsys. No highlords or councilmembers were to know. Just scientists, builders, and the muscle required to hoist the bleeding geyser. To his approval, a floating bed that resembled a trampoline awaited the Geldhooked landmass to be dropped upon.
“Destroy or retain?” Eldra kept her voice low. “Asura and Jason will be at our doorstep either way.”
Mulderan glared at his wife, a hint of crimson caressing his pupils. “The Aura is no more.”
Eldra’s eye squinted. “What do you mean? How is that possible?”
“The substance speaks, and we would be wise to listen. Asura and Jason Brink fell to Blague’s commander. The one who took your eye. He escaped from Jason’s internal prison and assassinated them both. The vision was vivid and true. The threats against us diminish, Eldra.”
“A favorable visit then,” she smirked. “But we shouldn’t rush. You said yourself that our shipment extracted the Ayelan from Vistice and left him to die. It’s in our best interest to keep the smoke sealed until we can analyze its data. Unstable variables do not sit well with our strategy.”
“Agreed. We will store it deep underground beneath my quarters until further notice.”
The jet shuddered as the hooks unloaded a dense landmass onto a gold-rimmed disc – their new contraption. Steam hissed from it as the heart locked into place, and before the smoke could seep into the city, fans quickly drew it in to be recycled through its vents.
A black gridlock casing rotated out from the contraption’s base, building itself upward as a thin, malleable dome working to encase the mystery.
Once Mulderan appeared satisfied with lockdown, he proceeded to walk beside his wife, both of whom then led the quiet parade with the vaulted heart trailing slowly behind them.
The assembled team accompanied in silence, obviously curious, but no less obedient. What could possibly be in there? An alien rock, a god’s heart, what? But not a sound slipped out, just the clinks of moving armor rang on their march.
Each pair dropped off, two by two at their assigned checkpoints until finally, there was only the duo left to proceed down the regal road to Mulderan’s quarters.
The Heart of Rol floated smoothly into his residence, fitting through every secured gateway that he unlocked. This was familiar territory now for Eldra – down the spiral that led to Mulderan’s ultimate lair… that terrifying bridge built high over the earth’s core - the pit where she’d learned his darkest secret.
Enormity still wasn’t lost upon her though, for the drop was miles deep. Breathtaking. Dangerous.
His fingers danced to program the black egg to chain itself under the bridge and cease the use of its levitational power. Rol’s heart then hung within the deepest hole in human history, bound as a prisoner to the Hiezers, much like the rest of the world.
Mulderan turned to Eldra and said, “Soon the masses will march upon us. The ants will fry in protest, and Project Fatum will finally be complete. Our search for Ayelan will become the key once more. Legacy will no longer include fear of life’s brevity… it will be about honoring accomplishments. Betterment. Worthiness.”
Eldra gleamed with eagerness while speaking to her husband. “All nuclear arsenals are buried deep, our anti-air preparations are ironclad, and our walls are impenetrable. This will be the largest and swiftest war in history.”
“It is a cleansing, Eldra. Not a war.”
“Surely, a fine line. They have no means to combat the Hiezers, but we mustn’t underestimate them. Preparations should be monitored to ensure victory. It is necessary, Mulderan. You showed me that. The only future is through extended life. The only way to achieve true development is through elite inhabitants. There’s no more room for wasted management of the weak. Focus must be true.”
“For we must build anew,” Mulderan finished. The infamous words of the Ripper, a dangerous, aggressive, sel
f-motivated militant, engrossed only on driving chaos theory forward. Those simple words she whispered before fanning the skin off of her prey, teaching her subjects new meanings of life through torture. It resonated now, at the brink of real change.
Eldra nodded plainly, thinking back to the time she’d first heard those words from her husband’s mouth. When he revealed to her the truth of how the world had been torn apart. “Those wise enough to submit will survive. Those senseless enough to march will be erased.”
“Rest,” Mulderan allowed. “Tomorrow will be the start of a new era.”
She headed back out of Mulderan’s quarters while he retreated to his private suite atop the high spire.
There he was free to place his armor onto the marble claws yearning to hold it. Click. Then his pauldrons locked perfectly into the holsters. Lastly, porcelain fingers unfastened the intricate breastplate of black and gold before resting it on a brilliant crest. Satisfaction in neatness: a perfect fold of his cloak once in half, and again to square it off, as preferred, to let it hang just enough over the ledge.
When his routine was done, a vertical contraption with a cutout molded for his body awaited him. He stretched back into it, as this was the closest thing to comfort that he would allow himself. The Highest Lord pressed his palms into its armrests to recline the table backward to lay on an angle, allowing him to face the ceiling.
Mulderan stared intently upward, where layers of clear film held a body in place. Its limbs were extended outward with thin lines of muscle stringing all of the pieces together. The preserved corpse was old, evidenced by the murky colors surrounding the coating.
“You have always been my most prized trophy. You represent everything that I’ve grown to be, and everything that I will continue to do. You showed me mercy as a child, mother, but letting me live through your torture… you should have known how that would end. Perhaps you should have been more prepared when I turned your machines unto you.”
The Highest Lord closed his eyes and took in a long breath. “But alas, that is the whole point of this passing of generations. You got what you wanted. I have become something greater than you. Far greater. So for that achievement, I must hold you in high esteem.”
He was silent for a long period, staring up into his mother’s lifeless blue pearls. Even in death, her face was haunting. Her features were frozen with her life’s work. She peered downward with an expression that was earned over a life of inflicting pain. The Ripper was the beast that started all of this, propelling two boys into motion like tops spun in opposite directions.
“I heard your voice again on those isles, in the smoke. Mother, I could have sworn it was you.
“I tried so hard back then… you know I did. Don’t look at me like that. I’ve told you a thousand times, you sick bitch, but judging by your expression, it seems you must hear it again.
“I went to work all of those years ago. I plucked the most experienced Ayelan chemists, the most gifted extractors, and I put them to work on you. I told them that failure was not an option. I’ve executed countless families in your honor, to have you. It was your DNA that I longed for,” he scoffed. “Not hers. You should be the one giving my body strength, not this inferior specimen.”
He touched his smooth face with disgust. “Elaina’s bloodline was ripe for extraction. What choice did I have at that point? Hmph. Blague never did understand why I separated him from her for those months. His daughter would be a woman grown by now. It’s a shame, really. None of us get exactly what we want.”
Mulderan laughed long and loudly, confined in his quarters where no one would dare to listen even if they could. “You were the one who taught me - it wasn’t our blood that made us strong. Not our birthright, nor our ancestor’s accomplishments. How right you were, mother. It was the conditioning that we endured that brought us to our feats. Methods, practice, that’s what makes us great. That’s what makes the Hiezers unmatchable. My own creation not of blood, but of talent and fortitude. We will rule this New World as we should. We are the fittest, and your dead eyes will watch my reign.”
Blague awoke sprawled out and elevated in the Nostrum Chamber, mind rushing to recover the events that had unfolded. His body was held in a similar capsule to that of his father’s in the Citadel.
“No!” he yelled, disturbing the serene room. He shouted through tears for his father and his friend.
Aslock was shirtless standing below him, scars and bruises decorating his Cryos tracks.
The armguards sprung open to release Blague’s extremities. His hands fell with deadweight into the healing liquid, splashing as he reached for the ledge to hold himself up. Sallow skin covered the Sin Leader and his muscles were weak with atrophy.
“My father… Eu…” he whispered before lifting his head in grief. “How are we still here, Aslock? We should be dead.”
The contraption lowered him to ground level.
“I am sorry, Blague. The loss was great, but the battle is won. Our desperate attempt worked.” Aslock was ridden with remorse.
“I watched you fall…”
“Yes, I should have passed on below the isles, but life clung to me in the raging currents. Apparently Rol doesn’t like to be dispersed in running water. Harder to reform, I gather. It let me be to die in peace, but Soros had a different mind. He used his gifts to lift my drowning body. I guess neither of us are yet done here.”
Although Blague was relieved to see his friend alive, he felt no comfort from his words, only despair as he listened on.
“I awoke at the foot of the isles and climbed my way back up somehow. The remaining Neraphis rallied around me, shielding against persisting Aura forces. We recovered you and descended to our bird. The suffering is not just yours, though. We lost many warriors. Yet we survived, and the Hydra’s heads are severed. The Aura is stranded and lost.”
“Asura’s energy was that of the sun. I should be ashes.” Blague shook his head in disbelief. “What happens now? Rol has no host, no guardian.”
The Elder took a step closer to reveal more grim details. “It seems your brother has removed Rol’s heart and dragged it with him to the confinements of Nepsys.”
Blague’s mouth parted in horror. “The one thing I came to stop…” His mind faded in and out, jumping to gather information. “How long have I been comatose?”
“Weeks. And still you have another to go.”
Blague rustled to free himself from the pool, but Aslock extended a stiff arm to push him back down by his shoulder. “Another to go, adept.”
The Elder turned and staggered back toward his own chamber of healing. “Rest now, for your war is far from over.”
Volaina rose to a new day with routine forming in her joints. “Ah,” she sighed, her mind easing into regiment, knowing exactly what to do out of habit. It was good that she was already out of bed, dressing, moving around as efficiently as possible to get out and get moving. The same as the day prior, and the one before that. Finally… the trauma. It was waning, withering into something she could truly back away from.
This was a reboot, another chance at life. No smiles yet, but her eyes were open. And that was a start.
Purpose, she thought, making her way down to the main hall as she’d been doing for months. They don’t judge you like you judge yourself. Meet their eyes.
And so she did, nodding to those who continuously praised her. Meekly, sure, she wanted nothing more than to avert her gaze away, but she didn’t. Progress.
Mend your wounds.
There, lying against Cherris’ wagon stood comfort in the form of her broom and mud bucket. Her expression softened at the familiar sight, something to hide behind. A job with less responsibility, less punishment. But there was still one task she had to do before beginning her day.
A pale set of arms wrapped around the praying matriarch. Cherris was shocked for a moment, holding her breath, but she dared not to let it show. “Volaina…” The hug was quick, and when she broke away, the matriarch
’s face was already brightened. A small “thank you” for saving her life, Cherris knew. That’s exactly how the former spy viewed her new duty.
Volaina then grabbed her supplies and made her way out back, Cherris’ gaze lingering along the way. She was happy to see the former spy come into her own. Her hair began to grow out, even offering a shimmer in the right light. The defined jaw that once made her a distinct soldier now gave her a natural exquisiteness. This is what civilian life could be. Less about death and more for other contributions. She was a delicate citizen without muscle tone, a far more approachable thing. A new birth.
Now outside, it was strange to hear conversations from soldiers around her. Volaina didn’t quite know how to feel about them, about the uprising just passing her by. She couldn’t engage in those discussions anymore. The fight just wasn’t in her anymore… that much she knew. No matter how many times her spies begged, she just couldn’t.
Forget it, she told herself. Do your duty.
To face the gentle breeze of Senation alone evoked a sigh of relief, every time. Thin arms slopped her mop down on the new outdoor extension. Her eyes smiled for but a moment at the image beside her. Drino laid flat on his back working away at a machine overhead. He cursed and spat as he toiled, twisting wrenches and testing the weaponry’s sturdiness with his fist.
“I never took you for a mechanic,” Volaina said.
Drino shimmied out from his workstation and pushed himself upright. He grimaced at the sight of the frail commander, while wiping grease from his hands. “I’m no mechanic, but I’ve spent enough time around them back when I was a Hiezer general. These things saved our bases more times than I can count.” He kicked the contraption. “They detect aerial movement on anything larger than a hawk. The Aura won’t be rushing into us again without a welcome committee. Not on my watch.”