“Here!” The dragon’s rumble came moments before it dropped fast towards a rocky area halfway down up snowy peak. Isavel saw something down there, a door leading into the mountain. She knew that was where she would find the shrine - and more besides.
Whatever this strange gift was, though, it felt weak and incomplete. That wouldn’t do. She would need all the strength she could get, and it seemed the gods were providing her with a perfect opportunity. It would be rude to decline.
“May we never meet again, Witch.” The dragon set down. Isavel jumped forward, hauling herself past its head, hexagonal white shield already blooming on her forearm. The dragon looked poised to pounce on her, but she would have none of that, and in a brief moment the creature’s eerily human eyes were filled with fear.
She unleashed the shield, impossibly thin and strong and sharp, directly at the dragon’s face. It cut through like a razor, splitting the neck halfway open down to the shoulders and severing most of a wing with a crunchy splatter of blood before passing back into the air behind the body and disintegrating into tiny shards of light.
Isavel wasted no time. She rushed forwards towards the dragon, thrusting her own wounded arms into its gaping, bleeding corpse. The contact burned. She let the still-oozing blood pool in her hands and brought it to her mouth to drink, the bitter, spicy taste reminding her only a little too much of the blood she had vomited out all those months ago, after her rebirth.
Power. Power came from blood, and blood came from the heart. It only made sense. She called up hooked, claw-like daggers of hard white light in her hands and tore into the dragon’s warm body, cracking through the ribcage and pulling out the heart. She bit into it, tore at it with her teeth, chewing and swallowing the tough muscle as it gushed blood into her mouth.
Before she realized it, the dragon’s heart was gone.
Gods.
How could she be doing this? How could she ever explain this?
But the promise of power was too great, and clearly the gods had given her this opportunity on purpose. The gods provided in challenging ways, and she was strong. She couldn’t refuse.
She staggered back, her throat convulsing at unwanted blood and raw meat, but she kept it down. She fell to her knees, closed her eyes, turned her face to the sky, and swallowed at nothing, forcing it to stay down. Deep breaths. Deep breaths. Something hot and smoky and angry curled under her skin, under all the nearly-boiling blood.
She reached to her arms and her legs and started yanking out the pine needles and bark scraps lodged in her flesh. She found where her limbs and ribs had been scraped open - blessedly shallow wounds, all things considered - and tore the loose skin off, feeling only a slight pinch.
Her wounds, her bruises, everything would heal. It was already healing.
Something floated in her chest, near her heart, a strange sensation of lightness. Like she was hollow. She hauled herself to her feet, without the need for her arms or jumping at all - she simply stood up, more easily than ever. And there was… steam, all around her. She finally looked down at herself, only to find her entire body covered in blood hot enough to steam in the cold mountain air.
It was appalling. She couldn’t be seen like this.
Her powers were gods-given, but their nature was nightmarish. She suddenly didn’t want anyone to know, and in a panic she dashed towards the snow, throwing herself into it. It dug into raw flesh and bruises and cuts with a nasty chill, but she grabbed at it, crushing it flat in her hands and smearing it all over herself, scrubbing off the blood.
She was not a monster. She shouldn’t look like one.
She scrubbed the snow over her face, through her hair, all over herself, trying to get it off. Each time she wiped clean a wound, she found that it had stopped bleeding already - courtesy of the warrior’s gift, no doubt. She could see the heat in her own body and the quick cooling of the dragon’s blood, by some strange machination of the hunter’s gift that she could barely articulate. She heard nothing at all, not the sounds of war nor the beating of wings, nor even the trickling of blood; for all her pathfinder’s senses, she heard nothing but the sounds of snow against blood-slicked skin.
She looked back at the dead dragon - her second dead dragon today, she realized hazily - and felt a rage building in her throat. It felt… not unlike her other gifts. She let it build and, with a shout, let it snap. A golden-red fireball of light burst from her jaws and struck the steaming corpse.
Dragonfire.
Isavel had the dragon’s gift.
A lightness in her chest and her shoulders was pulling her skyward. She hugged herself, running her hands along her back, checking for wings - but she had not grown any. So what was that?
She stood up again. Standing up had never been easier in her life. She looked around herself, and felt that lightness like a gift as well, one she could… she squeezed at it, and it felt like it was almost gone. Then she pulled at it, and it expanded as far as it would go, until she suddenly felt dizzy, like she were barely holding onto the Earth.
She turned to run towards the door, and with her first great step she flung herself off the ground, misjudging her stride and landing face-first in a snow bank.
She flopped over on her back, breathing heavily, staring at the sky.
“What am I?”
The gods didn’t answer, sitting on high on their ring, that grand silvery arc that stretched from one horizon to the other. She could see more of the ring from this mountaintop than she ever had before.
“What have you made me?”
Nothing. She kept breathing heavily, trying to fathom what it all meant.
“Is that my true gift, then? To steal the gifts of others?”
Still no response. The gods had decided she didn’t need talking to.
Her eyes drifted around in shock for a few moments as she slowly pulled herself back up. No. It didn’t matter what her own nature was, right now. What mattered was that she, Saint Isavel Valdéz, Herald of the Gods and many other titles besides, stand up and do her duty.
She stood up. She felt around, let that emptiness in her chest contract, felt the weight of the world returning to her. The lightness was just another muscle, just another part of the dragon’s gift. She looked over at the door to the shrine below.
Her duty. The gods had told her to protect the people of Glass Peaks, and so she had done. She had beaten off the ghosts, had led her people into an alliance with the fighters of Hive, had chased the ghosts to this very mountain in the hopes of stopping them. She would descend into that ancient ruin and destroy their shrine, and with that, the people of Glass Peaks would be safe. And then she would be free, wouldn’t she?
Wouldn’t she?
She didn’t like the doubts scurrying around her mind, from shadow to shadow, but each time she tried to pin one down and crush it, more ran to and fro like roaches. What if this wasn’t the end of the ghosts? What if there was a different threat? What if the gods’ plan for her was to die as a martyr?
She should be happy to martyr herself for her gods. None before, not in legend or myth, had been granted so many gifts and such direct guidance by them. She would be remembered forever.
But she had seen the world beyond death, and despite Venshi’s promise that the true afterlife was not so dire, Isavel was not convinced. Not now, not anymore. She didn’t want to die.
She looked down the mountainside, to the shorter, wooded mountains. She could leave, she could flee the ghosts and the war, and let the gods sort it out. If she didn’t, another of their servants surely would. They were the great overseers of life and history on Earth, after all. There was no escaping their power.
She looked back at the ruins. She could also venture inside and do what needed to be done, with only uncertainty to give her hope. And if she went inside… well, she knew who she would have to face down there.
Chapter 16
Ada Liu laughed as the truth of Elysium’s corruption lay bare before her. It was ridiculous an
d shameful in equal measures. It was a complete disgrace. Even Cherry agreed that it could only be the result of “ignorance or gross negligence.”
It was simple, really - her studious, pious ancestors had missed or misplaced a few strokes of code here or there. They were in no position to understand why any of those missing strokes mattered, being trapped in their ways and no doubt following some questionable old scribbles as a guide. Ada had spotted two herself, three more she had puzzled out with Cherry’s help after the ship’s return, and another six Cherry found independently, looking for repeated mistakes of the same kind. Each was laughably easy to correct.
Ada had been here for what felt like but was not a week, poking and prying with her ship patrolling the outside of the mountain, but it had been a long time - hours, or days? - since she had discovered anything new. So here she stood - finished. Done. Laughing.
Cherry decided this could be an educational moment. The ancients would have referred to these issues as “bugs.”
“Bugs?” Ada snorted. “This was a catastrophe. Did they have bigger, nastier bugs back then?”
A group of blood-sucking insect species collectively called mosquitoes were the deadliest animals in the world to humankind for much of history, and were at times responsible for millions of human deaths each year. They were effectively eradicated in the year 2042, saving countless lives.
Ada gaped. That sounded horrible. “Holy shit. Maybe bugs was the right word, then. Those things must have been huge.”
They were not.
Ada shook her head, trying to rid herself of the idea of blood-sucking insects biting into people’s necks and sucking them dry. It was an unpleasant thought.
She found her way to the main console, glancing across the rows of ancient symbols. She was starting to understand what it all meant, now. It was time to try this out for real, to recreate Elysium the way it was meant to be.
“Maintenance.” She read the word aloud, without even touching the console, though that would have worked as well. “Re-install.” Installing was apparently the word for whatever process had first hooked up Elysium to the gods on the ring, allowing them to create the afterlife.
The machine’s voice droned in response. “During re-installation, the simulation will be unavailable. Data will be restored upon successful re-installation. Do you wish to continue?”
Ada furrowed her brow, felt her mouth around the awkward ancient words. “The simulation will be unavailable?”
“Yes.”
“What if people die during that time?”
“I do not understand the query.”
Cherry’s voice piped up in her ears. Deaths while the simulation is offline will likely not be uploaded.
Ada took a sharp breath as dread washed over her, setting her hands trembling. No afterlife for anyone who died during the process. “How long will the installation take?”
“Estimated duration of the installation: twenty-seven minutes and thirty-eight seconds.”
“How many people will die at that time?”
Cherry was quick to reply. Given the latest population data maintained by the Kronos Project and a current estimated average annual mortality rate of 5.7 per thousand, I anticipate an average of 26 deaths during that timeframe.
“Average?” Ada repeated aloud. “There are thousands of people outside of this mountain trying to murder each other right now , all at once.”
Even statistically correct averages may poorly represent specific contexts.
“Gods. Okay, well - I don’t have a choice, do I? Yes, I wish to continue.”
Luckily, the console seemed to have no difficulty knowing when it was being spoken to. “Installing. Please note that the procedure will take approximately twenty-eight minutes to install.”
“What? You said - oh, fuck it.”
“Please allow thirty minutes for the installation process to complete.”
Ada threw up her hands and walked away; whatever amount of time it took, she had done all she could. People would die and disappear forever, and she could only hope there were as few of them as possible. And that she was not among them. Who would be dying right now, falling into the darkness instead of the afterlife? How many people was she destroying?
She shook her head and walked away. She had more immediate concerns. She couldn’t let that quiet horror drag her down, not until she was finished. And she was never finished. She had to keep going.
The crystal in the centre of the chamber suddenly became much more active, and she stopped to stare. The lights and patterns that had been lazily humming around its surface up until now were suddenly in a state of frenzy, multiplying and pouring light into the crystal and sending thin beams of energy pulsing into a great tear-drop-shaped shell of floating code all around the crystal. The pointed top of the code, impossibly written into the air, was pulsing like a lighthouse. Code written in the air - what an interesting idea. Could she do that, too? She’d have to try.
She stepped out of the chamber and looked around, knowing what her next step would be. This crystal wasn’t safe. Even if the installation went well, anybody could come destroy it - and life after death, one of the greatest human achievements in history, would be lost forever. Ada needed to put it somewhere they couldn’t reach it - somewhere no ignorant human could.
The bottom of the ocean had occurred to her, but she knew tales of the swimmers, gifted people who could breathe underwater, and she didn’t doubt that there were those amongst them who were too curious to be trusted with something as precious as the beating heart of Elysium. The alternative was a bit less risky - the ring. There were drifters, to be sure, which meant that Elysium would need to be guarded. Luckily, Ada already knew one thing drifters couldn’t best in a fight.
Cherry, how are things outside?
There is a great deal of fighting down by the lake. It appears that the ghosts are ceding ground. At this rate, the opposing side will be here by the end of the day. Shall I intervene?
Ada thought of the people she knew were down there. “No. Cherry, I’m going to need to send you on a mission.”
Yes, Ada.
Ada took a deep breath. “I’m going to send the crystal up into space. To the ring. And I’m going to need you to weld it into place there, in the safest spot you can find, and guard it against anybody and anything - golems, drifters, space rocks, I don’t care. Can you do that?”
I can. This is not a mission with a clearly designated end point.
“No. It will be… indefinite. Once I free the crystal -”
Cherry interrupted her. I am unable to carry the entire crystal chamber to the ring safely . I do not have an external cargo carrying capacity.
“You… great.”
She had stopped, two bloodied knives at her feet again, sitting close to the machine. The scene from earlier, the boy dying and her confronting the technophage in all its tiny horror, flashed before her eyes. She felt a physical pain as it did, winced, and kicked the machine out of the way.
Your neural activity just spiked. Are you alright?
“What does that - I’m fine. I just… How am I supposed to make this thing float up into the sky? I can’t just -”
Trying to escape the image of the dying child in her head, her mind stumbled into some other memories instead, beads of blood suspended in mid-air. A light suddenly went off in Ada’s head. She could just make things float. She had done it before.
“Oh, gods. That’s going to be a really big sigil.”
What are you planning?
“Remember the sigil I used in the Mayor’s tower, to go up the elevator shaft? Can I make a really, really big one to float the crystal room into space?”
You could. It would require a great deal of energy - far more than you are able to provide, or indeed than there is available in this facility. Vertical thrust ascent is expensive.
“Where can I get more energy?”
All matter can be converted into energy.
Ada b
linked. “What.”
All matter can be converted into energy. This includes rock.
Ada looked around the room. “Wait, we’re in a mountain. Are you saying I should turn the mountain into energy to do this?”
It is the most readily available and powerful source.
“Well, okay. How do I turn rocks into energy?”
There is a sigil that will obliterate solid matter and convert it into energy.
“Of course there is. There’s a sigil for everything, isn’t there?”
No. For example, despite over forty years’ research into the subject, code has proved unable to completely prevent fabric stains. Active cleaning solutions remain necessary.
“Forty years? You know - fine. Just let me figure out how to use this. I’m going to need to get the levitation sigil underneath the room. And… I’m going to need to reinforce the room itself, too.”
Ada smiled. That was something she knew how to do - reinforcement sigils were fairly elementary, even if the coders of the Institute didn’t truly know how to make the most effective use of them. With a spring in her step and a curl on her lip, she returned to the crystal room, where the holographic storage crystal that was Elysium continued to hum and pulse with frantic light and energy.
Of course, she couldn’t reinforce the room from the inside, could she? The walls here were already covered in glowing etchings, and she didn’t yet know the trick used on her gun to add multiple layers to the code. She had to reinforce it from the outside, somehow.
“This room isn’t directly in the rock, is it?”
No. If you break through the walls outside the doorway, you will find that it is a modular cylinder rested in a much larger room containing ventilation and plumbing systems.
“Containing what?”
Water and air machines.
“Oh good. The crystal won’t be needing those where I’m sending it.”
She went back to the doorway again and set up a quick disintegration sigil on the wall, and it crumbled as she pushed through. The area behind it was dark, so she reached out and traced a quick light sigil onto the wall - one of the simplest of all the sigils, though etched in dark code it was a bit more complex looking, a flower of light blooming from a dark bramble of code.
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