And if it was dividing them...
She’s amusing, I’ll give her that much, the creature said. I can smell the worry on you. What is she to you? A lover? It snarled, licking its yellow teeth. Hoping to restart your dying race so soon?
Down the street, Reysha’s breath steamed in the air; she was practically hyperventilating. Her movements were beginning to slow. Sweat ran down her face as though the rain had never stopped. If Sage didn’t make his move soon, the creature would have its way, and he couldn’t let that happen.
Between us, the creature said. I think she’s going to die. And the funny thing is, neither of you will see it coming.
Sage slashed through the creature in front of him, meeting nothing but air.
As he’d suspected. Its real location could be anywhere.
He gathered his Sulen and sprinted toward Reysha, keeping his guard up all the while. The creature, or the illusion, did not move.
Reysha was shouting at it.
Every time her attacks hit air, she grew angrier.
You’re going to lose her, he thought. And that too will be your fault.
He took this as a sign and leapt the rest of the distance, tackling Reysha to the ground. He saw something rupture and explode against his barrier. His teeth rattled, and it took almost all of his will to keep it from shattering his barrier.
Smoke clouded around them. He kept his barrier up and looked into Reysha’s eyes.
Her brow was furrowed. “It’s toying with us!”
“It’s trying to keep us divided,” Sage said, clutching Suleniar’s hilt with a death grip.
“Yeah.” She struggled to catch her breath. “How the hell do we fight this thing? It’s nothing like fighting Byshun.”
“I’m thinking.”
How touching this is, the creature said. Two lovers, ready to meet oblivion together. You might have stopped my attack this time, but the next one will end you.
Sage and Reysha rose to their feet.
It must be burning up quite a bit of your energy to keep that barrier up, boy.
“Come here and find out,” Sage said.
Tell me, how old are you two? I’d guess maybe sixteen, twenty-two processions. Probably weren’t even Valier, if Sulekiel tradition is still to coddle the young well until they stop growing.
“How does it know so much about our traditions?” Reysha whispered.
My point is. You can’t hold out for much longer.
I can feel you slipping.
The smoke cleared, and now the street was filled with illusions of the creature, thousands of them.
“Do you trust me?” Sage asked.
Reysha nodded. “Of course.”
“Do you have any strength left?”
She nodded. “Why?”
“He’s right, I can’t keep this up forever.”
He admits his weakness, the creature said. I thought Sulekiel females only chose the strongest of mates?
“Be ready,” Sage said, glancing behind himself, hoping she would understand his meaning.
He closed his eyes and focused on creating a weak point in the dome of his barrier, directly behind himself.
A direct hit would shatter his barrier for sure, but he had to hope that Reysha would be able to counterattack before it was too late.
Moments turned to minutes, and he wondered if the creature had called his bluff.
“What exactly am I waiting for?” Reysha said.
“Just, be—”
Then it happened. It exploded against his barrier, shattering it instantly and filling his lungs with fire. His hands slammed into the dirt, and he heard screaming and snarling.
Bells tolled in his ears.
But he was alive.
The smoke cleared and he rose to his feet and turned around. Reysha had the creature in a chokehold, her legs wrapped around its torso and arms. She was trying to snap its neck.
“What are you waiting for?” Sage said. “Kill it!”
“I’m trying, damn it! It’s too strong!”
This is really a shame, the creature said. Tactically bested by a couple of children.
It started to laugh.
Sage walked forward and raised his sword up above his head. “Reysha, move. I’m going to cut its head off.”
Oh, please do, this drone’s head is too heavy as it is!
“Drone?” Sage said, stopping in his tracks.
All Shar are drones, you fool. We are a single consciousness, a single mind spread over a vast ocean. We are the army of Malo’thul’s Seed.
“What the hell do we care if you’re all the same?” Reysha said. “Sage, kill it!”
Oh, but don’t you want to know the truth, Sage? Don’t you want to know who created you? I’ll give you this gift before I kill you. This gift that will change your view of your pathetic existence and allow you to accept your fate!
“You’re stalling.” Sage held the blade to its bare chest, drawing an oozing black substance from within its body. “And Reysha’s right. Drone or not, a piece of you will still be dead.”
Afraid not. The creature was laughing again, its glowing iris darting this way and that. Its laughter seemed to be coming from every direction and had a gurgling, guttural sound to it. You’ve been so focused on killing me, that you failed to see the townspeople!
Sage and Reysha looked around. The townspeople had stumbled out of their hiding places. There were about twenty of them. But there was something strange about the way they moved. A cloudiness to their eyes, a sluggishness to their movements.
“What is this?” Sage said.
We are not the only creations of great Malo’thul, Sage of Yce Ralakar. The Masku were dragged here shortly after Malo’thul pierced the veil of the old universe to form a new world. It reached back across the void but once more to find subjects to occupy its time before it took to its eons-long slumber.
The Masku were first.
They were weak and primitive, the accidental creations of some other beings. Some of them did not take to the melding to Malo’thul’s essence; but those that did, Malo’thul named Sulekiel, and set them out upon this world to populate and serve its interests.
“We were not created by that thing!” Reysha said, tightening her grip around the creature’s neck.
But the Masku persisted, blind and stupid in this strange new world. Malo’thul was uninterested in squashing ants such as these, so it forgot about them. They built small societies that worshiped it as a god, though this did not endear them to great Malo’thul. But, when you rebelled, and Malo’thul created we Shar from the purity of its essence, the Masku pleaded—begged—to help destroy the blasphemers. Their plea was ignored, largely. The Masku are too weak, even for rats like you.
“If we’re such rats, why did we beat you?” Reysha spat on the thing’s scaly head.
That cloudy quality in the surrounding Masku’s eyes turned into a faint yellow glow.
Sage’s skin felt as though thousands of worms were crawling over it.
But the experiments had not completely failed, we soon discovered. Malo’thul’s essence slumbered deep in each Masku. Waiting for the spark to ignite it.
The creature said something that not even Sage could understand, something that filled him with a momentary sense of dread.
A vision flashed before his mind, of a being, a thing shaped like some kind of bloated worm. Its body was marked with millions of blackened, oozing holes, and from some of them tendrils shot off in the dark like the roots of some ageless, daemonic tree. Several mouths opened on its body, revealing globules which he thought were eyes. The eyes glowed with a violet energy which illuminated the depths beneath the remains of a necropolis made from pale black-and-green stone older than the universe they now inhabited.
The Masku fell forward on their hands and knees. Their skin bubbled and boiled, their teeth quivered and grew into sharpened spikes.
The Worm is strong in all of them!
Sage’s eyes focused
on a small girl at the back of the pack. The girl’s skin transformed into a pale brown substance that oozed and dripped across jagged teeth.
Thank you for exhausting yourselves! They’ll be able to kill you much easier now!
The Shar tossed its head back at the sky and its laughter echoed through the town. Reysha kept the creature in her stranglehold, but seemed completely unable to finish the job.
“I’m gonna cut out its heart!” Sage shouted, twisting around and reaching back with his blade.
I think not!
A domed barrier came to surround Reysha and the Shar, blocking his attempts to stab it.
You’ve got problems of your own, boy, it said. Take a look for yourself!
Sage turned around.
The creatures, half-Masku, half—worm or Shar or Malo’thul or whatever—started to creep, to crawl, and to lumber toward them.
“What the hell are we supposed to do?” Reysha asked.
One of the things leapt at Sage. He decapitated it with his sword. The head rolled across the dirt path, stopping at his feet. There was dust in its oozing brown skin. The body was twitching too.
Is it dead? the Shar said. I wonder...
White light exploded into his eyes, and he felt his body get tossed through the air. He tumbled into a crouch. He couldn’t see now. Patting the ground for his sword and finding the hilt, he cursed, gripping at the hilt and struggling to his feet. Feet and hands clawing into dirt, footsteps that sounded more animal than anything else filled his ears. They were rushing him. He had enough energy for one more attack.
Sage reared back and formed a weak barrier around himself.
Hiding won’t help you, fool! You’re going to die here now!
He could feel them clawing and smashing against his barrier with otherworldly strength. The fire came from within; he gathered it and let it coat the exterior of his barrier.
I don’t think so!
He heard Reysha scream. His vision cleared in time for him to see her hit the mud. The creatures rushed him, and the Shar vanished as if he’d just turned into mist.
No choice. He continued gathering energy and coating his barrier. Then, something slammed into his barrier, and everything shattered.
He felt his body smash against something hard. When he opened his eyes, a creature was lumbering toward him. His sword was still tightly gripped in his hands, so he thrust it through its chest.
See what friendship is worth, Sage of Yce Ralakar?
Sage opened his eyes, and now, he saw Tanar’s face staring back at him.
You killed him! The poor child might have lived a full life if you hadn’t showed up and filled his head with lies!
Now he felt claws digging into his arms, and something kicked at his wrist, knocking Suleniar from his grasp. They were all around him, and the Shar was pacing above him, watching as the creatures grabbed and pinned him to the ground.
He felt them biting into his skin.
His eyes scanned for Reysha. She was on her back, her eyes closed.
Don’t worry, rat. She’s not dead yet. I’m going to let the husks eat her after they consume you.
Sage closed his eyes. Needles spread over his arms and legs where the husks were gnawing at his skin. He felt the Shar gathering its strength.
He reached for his own, reached deep within himself, desperately searching for the strength that had allowed him to briefly overcome the abaniel shackles. It was there. He could feel it.
He could feel a pressure growing behind his eyes, as if something was reaching back out at him, clawing its way to the surface. The pressure felt like a dam made up entirely of his own willpower, ready to burst.
“Sage,” Tanar’s voice called out to him.
He opened his eyes and saw the boy standing before him, his facing melting in the dirt, his hands desperately trying to put back the contents of his chest, spilled by Suleniar’s blade.
“How could you?” Tanar asked. “I thought we were friends—”
Then something stabbed into Sage’s shoulder, and he screamed. The Shar was holding Suleniar now, pushing the blade deeper and deeper.
Using my own damned sword against me, he thought.
He could taste blood in his mouth; he gritted his teeth.
The dam was cracking. Something was pounding, slamming at it. Fire spread between his temples, and he barely noticed that the creatures were still gnawing at his limbs.
I think it’s time to die, Sage of Yce Ralakar.
The Shar yanked the sword from his shoulder and raised it above its head.
The dam within shattered.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
THE SHAR
The Shar commanded, and the drone obeyed, swinging down at Sage of Yce Ralakar’s head with his own sword.
At the last moment the blade clashed against a crimson barrier, ripples dancing on the surface like ocean waves. The drone backed away. The Shar was confused. A moment ago the boy had not had the strength to move, let alone erect another barrier.
A force like a tsunami sent the husks skidding across the ground. The drone’s feeble legs buckled beneath it. The Shar struggled to maintain its hold, stifling the animal’s raw fear and desire to flee into the woods. The boy rose up from where he sat, his eyes pulsing with an otherworldly red light, deep crimson flames licking and slashing at the wind, healing the wound in his shoulder. The building behind him caught fire, and in that gale of wind, it was quickly engulfed.
Why so surprised, spawn of Malo’thul? A strange voice assaulted the Shar’s hold on the drone, like a powerful river current eroding a stone.
What are you? the Shar asked.
You will tell Malo’Thul that Oreseth is coming, yes?
The husks picked themselves up and rushed at the boy who was not a boy at all, their bodies glowing with white hot-light.
The explosions from their sacrifices sent the drone sprawling backward. But the Shar could not feel a presence any longer. There was no way that could have been Oreseth.
Then the drone’s legs gave out. The pain was like a white-hot blade tearing through its spine. A hand ripped through its metallic ribcage and squeezed at the blackened heart that dripped with its own oily blood.
Goodbye, spawn of Malo’thul.
The hand clamped down on the drone’s heart, squishing it into an oily black mess.
The Shar reached out for the drone that the townspeople had called Greok, but found nothing.
It was like being alone in the center of a vast ocean. In that momentary contact with that...THING...the Shar felt its connection to the rest of its vast number of forces sever.
When the connection was re-established, the Shar desperately reached out.
Norady and Auren were lecturing a drone deep within the city of Elokor.
Why does it stare blankly at me? Norady said. I’m going to kill it if it doesn’t say something soon.
Don’t, Auren. Atreus will not be happy with you if you keep killing drones. They are expensive to grow.
My lords, the Shar finally said. I have bad news.
They both stared at the drone.
Norady was a brutish fool. The illusion it kept for the Masku wavered, revealing the truth of its species. It would kill the drone if it did not like what the Shar had to say.
Does the name Oreseth mean anything to you? the Shar said.
The two beings glanced at each other. The Shar, in its short lifetime, could not tell if it was anger or fear that came spilling from their Sulen. But it knew that whatever the feeling was, it was delicious.
Why do you speak of such a thing to us? Auren asked.
I just fought a Sulekiel boy with blue hair, the Shar said. And I was about to take his head off, when something peculiar happened. His eyes turned red, and his power more than multiplied.
There was another consciousness inside of him. It told me to tell Malo’thul that Oreseth was coming.
A boy with blue hair? Auren glanced at Norady. It seems we missed one
.
There were two Sulekiel, the Shar said.
Then, perhaps we declared victory too soon? Auren said.
We will find them, Norady said.
Hopefully before your brother hears about this, Auren said. The Shar had never before felt such fear from one of Malo’thul’s Seed.
What shall I do? the Shar asked.
They stood there for a moment, Norady glaring through the drone, its desire to eviscerate it renewed, no doubt. And Auren, thinking, thinking, thinking. Also typical.
If only the Shar had more power. These two were not worthy of calling themselves the equals of the rest of the Malo’thul’s Seed. It would be so fulfilling to kill them and present their unworthy corpses to Elokor.
Auren turned back to the drone. Return to Eldulor. Find that boy at all costs. And when you do, use a communications crystal to call us. We will take care of it ourselves this time.
As you wish, my lords, the Shar said.
It commanded the drone to return to its tasks around the city and set about to find a squad of drones that would be able to reach the little town before it was too late.
For hours, the area around the town of Eldulor was completely blank in the Shar’s consciousness. It was its own particular kind of blindness. None of its drones would be able to reach the town for at least three second moons.
This would not go over well with Auren and Norady.
There was a fleeting moment where the Shar considered involving Atreus, despite Norady’s protests. But, it thought better of it.
Atreus’s wrath was not something to be underestimated. It did not want to incur it upon its true body. Not until the blame could clearly be attributed to Norady and Auren.
The Shar felt a surge of bile excrete from one of its many orifices. It licked it up with a nearby tongue.
Yes. This was a most delicious development indeed.
Something that even they feared.
TO BE CONTINUED IN THE RISE OF ORESETH.
A MESSAGE FROM ERIC
Thank you so much for reading The Man Without Hands! Before you get on with your day, please do me a massive favor and leave a review on Amazon and Goodreads! This book took nearly 18 years to bring into the marvelous thing it is now, and I couldn’t be prouder to have brought it to you.
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