by D. P. Prior
Shader craned his neck. At first, all he saw was an inky cloud belching waves of blackness near the cone’s truncated ceiling. It looked and felt alive, and each time it breathed, a tinge of nausea crept beneath his skin. Then, within the miasma, he could make out the form of a serpent with glowing amber eyes and fangs like jags of lightning—the Statue of Eingana. Atop its head, a crown of pulsing filaments sent a constant ring of sparks up through the ceiling. At the center of the circle they formed, a single mirror glared down, showing nothing but a black hole that seemed to beckon and tug.
A disk drifted out from behind the statue and made an arcing descent, until it hovered twenty feet above Shader. Sektis Gandaw stepped to its edge and inclined his head to look down with eyes of incandescent blue. His face appeared gray, mask-like, beneath pitch black hair that glistened like oil. He wore a billowing brown coat, beneath which Shader glimpsed dark metal greaves and bands of thigh armor. One hand was gloved in black; the other looked desiccated, and ribbed tubing ran from the knuckles up under the coat sleeve.
“The password,” Gandaw said. “How did you work it out?” As he spoke, he lifted his wrist, tapped at a vambrace, and gave a slow, satisfied nod.
Shader threw a look at Aristodeus, who shrugged and turned his palms up. A ripple passed through the philosopher’s body, and for an instant he flickered. If Aristodeus noticed, he didn’t show it.
Gandaw, however, seemed impressed. “Bilocation? I thought only I’d mastered that. It’s been quite a day of discoveries. First—” He gestured toward the smoking chasm. “—tangible evidence that the Abyss may well constitute an empirical fact, after all, and now a philosopher who can be in two places at the same time.”
“What are you talking about, Sektis?” Aristodeus said. “Has one of your memory nodes ruptured and corrupted what’s left of your brain?”
Gandaw surveyed him for a long moment and then replied, “Simply an observation. Where there is a certain density of shielding—in the case of this mountain, scarolite—bilocated simulacra have been known to flicker, whereas the originals, generally, do not.”
Aristodeus glanced at his hands. “What flicker? Maybe you need your optics tested.” His voice had risen in pitch, and a tic had started up on his cheek.
“Stolen technology, no doubt,” Gandaw said, as if he didn’t really care. “Leftovers from Global Tech, or did it come from here?” He let his disconcerting eyes rove the chamber, and when he didn’t find what he was looking for, visibly stiffened. A fine tremor ran through his coat, his shoulders dropped, and he drew in a long, shuddering breath. He lifted his arm and spoke into his vambrace. “Mephesch?” The next words came out slow and deliberate: “Where are you?”
“On my way, Technocrat,” a crackling voice answered.
Shader’s eyes strayed to Rhiannon hanging beneath the sphere. She hadn’t moved since he’d entered the chamber. Was she even breathing?
“Thank you for reminding me,” Gandaw said, following his gaze. “Though, why the sentroid hasn’t killed her already—”
“No technology,” Aristodeus said quickly.
Gandaw’s head pivoted sharply in his direction. “What?”
“I didn’t use technology to bring us here.” He tapped the side of his head.
“Oh, please,” Gandaw said. “I’ve dissected and analyzed every last strand of human DNA, scrutinized every possible permutation of the genome, and rigorously tested the whole pathetic organism ad nauseam. There is no hidden power of the mind that allows you to teleport, let alone move an entire tower. I don’t care how old you are and how inflated your ego is, you are either lying or deluded. No, wait, I hadn’t factored in the new data to hand. What can we extrapolate from the empirical evidence for the reality of the Abyss? Must we not now hypothesize the existence of its reputed creator?
“You see, Aristodeus, last time you tried to thwart the Unweaving all those hundreds of years ago, that very same chasm opened up and swallowed you. All I did was unleash the power of Eingana. What happened next was as unexpected to me as I’m sure it was to you. I confess, I should have investigated the phenomenon, and it’s been niggling away at the back of my mind ever since. But I recently had something of an epiphany. It doesn’t matter that there are two imponderables in this miserable universe that I’ve not set my scalpel to. I thought it mattered, thought I knew all there was to know, but then I realized I’d been deceiving myself. The Abyss, and that—” He jabbed a finger toward the lone mirror at the top of the chamber.
Its hungry emptiness hit Shader with sudden clarity. Somehow, Sektis Gandaw had a mirror showing something that shouldn’t be seen—couldn’t. He realized with a primal dread that he was gazing directly into the Void.
“—didn’t fit into my grand hypothesis, and so I left them out. I deceived myself. Maybe you’ve done the same; or maybe someone’s deceiving you. Could it be that you are bilocating without even realizing it? That your essence is elsewhere, kept by a master who allows you a long leash?” He looked at Shader. “You holy types invented the myths. What do you think? Is it possible that the impeccable mind of Aristodeus has fallen prey to the deceptions of the Demiurgos?”
A haunted look passed across Aristodeus’s eyes, and for a moment, his mouth hung open. Then he clamped it shut, and his face grew as stoic and mask-like as Gandaw’s.
“You don’t believe that, Sektis. All this speculation is hardly your style. What are you up to? Stalling?”
The patter of feet alerted Shader to someone behind him. It was the homunculus from the disk, the one that had saved him and Nameless. He glanced at the open door of the cubicle he’d entered by, expecting to see a tiny set of crimson footprints alongside his own, but there was nothing. Nothing save Nameless’ blood-drenched body on the floor. How had the homunculus entered, if not from the cubicle? It was as if he’d simply stepped through the wall.
“Ah, Mephesch,” Gandaw said. “Re-route enough of Eingana’s power to close that rift, would you?”
When the homunculus looked at him blankly, Gandaw said, “She opened the exact same chasm in 1980, when this upstart philosopher plunged to what should have been his death.”
“One thousand one hundred and eighty-four years ago, Technocrat,” Mephesch said. “Two hundred and seventy-six years before the event known as—”
“Yes, yes, the so-called Reckoning. Your point?”
Mephesch glanced at Aristodeus and grinned. “He doesn’t look a day above seventy.”
Aristodeus frowned at that, but he was as rapt as everyone else.
“My point, Gandaw said, is that if Aristodeus has found a way to re-open the rift Eingana created and subsequently closed, it stands to reason, does it not, that she can seal it again?”
“But the Null Sphere, Technocrat…”
“A minute’s delay, at most,” Gandaw said. “Just do it; it’ll save worrying about the clean-up later.”
Aristodeus started to protest as the homunculus leaned over the shoulder of a kryeh and slowly tapped at its mirror, all the while flicking glances between Gandaw and the tower poking up above the chasm. Symbols sprang to life, where before the mirror had shown the image of a snow-capped mountain range. A brilliant burst of amber lanced down from Eingana’s eyes.
“No!” Aristodeus cried. “Shader! Shaaaderrrrrrr!”
He was flung back from the window. With a shake and a rumble, the white tower sank slowly beneath the flames, and the chasm closed over it. When the tremors had subsided, the floor looked as good as new, as if the tower had never been there.
“Every action has an equal and opposite reaction,” Gandaw said. “Somewhat predictable, but what do you expect from such a pedestrian creation?” He turned his eyes on Shader. “Sorry to see him go? Indifferent? Glad to fill his place in the pecking order?”
“He’s dead?” Shader said, but Gandaw merely stared at the floor where the chasm had been.
Shader wasn’t really sure how he should feel. If he lingered long enough on ch
ildhood memories, on the endless hours of lectures, the grueling training regimens, he’d miss the philosopher, wouldn’t he? But there were too many dangers in the present to allow him the luxury of nostalgia, too many questions Aristodeus would no longer be able to answer before he could feel one way or the other. That’s if he was dead. He’d survived the chasm before, hadn’t he, if what Gandaw said were true? Hundreds of years ago… he’d plunged into the Abyss.
“You knew each other?” he finally asked. It was a lame question, but he didn’t know what else to do. He’d never felt so out of his depth; never felt so useless. It made him realize that, if he didn’t exactly miss Aristodeus, at that moment, he needed him. Needed someone to tell him what to do.
Gandaw turned back to face him. “Aristodeus liked to think we did. I can only assume it was an ego thing, what with me being the supreme Technocrat, back then, and him being, in his own estimation, at any rate, the greatest mind of the age. The truth is, I met him only once—well, twice, if you count his ill-fated attempt to stop the Unweaving last time round. He was sent to see me in London—on Earth—before my exile, at the behest of some obnoxious hippy-inspired bioethics commission or other. I forget what they were called—one of the curses of longevity for an imperfect organism. They had grown concerned at my success with melding.” When Shader raised an eyebrow, he explained: “Fish with beast, plant with man, that kind of thing. It was early days and inestimably crude, but we all have to start somewhere. The strategy was that a face-to-face meeting would render me vulnerable to Aristodeus’s silver tongue. Find out what your opponent wants, he believed, and you can talk your way into a compromise agreement. I imagine he underestimated my goal, and the bioethics commission overestimated his capacity to reject a bribe.”
Shader’s eyes flicked around the chamber, looking for something—anything—a clue for what to do next. There was no telling how long they had left until everything ended, but if he couldn’t keep Gandaw distracted, it was all over for him, Rhiannon, and Nameless right here, right now. In the absence of a better plan, he had no choice but to keep Gandaw talking. The problem was, he didn’t think he was the only one playing for time.
“You bought him off?”
Gandaw shrugged. “Secondhand knowledge, a limited immunity from Global Tech controls. But enough of him. You, Mr. Shader, have been quite the nuisance. Tell me, why didn’t you end this at the Homestead when you had the chance? No, hold your answer.” He pointed at Rhiannon. “Mephesch, the woman next. I don’t know how many times I’ve told you, the sentroids should be set to kill; we don’t have the energy to waste on stasis beams.”
“Sorry, Technocrat,” Mephesch said, rapidly tapping at his vambrace and raising it to his mouth.
“Rhiannon?” Shader said. “You’re going to kill—?”
“Won’t feel a thing,” Gandaw said. “And besides, in a few more minutes, everything she’s ever known will cease to exist. Think of it as a mercy killing.”
A nozzle emerged from the silver sphere holding Rhiannon aloft.
“No,” Shader muttered. By the time he thought to draw the gladius, he knew it was too late, and his ‘no’ became a scream.
There was a grunt of effort from behind him. Silver streaked past his head and struck the sphere with such force it exploded in a shower of sparks. Metal debris clattered down, and Nameless’ axe fell with it, clanging as it struck the floor, and skittering off till it came to rest against a wall.
Rhiannon seemed to hang in midair for a second, then she dropped like a stone. Shader lurched toward her, but she was too far away. She tucked her knees in, rolled as she hit, and came up smoothly. Shader could only watch in astonishment. She moved like a cat, and the veins along her biceps stood out in ridges as she took hold of Callixus’s sword and wrenched it free of the crab-thing.
“That the shogger?” Nameless said, stumbling into the chamber and pointing up at Gandaw. “Doesn’t look like much to me.”
The fabric of Gandaw’s coat ripped as he suddenly grew from within. His entire frame shuddered, and then he swelled again. The coat and the gray tunic beneath disintegrated, swirling about him in a cloud of dust. Where his chest should have been, there was now a black breastplate, flecked with green. His legs and arms were encased in scarolite, too, and the air around his head grew denser, solidifying into a clear, crystal dome.
“Ah,” Nameless said. “Lassie, pass us my axe, would you?”
Rhiannon backed away to the wall, black sword held tightly in white-knuckled hands. Without taking her eyes from Gandaw, she used her foot to shunt Nameless’ axe across the floor to him.
As Mephesch ran for cover, Gandaw raised his gloved hand and extended the palm. The glove smoldered and fell away to reveal metallic fingers, each tipped with fiercely sparking crystals. Lightning arced between them, and the hand glowed white-hot. With quick stabbing movements, he aimed first at Rhiannon and then at Nameless. Balls of fire streaked toward them both. Rhiannon dived, but the blast drove her head first into a console. Nameless could barely walk, never mind run, but he ducked like he’d somehow seen it coming, and the fireball sped over his head to explode against the ground.
Gandaw spun toward Shader and unleashed a barrage of missiles. The first was wide, but the explosion was deafening.
Ears ringing, Shader sprinted for a console and hunkered down behind a seated kryeh as the second fireball struck where he’d been standing a split second before. He braced for the scorching pain of the blast, but instead, all he felt was the throbbing of the gladius in his grasp as it drank in the flames.
He emerged from cover and held the sword in front of him. This time, when the third fireball hit, the gladius threw the full brunt of the blast straight back at Gandaw. It exploded against the edge of his disk and sent him plummeting toward the floor. Grapnels shot out from his armor and snagged a railing, and then reeled him in. Effortlessly, he took hold of the rail and vaulted over it, landing with a resonant clang on the walkway.
“Rather attached to her, aren’t you?” Gandaw nodded down toward where Rhiannon was slumped over the console. “Not quite the same disinterest you showed for the philosopher. So, you see, already I have more data on you. And your sword—a weapon that can both nullify and redirect energy. More stolen technology?”
“Don’t answer, laddie,” Nameless said. “He’s stalling for some reason. I say we get up there and see how well he talks when I cut him a second mouth with my axe.”
Gandaw stepped back from the railing and cast his eyes back and forth. For a moment, he took on the appearance of a cornered rat. Within seconds, though, he resumed an air of calm confidence. With the ghost of a smile, he said, “Mephesch, the kryeh, if you please. Release them.”
The homunculus popped up from behind a console and ran his fingers over the mirror. Shader was stunned at first. He’d thought Mephesch was helping them. Was he frightened of disobeying a direct order, or was this something else? Wasn’t it the nature of the homunculi to deceive? If he’d betrayed Gandaw, why wouldn’t he do the same to others? Shader started to run at him but knew he’d be too late. With a half-formed prayer, he flung the gladius like a javelin. Mephesch ducked behind the console, and the sword flew overhead.
The kryeh all about the chamber jerked and unfurled their wings. As the homunculus got up and ran, the sword turned in a wide arc and shot toward him. Mephesch dived—and passed straight through the wall, as if it weren’t there. The gladius drew up sharp and then reversed direction until it slapped back into Shader’s palm.
The kryeh flapped furiously a couple of feet above their chairs and let out ululating screams as the wires that connected them to their consoles ripped free in sprays of blood.
Nameless’ voice tore Shader away from the gruesome sight. “Gandaw, laddie. Your sword!”
This time, he simply slackened his grip, and the Sword of the Archon launched itself at Gandaw like a comet. Gandaw threw up both hands and instinctively ducked, but even before the blade reached h
im, it struck something solid and rebounded. For a brief moment, a sphere of blue light flickered around Gandaw and then vanished.
Shader snatched the returning gladius from the air as the kryeh on the lower levels screeched and flew at Gandaw. More of the creatures flocked overhead, gathering into a tightly packed wedge and diving. Gandaw scattered them with a fireball, and the few that pressed their attack squawked as they struck his invisible barrier. In a great cacophony of beating wings and cawing cries, they spiraled about the chamber in a frenzy, crashing into walls and bumping off the apex, as if all they wanted was to break out.
“I should have seen that coming,” Gandaw said through gritted teeth. “Just need to teach them who’s master, that’s all.”
He exploded a fireball against the ceiling, obliterating the lone mirror that hung there. Half a dozen kryeh dropped, smoldering and lifeless, hitting railings, bouncing, and ending up crumpled on the floor. The rest descended like a murder of crows onto the ground floor consoles. Their caws turned into mournful wails, and they started to rip out tufts of their own hair with hands that were utterly human, save for the long-taloned fingers. Many scratched at their breasts, leaving trails of crimson streaking down their feminine torsos. The legs, though, were anything but human; they were articulated like a bird’s, with three claws at the front and one at the back.
Shader spun round as Gandaw detonated another fireball, this one above and behind the kryeh. They let out a collective squawk and took to the air once more. They wheeled as one toward Gandaw, then shied away. They circled Shader, passed over Nameless, and looked like they were starting to regroup for a concerted attack when the squawking took on a different sound: less frenetic; more triumphant. And then, in a mass of beating wings, they swooped toward Rhiannon’s unmoving body.
Nameless had already seen it, and he was closer. Even as Shader started to run, the dwarf was in the thick of the kryeh, bellowing a song at the top of his voice, and scything about with his axe. Each swing drove the kryeh back a few paces, but they instantly flapped closer again. Most switched their attack to Nameless, but a few bypassed him and alighted on the console Rhiannon was draped over.