Remaining in a crouch, he waited, watching the still lake surface for any sign of a change in his perception. When none came and he grew impatient, he decided to stand.
Several minutes passed. He decided to stand again.
Instead, he fell backward into the water. The woman tumbled sideways, following him under. She wrapped her arms around him, pressing his arms to his sides. He did not fight her. Why he would fight her? She was beautiful, like his mother had been. He barely felt the pressure of the blood-warm lake around him. He breathed it like air.
When she kissed him, he breathed her.
‡
“Death doesn’t exist here. Time is an illusion.”
He stood along the shore. He turned full circle. Around the lake rose the forms of gray stone towers, tall and blank-faced, creating a skyline as severe as the peaks ringing the valley, a cityscape utterly unlike the cities of glass he had seen in Adrash’s vision of the Clouded Continent—different enough, in fact, that he immediately doubted its fidelity. An elder, dependent on the sun for its sustenance, would never lock itself behind windowless walls.
This was no true city of the elders: this was the product of a stunted imagination, a recreation of a thing that had never existed.
Nonetheless, he took in with interest the groups of elders he spotted. The creatures, their naked bodies tattooed brilliantly, their large double-irised eyes liquid in the sunlight, paid him not a moment’s attention as they walked from place to place. Their locomotion, stately and deliberate, struck him as awkward, wary of their surroundings.
“No,” he said under his breath. “That isn’t right, either.”
He paused. Someone had said something to him, had they not?
With great difficulty, he tore his gaze from the oddly moving elders. Even in their wrongness, they were compelling.
He nearly took a step back at the woman’s altered appearance. A lustrous, emerald-scaled gown clothed her from just below her breasts to mid-calf. Her figure, athletic and almost prototypically feminine in its proportions, bore no resemblance to that of the person he had met in the valley. They shared a similar bone structure, no more. Her eyes, also, had changed, brightening to reveal an increased awareness, a vitality she had lost.
Drinking of the lake had been transformative for her. Unlike the city extending dull and oppressive around them, she was a genuine artifact of the past.
Looking down at himself, he discovered she had changed nothing about his appearance. The sigils remained still on his arms and legs. His cock appeared pitifully small to him, as though it too had been affected by the dampening spell.
He sighed. “What did you say?”
She gestured to encompass the valley. “Death doesn’t exist here. Time has stopped.”
He grunted and looked away, back to the city. Her beauty unnerved him. He had never liked women, much less human women. Licking his lips, he recalled how she had brought him here.
“I’d rather not spend eternity with you and yours,” he said. “And I won’t. I’ll be leaving soon, with something of value. Tell me, why have you brought me here?”
“You don’t want to know who I am?” she asked.
“No,” he said. He rethought this answer. “Unless it has value, I don’t want to know.”
“Fine,” she said. “I had hoped the bringer of my death would be interested in me, somehow—even impressed with my vision, here, where I’ve kept my true self from the white god for hundreds upon hundreds of years—but maybe that’s too much to ask at the end of my long, pointless life.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her gesture toward the city. The elders dropped where they stood. Their buildings each fractured vertically with a crack of thunder, and then crumbled to the earth. The corpses deflated, mummifying in the ever-present sun. The rubble of the city slowly wore at the edges. Soon, the valley had returned to its present form.
Turning to the woman, he found she had aged. Her gown had lost its sheen.
She snapped her fingers, and it was night.
Above them, the Needle spread in its shattered beauty.
“You want me to tell you something of value,” she said. She tipped her head back to view the heavens. “You did this. I know this fact in my bones. The souls of the elders proclaimed it the moment you dropped from the sky. I’ve waited ever since, these hundred and six days.”
He huffed in annoyance. “This is of no value. I know what I did, woman. Quit guessing, speaking nonsense of elders.”
“Guesses?” she whispered. “Nonsense.” She crossed her arms below her withered breasts and closed her eyes, letting her head fall slowly to one side. Listening. “Pol Tanz et Som: that is your name. You confronted the white god and injured him gravely before fleeing. And where did you flee? You fled here, hardly aware of doing so. Now, you desire two things: the resources you’ve found here, the bodies of the elders. And, second, the knowledge to apply the powers you covet.”
She lowered her arms and met his stare. “Am I close?”
“You are,” he conceded. “But how?”
She grimaced. “You don’t listen, do you? Or perhaps you still doubt. The elders speak to me. They’ve grown to trust me with their secrets. We share a similar vision.”
“I see only corpses.”
“You see wrong.”
He considered disagreeing with her—he had seen elders, hibernating yet well and truly alive—but another concern came to the fore. “Vision? What vision is this?”
She laughed and regarded the sky again.
“This conversation goes nothing like I thought it would. You wait nearly two millennia, and you have certain expectations. I thought, when you came, you would know more. I suppose it doesn’t matter. I’ve gotten what I wanted, what I deserve for being so patient. When the world is poised so …” A look of rapture painted her features. “… so beautifully, you don’t ask for more.”
He slapped her. She fell to her knees, causing the vision she sustained to flicker out. For a handful of seconds, he was underwater, staring into her gray eyes, breathing her in. He fought nausea at the thought of their intimacy, the fact that he had allowed it to occur.
“Make sense,” he said to her. “I don’t care about your expectations. Tell me of this vision you share with corpses.”
She wiped blood from the corner of her mouth. “My vision is of devastation. It is of fire erupting from the crust of the world, of dust blanketing its face for eons.”
She pointed skyward.
“It is this, Pol Tanz et Som.”
‡
They started to move, so slowly at first that he thought he imagined their motion, then perceptibly quicker as the world’s anchors set in and pulled. Increasing their spin as they drifted further and further from their positions, growing visibly in size as they closed in upon the world, the spheres became objects of menacing beauty, perfectly balanced on a scale beyond human reason. As large as moons, as deliberate as death, their leading rims began glowing with the friction of entry, of pushing aside the first protective layers of the world.
Against the dictates of logic, as though possessed of their own poetic will, the larger spheres paused before initiating their plummet, allowing their smaller companions to enter the atmosphere first, dissecting the night with lines of fire.
The Needle fell, and Pol did not keep from himself a sense of satisfaction. This fate—surely, he reasoned, anyone who had lived under the Needle would welcome it. Perhaps they would not admit it to themselves, but somewhere, in untouched corners of their minds, death held more attraction than continuing to live under threat. Men desired certainty above all else.
The ground shook underneath them as the world was impaled upon the Needle. The sky roiled with red and black lightning-shot clouds.
The woman stood at his side, smiling as her vision played out.
Eventually, she pointed into the ruins.
From among them, a figure emerged: tall, over three yards from sole to
crown, walking in an assured manner unlike those ill-drawn elders to which the woman had given brief life. In the flickering light of the end of the world, the elder’s feature seemed to shift, the length and set of its bones fluid.
Watching it, Pol was seized by recollection. As a child, he had seen a reptile drag a fisherman into the water. The man did not scream: he did not have the time. His mates had cried out, but even at his young age Pol had known their efforts would prove useless. The man was dead—not because he was unfit, destined for death, but simply because nothing of his world could stand against a creature of the sea when it chose its proper moment.
Pol resisted the temptation to ready himself with a spell. It would not have worked, even had he not been trapped under a dampening spell. Not here. Here, now, he would be powerless. He had walked, of his own volition, into another world. He had seen that world in Adrash’s mind, perpetually covered in cloud. Slumbering.
The broad-shouldered elder stopped a body length from Pol. Even halted, it never entirely stilled. Though it did not breathe, under its vein-mapped skin a colony of insects crawled.
Head tipped slightly to one side, double irises spinning, it appraised him.
An offer, it said into the interior of his skull. Its voice, like a wasp’s nest fallen at one’s feet, or a bass string struck violently next to one’s ear.
When it did not speak again, he cleared his throat. “Who are you to offer me any—”
The elder squinted, pulling its head back on its long neck. Do not speak to me this way. It is an insult. It is ugly.
Pol lifted his chin. “I’ll speak to you as I see fit.”
The elder took two steps forward, closing the distance between them. Pol inhaled the scent of it, cumin and longras leaf, seawater and the dust of libraries—and under these aromas, a tide so closely under the creature’s dark, finely-furred skin that it leaked out through its pores … its blood, similar enough to his own though infinitely stronger.
His sigils stirred on his forearms and calves, tickling.
Impudent child, the elder said. Instead of anger, however, Pol’s mind was filled with an air of amusement. I will not punish you for your physical limitations. Speak with your vulgar food parts. We’ve not slept so long that we’ve not grown accustomed to the sound of your speech, horrifying though it is. We need not belabor this communication.
Pol shrugged, having accepted his role as a child. “You spoke of an offer.”
Yes. An offer. It gestured to the agitated sky. We would see the world of man end.
Despite himself, Pol laughed. “You’ve likely overestimated my power.”
No. We know of you, and your encounter with the white god. You yourself would be a god. Already, you are close to achieving your goal. Not one among your people, or certainly among men, could have broken the Needle as you did.
Still, you could have more. We can help you be greater than you ever dreamed.
“The god of a dead world? Thank you, but I’d pictured a fair bit more than that.”
The woman at his side cackled at this. Almost quicker than his eyes registered, the elder stepped to the side and backhanded her, sending her body spinning high into the black mirror of the lake. The vision she had created did not fade or flicker. In fact, it only solidified.
The elder returned its amber gaze to Pol. Your picture is pitiful. Imagine a world where you are not a leader of men and eldermen, but a leader of elders.
Pol opened his mouth to speak, and found he could not utter a sound.
Enough. We do not demand an answer now. We know your mind, and it seeks dominance. You will grow tired of being a god among men. When you grow tired, you will erase this era and usher in the new.
How? Pol thought.
How is this not clear, child? The elder stepped back and held its arms aloft. Bring down the sky. The pact among ourselves—to not reveal ourselves or wake until the world is again clean of the interloper, man—is universal, but the method of man’s extinction is not generally agreed upon. Some wish to wait. Some have tried to rouse other individuals to our cause, charlatans and magicians. But I and my families are not … patient. And so …
It gestured vaguely, in an oddly human fashion.
The muscles in Pol’s jaw jumped as he ground his teeth together. “Intriguing. But this is of no value to me in my battle. Give me something I can use, or I’ll not even consider your offer. Sleep forever, if it pleases you.”
A horizontal line appeared below the elder’s cavernous nostrils. It grew in definition and then split, revealing human teeth. Its corners turned up. As Pol fought to keep from taking a step backward (he would admit to being frightened, yes), the elder’s body shed height and width. Its rawboned body thickened, taking on the proportions of an athletic man. Its skin color, already near enough to black, darkened further. It grew the pendulous genitals of a man, but these were quickly sheathed by the new skin it had grown.
No. Not skin. A suit.
Pol stared into the face of the Knosi featured so prominently in Adrash’s mind.
Vedas Tezul, the elder said, its newly formed body mouthing the words.
Its body shifted again, reducing in size as its shoulders narrowed and its hips widened. In seconds, before him stood the freckled woman whose features offended him so.
Churls Casta Jons.
Now the elders body ballooned, taking on mass outward and upward. Its skin turned from flesh to spheres of brass. From under its shelf of a brow, two blue coals glowed.
Berun.
The names meant nothing to Pol.
These three stand in our way—in your way. Each possesses power untapped, though the avenues of their power are lost to us. Like the white god, they defy our abilities to read. At times, they can be seen, but never can they be heard. For days now, they have been absent entirely from our minds.
The elder returned to its original form and leaned forward, nostrils widening as it sniffed at Pol. Like you, elderman, they are disappointingly opaque, a dangerous instability. Only their intentions are clear. They would halt the spheres in the sky or send them into the void. They would see the age of man never end.
Pol kneaded his temples. This had gone on long enough. The sigils, restive, divided and subdivided on his forearms, forming faces that leered at the elder.
“Where?” he said. He held up a hand to halt the creature from speaking more. On his palm, a horned man grinned and winked. “Mind, I’ve agreed to nothing. Reason says I should enjoy my time as a god before I decide to have done with the world. However, if these individuals are as powerful as you claim, they are a threat to me. Tell me, now, where I can find them.”
The elder pulled back from him. Its long finger pointed to the sigils.
Impossible. Silence these … abominations.
Pol smiled at its discomfort. “I think time will prove how much power I can summon. Tell me. Now.”
‡
Danoor, the elder said.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE 1ST To 7TH OF THE MONTH OF FISHERS THE ISLAND OF OSA
Sradir is within you, and it will come out. Soon, if I am any judge.
These words remained. They stuck. They angered Berun in their refusal to be forgotten.
Sradir—the name meant nothing to him. Surely, this fact disproved Shavrim’s claim.
Surely, it did. Surely.
Attempting to reason the words away simply fixed them more securely within his mind. By the morning of his third day under the dome of Osa, he found himself distracted constantly by thoughts of harm. He played out the scenarios of his own assumption by an alien god—as if by imagining the worst outcomes they might suddenly strike him as ridiculous, impossible.
But it was not impossible. He knew this better than anyone.
Being taken forcibly by the will of another, pushed out of his own mind, woken to find people injured or dead at his own hand … it had occurred, and the nation of Nos Ulom considered him a murderer for it. Any reassurance he had
taken from the death of the one responsible proved short-lived, however, for his creator would not be bound by the laws of death: on the journey to Danoor, Ortur Omali had nearly reassumed control over his creation.
Berun had been forged as a tool. To think he could redesign himself according to his own whims now was the purest presumption. He had not overcome Omali alone in their final battle, after all. Fyra had been there, landing the final blow for him.
What did it matter if he did not know the name Sradir Ung Kim? Had he known Omali could call him from his place among the dead?
‡
From dawn to just before nightfall, they traveled northward and upward, over a sparsely-treed landscape of folded rocks and algae-covered lakes, finally reaching the foot of their destination—the monolith Shavrim called Adrashhut. Surrounded by rubble at its base, it rose, straight-edged and severe, giving the impression of a sudden, violent upthrust through the mantle of the earth.
It looked to Berun like the tip of a sword coming out from between a man’s shoulder blades.
“There,” Shavrim said, pointing a third of the way up the sheer face of the mountain to a sharp overhang. “That is where he deposited the weapons.” He breathed in deeply, inflating the muscular drum of his belly. His eyes widened and an unselfconscious grin lit up his features. “It smells the same here. Exactly the same. My nose, after millennia …”
“I’m happy for you and your nose,” Churls said. “How do we reach the cliff?”
Shavrim instructed them to cover one eye and then the other before regarding the cliff face a second time. Stairs appeared, zig-zagging upward, but with each shift of the eye they disappeared again, melding back into the slate-colored stone.
Vedas looked away first, and began setting camp. He remained subdued throughout their supper, just as he had done since their arrival on the island. Churls kept his hand in hers, often leaning toward him to cast glances at the darkness over his shoulder. Despite Shavrim’s assurance—“Nothing here will hurt you. Osa is a sanctuary.”—she could not keep herself from caution.
Berun looked from her to Vedas, affection battling the uncomfortable awareness that he had been left out of an important discussion. He did not resent Churls for keeping Fyra a secret, yet she and Vedas and the girl had clearly interacted with Shavrim on some arcane level during their encounter in Marept. Even had no time passed after Vedas kissed Churls, their eyes would have given them away: they had come out of their trances haunted.
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