Shower of Stones

by Zachary Jernigan

  Apparently, they felt Berun did not need to know what had transpired.

  He avoided anger in response. Anger had been a pathway for Ortur Omali to influence him in the past, and could be so for another. Nonetheless, he found his fists clenching of their own accord as he stared at Vedas and Churls.

  They were his friends. They cared about him.

  Surely, they did.

  ‡

  After his companions fell asleep, Berun left them. He could not stand the thought of a whole night spent staring at their sleeping bodies, listening to their breathing.

  And so he climbed.

  The stairs were hardly worn by the millennia of exposure to the elements: each appeared cut to the exact same dimensions, sharp edged and straight. At every turn in the switchback, Adrash had created an alcove where one could turn and ascend the next series of steps.

  In each alcove, rising from the floor, a part of the mountain, sat an altar—and upon each altar a statue. Berun paused in the alcoves before resuming his climb, again and again, examining the figures the god had carved. Predictably, the majority were warriors, men and women in assorted modes of dress, wielding swords and axes and spears. Few bore alchemical arms.

  To Berun’s surprise, there were elderman and constructs among them. For obvious reasons, the constructs held his attention. He had never seen such variety, had never known such sinuously elegant creatures existed. A few were nearly identical to men, identifiable as artificial only by the thin lines of their mechanical sutures.

  The final five alcoves stretched nearly double the size of the others, with proportionally larger altars and statues. The first contained a tall, thin woman with claws bared at the end of each arm. The second featured a winged man, arching his back with his open mouth to the sky.

  In the third and fourth, he found twins, angularly built and naked. Though their posture mirrored one another, one appeared rigid, the other relaxed.

  He recognized them by Shavrim’s description. He mouthed their names.

  Evurt. Ustert.

  The last space held the depiction of a unique creature, neither clearly man nor woman, human or elderman. Thorns grew from its shoulders, elbows, and knees. A series of knoblike growths extended down the lengths of its oddly jointed arms.

  He stared at its harsh face, lingering on the wood-textured eyes, and knew its identity.

  Still, he felt nothing.

  He ascended a final time, the broken sky unobscured by another set of stairs above him. The spheres of the Needle spun in their orbits, and he imagined what would occur to Osa if they fell. Would the crystal covering the island shatter? Would it hold, showing the death of the outer world through its perfect lens, holding the decay within itself?

  Berun reached the summit. Open to the elements and significantly worn by time, an altar sat, unmoored to the mountain. It had drifted over time, in fact, due to wind or rain or tremors: a third of its base hung over the edge of the cliff.

  Upon the altar was a carving of Shavrim.

  He knelt before Adrash, hands open in supplication, eyes desperate. Pleading.

  Berun took it in his arms and moved it back from the precipice. He did not understand why he had been inspired to do so, but he did it, regardless, wondering if this were the moment when he ceded control to Sradir.

  Shrugging the concern off, he knelt at the edge of the cliff and tried to find a measure of the calm he had once thought so easy to achieve.

  He did not find it. In truth, he found only more doubt.

  Yet the night passed overhead, and the sky did not fall. He resisted asking himself how many more such nights the world would be allowed.

  ‡

  In the hour before the sun rose, he halted his meditation and watched the largest inhabitants of the island wake from their slumber.

  Methodically, beginning with the westernmost individual and spreading to either side, as though they had timed it for the most dramatic effect, blunt reptilian heads rose on sinuous lengths of neck from each of the massive honeycombed nests anchored to the lower heights of the crystal dome. As many as six individuals, variously colored and sized, inhabited the largest structures.

  Generations of wyrms, greeting the new day.

  When the sun rose fully over the back of Jeroun and reflected in the heights of the dome downward, bathing the enclosed world of Osa in bewitched light, the creatures emerge fully. They faced the morning and stretched, their long finger bones showing through the thin membranes of their wings.

  Hearing their harsh calls to one another, his features drew into a frown.

  He leaned over his crossed legs and peered over the edge of the cliff. The camp his companions had set the night before remained shrouded in shadow, but his eyes were adequate to the task. He watched Vedas emerge from the tent, left hand rubbing the leanness of his belly, right hand lingering at the neckline of his suit.

  The man could not accept the reality of himself, Berun knew. He refused to be at ease in his own body. Nor would he return to the time when wearing a suit felt right, for it represented a way of life he no longer lived, convictions he no longer held.

  Berun shifted his brass bulk, not in pain, no (unless a component of his body became unmoored, he would never experience true pain), but certainly discomfort. He would never grow used to being confined to one form, stuck in a man-like shape, never to fully touch the sun again. In this, he felt communion with Vedas. Both had been betrayed by men they were expected to trust—Vedas’s abbey master Abse, on the one hand, Ortur Omali on the other—and paid a physical toll as a result.

  Vedas turned, his hands falling to his sides.

  Churls emerged from the tent, shrugging her shoulders and swinging her arms. She peered into the sky before slipping her arms around Vedas’s waist, laying her head against his chest.

  The spheres of Berun’s teeth ground together. He stepped back from the cliff’s edge, surprised by the intensity of emotion he felt at the sight of her.

  I never liked the bitch much, a voice said. Evurt took all the good material, leaving none for his sister.

  Berun spun around, but he was alone on the cliff top.

  Calm yourself, Berun.

  Reedy and measured, the voice held a trace of amusement. It sounded utterly unlike he had imagined it would. He had assumed something colder, more estranging.

  You assumed wrong, Sradir said.

  “I don’t like this,” he said. He turned back to the thousand-foot drop. “I don’t like anything that is happening.”

  I know. Imagine how it must be for me, though, constructed man.

  “No. No, I don’t have to imagine any such thing.” He folded his massive arms. “This is different than what happened with Churls and Vedas. I’m awake, aware of your presence, like you’re sitting across from me. How is there room within my mind? What happens now?”

  A chuckle. So many words. You believe I must do something?

  “I do. Why else would you be here, if not to act?”

  Perhaps for the view. I’ve been waiting for the proper time, listening only, but I see I should have does this sooner. You have wonderful eyes—in many ways, better than my own. It’s a pleasure to view the world from my current vantage point. Please, look down the mountain again. I wish to see my brother Shavrim as you see him.

  Berun considered denying it the request, but relented.

  Shavrim emerged from the tent.

  His eyes focused directly on Berun.

  Oh, hello, Sradir said. That was fast. Raise your hand, Berun. Raise it. He’s seen us.

  ‡

  They stood together on the cliff, the four of them.

  “Hello, Sradir,” Shavrim said. He bowed.

  Embarrassed, Berun bowed back.

  Tell him hello, Sradir said. No. Just say anything. I’ll correct you if it’s wrong.

  Berun paused, and then said hello.

  Good, Sradir said. I like someone who can improvise.

  Shavrim stared into Berun
’s eyes, clearly searching. For what, Berun did not know—a sign, perhaps, that he had found a proper ally, one possessed of sufficient strength to take his or her host by force. Ustert and Evurt had been a disappointment in this regard.

  It would be easier to force you, yes. But I think not.

  Churls stepped forward and laid a hand on Berun’s arm. He fought the urge to pull it away as Sradir recoiled within him. Quickly, he was becoming used to how Sradir would react, how it would feel when it did.

  “Berun,” Churls said. She too searched his eyes. “Are you … are you you?”

  He forced a smile down at her, and Sradir relented a bit.

  I don’t hate this one, it said. When I can see beyond the aura Ustert has placed over her, she’s actually quite likable. Not beautiful, but cute in a rough way. A dull sword is an appropriate tool for her.

  “I’m fine, Churls,” Berun said. “I’m me. This is not as it is for you and Vedas. Sradir is …”

  If you call me nice, I’ll kill you.

  “… more agreeable.”

  Churls smiled and embrace him, her arms extending only halfway around his torso. He patted her gently on the back, meeting Vedas’s gaze over her head. After a moment, the Black Suit nodded, though his expression remained sober.

  Shavrim opened his mouth and closed it. He opened it again.

  “Agreeable,” he said. He repeated the word, as if hearing it for the first time.

  ‡

  I’ve learned something, Berun, and I’ve made a decision. We do this, and then we leave.

  His foot slipped. He formed a question in his mind.

  No, don’t ask why. I’m not forcing you to do anything. I’ll explain, and you’ll agree—for your own good. Now, concentrate upon your task.

  Curious but unwilling to push the matter, he planted his foot more solidly and flexed, causing the hundreds of joined spheres in his knees and shoulders to shriek with strain. Next to him, Shavrim roared, thick slabs of muscle shaking. Gradually, the panel of stone upon which they pushed began to move, revealing the outline of a massive door into the mountain Shavrim had assured them existed. It ground shrilly in its frame, inch by inch, extending further and further into the rock face.

  Berun’s foot slipped a second time … a third time. Shavrim paused to catch his breath, repositioned himself with his back to the slab, and began pushing once more.

  The door cleared its frame. Berun shot out a hand to prevent Shavrim from falling as the door tipped forward and slammed soundly home into a recess in the floor, melding again with the mountain.

  Enter, Berun, Sradir said, avid. Beat him to it. You did most of the work, anyway.

  Amused by Sradir’s pettiness, Berun kept his arm out, palm pressed to Shavrim’s chest, preventing the man from advancing.

  “Leave it,” Berun said. “I’ll check.”

  He entered the chamber alone. Once his trailing foot cleared the doorway, six torches bloomed into life, revealing a circular room perhaps six yards across, its wall covered in relief carvings of faceless bodies locked in embraces both violent and erotic. They appeared to shift in the firelight. The longer Berun stared, the more they seemed to move, undulating in a circle around him, first in one direction and then the other. He imagined a flesh-and-blood man would become dizzy.

  An impressive effect, he noted, yet it was as nothing compared to what sat under each torch. Statues, so cunningly carved that they nearly breathed in the flickering light, lifelike enough that he expected them to rise from their cross-legged posture, held weapons in outstretched hands. Somehow, Adrash (for it could only have been a god who possessed the skill to create such life in stone) had managed to convey the reluctance of the offering: the figures appeared ready to snatch back their weapons if the taker proved unworthy to wield it.

  Shavrim, the first on the left, held a long, dark, silverish knife.

  The winged man—Orrus, Sradir whispered—held a glass spear.

  Ustert and Evurt held a pair of short swords, silver and bronze. Ruin and Rust.

  The thin, clawed woman—Bash, my dear departed Bash, Sradir said—held a razored circle.

  And Sradir, first on the right …

  Before he had registered the desire to do so, Berun bent and took the short whip in his left hand. Though tiny in his outsized fist, he could not deny an immediate sense of appropriateness, of utility. His mouth drew into a sneer even as a part of him relished the feeling. He had always eschewed weapons.

  Prior to his last encounter with Omali and the freezing of his form, it had never been an issue. He had been any weapon he wanted.

  I’m sorry for what you’ve lost, Berun.

  He grunted. Behind him, Shavrim cleared his throat and entered the room, with Churls and Vedas following. Shavrim picked up his knife, flipped it end over end into his left hand, and then slipped it into the sheath he wore at his hip. It was a casual gesture, but Berun had been watching carefully.

  A tremor had passed through Shavrim when his hands left his weapon’s hilt.

  Yes, Sradir said. Well observed. He’s not immune to its touch, just as I’m not to mine. And Sroma is a great deal more powerful than Weither. It’s possessed of its own mind, and he’s cautious of its influence. As he should be.

  Features blank, Shavrim glanced at Berun as he picked up Orrus’s spear and Bash’s circle.

  “You have something to say? the horned man asked.

  Berun did not answer. His attention was suddenly elsewhere.

  Churls and Vedas stood separated by several feet, staring down at the statues of Ustert and Evurt. Their hands stretched toward one another in the exact position of a clasp, as though they believed themselves to be holding hands.

  Berun looked away and then back, trying to convince himself that their bodies were not thinning while he watched, that their skin had not taken on a metallic luster.

  Your eyes aren’t deceiving you, Sradir said. They’re nearly here. The bitch, especially. She’s close. Can’t you smell her? Like curdled milk.

  Berun took one step toward Churls.

  Slowly, like an egret following its prey, she swiveled her head toward him without moving another muscle. Vedas mirrored her. Their eyes were blanks, silver and bronze.

  “Sister,” Churls said. “Brother,” Vedas said.

  Never could wrap your minds around me, could you, fools? Don’t move, Berun. Don’t speak a word.

  Disinterested, Churls and Vedas turned back toward the statues. As one, without moving the position of the hands that still seemed to be linked, they moved forward to grip the hilts of their swords.

  Shavrim paused at the doorway and turned back. His hand strayed to the knife at his hip.

  Sradir sighed. You wanted them here, brother, and now … what? You want to stop them at their point of entr—

  Its last word died in a fading hiss.

  A light, harsh enough to briefly overload even Berun’s eyes, flared in the center of the room.

  It died as suddenly as it had appeared.

  In its place stood Fyra, clothed in a jointed suit of blindingly white armor. In her right hand she held a sword—also blindingly white, a proper match for Ustert and Evurt’s weapons, though sized for her small stature. She took four quick steps to a point equidistant between her mother and Vedas and swung her blade up, as though attempting to slice an imaginary opponent from pelvis to chest.

  It was a clumsy maneuver, directed at nothing, yet it produced an immediate effect.

  Churls and Vedas gasped and pulled their arms in, cradling their hands against their bellies. Shuddering, they turned toward Fyra, their movements no longer synced, their skin and eyes losing the godly hue. Vedas bared his teeth and growled, but it quickly became a wheeze. Churls did even less, merely opening her mouth to emit a constricted breath.

  Without another sound, they fell sideways toward each other.

  Sradir made a whistling sound that reverberated through Berun’s head.

  Fyra turned an
d leveled her sword at Shavrim. Her arm shook slightly.

  You want to be separated from your soul, ugly man? I’ve never done it, but I’d like to try. We’ll see who wins. She flipped the faceplate of her helm down, staring through the eye slits of a mask that resembled her mother exactly. This is a place of power. You knew being here would make your sister and brother stronger.

  Shavrim nodded. “I did. And I was wrong to allow them to enter. Ustert and Evurt are too strong, too unpredictable, to allow full control. I see that now.”

  Fyra laughed, and sounded nothing like a child. Good for you. You should have seen it sooner. Take the weapons out yourself, and then carry my mother and Vedas outside.

  She turned to Berun without waiting to see if her order was followed. She was tired, clearly, her sword arm dipping only to be righted with a jerk. He stared at the wavering tip of her ghostly sword, wondering how much damage she could do with it.

  Good question, Sradir said, its voice near reverential. I’d seen her in your mind, but I’d never imagined… how wonderful… How is it she’s even here? The crystal should have shielded her from entering. The strain of maintaining control—

  I can’t hear you, the girl said, her voice barely a whisper, but I know you’re talking. She took two faltering steps toward Berun, lifting her sword to keep its point between his eyes. He’s my friend. I helped him when no one else could. What are you going to do with him?

  Sradir paused, a pressure building. When it spoke again, its voice held a new quality, a resonance he imagined radiating outward from the spheres of his mind.

  Girl, I’m going to finish what you started.

  ‡

  After two days of travel, Berun stood before the barrier of crystal separating him from the sea.

  The sea, and his creator.

  “You’re sure?” he asked.

  For the hundredth time, I’m sure.