by E. M. Hardy
Defiant soldier, pleading merchant, praying priest, crying orphan, fleeing child, raging father, screaming mother—all of them met the same grisly end. Hundreds of thousands of attackers marched relentlessly forth from their portals, blind and deaf to anything but their desire to kill. Amun, and by extension Martin, forced himself to witness the scenes of slaughter.
Martin, however, saw something that Amun did not. Or more accurately, could not. These monsters wearing human skins seemed to suck something from their victims. Martin saw thin strands snake out from the corpses of the people that were killed. The invaders would stop every now and then to draw forth these threads into themselves. Each individual invader, from armor-clad knight to glowing wing-maidens, seemed to become something more than what they used to be.
It was like they were harvesting this energy from the bodies of their victims, feeding off their deaths to become stronger.
“Were the constructs able to do anything at all, Chief Engineer?”
Amun was embarrassed by his outburst, with Mut silently rebuking him with her cold and formal demeanor. “Not much. The central processors in the pyramids don’t have enough processing power to send more than basic commands. Even then the forms the nanopaste assume are simply too weak. The Custodian programs didn’t have enough time to refine themselves as well. They’re almost like infants, having only a few weeks to develop their neural net. Weak processors, poorly-developed algorithms, hollow shells… no, they didn’t stand a chance against these invaders.”
Amun drew up his shoulders and turned to Mut, a gleam in his eye. “However, they did manage to kill one brash knight who was too eager for glory.”
Mut, surprised, quickly tapped the tablet in her hands. The scenes of people being systematically wiped out were swept away, replaced by a scene showing a lone enemy being bludgeoned to death by thousands of constructs. This over-eager youth split off from his cohort of allies, eager to harvest more on his own. He was so drunk on his power, smashing constructs left and right, that he didn’t notice himself being surrounded by thousands of constructs until it was too late.
Even isolated from his companions and fatigued from the wholesale slaughter, he had still managed to demolish nearly four hundred constructs. His armor and weapons were unscathed, as he succumbed to the repeated blunt impacts of the dumb, slow, and relatively weak constructs. They whaled on him until he was bludgeoned to death inside a cocoon of impenetrable steel.
“This… this is insane! He was just one man, no, a boy, and you’re telling me he managed to demolish so many constructs all on his own? Just how powerful are these invaders!?”
Amun’s chuckle was hollow, filled with bitterness. “Insanely so. However, our brash young idiot has shown me what these animals are doing.” He swept away the image being projected on the desk, replacing it with a hologram of the youth being stripped of his armor and dissected on a table. “They’re harvesting souls.”
“They’re… what? Are you serious?”
“Dead serious. Look at these readings,” Amun said as he fiddled around with the displays. “The energies being expelled by this youth’s body are off the scale, far more than one person can naturally possess. The readings are also somewhat similar to the Chi cultivation techniques of our neighbors to the north, though they are closer to what the voodooists over on the next continent can do.” Amun allowed himself a brief smile as he continued. “The important thing is that I’ve unlocked the secret to this soul-magic, this pnevma, that the invaders use.”
Amun expected Mut to be pleased with his revelation. Instead, she glared daggers at him. “Does this mean you’ll start slaughtering entire villages to power this new magic? Like what these animals are doing to all of us?”
“What? No!” Amun’s temper flared in indignation. “I don’t even know how to do that! All I know is that this pnevma is the key to the magic that the invaders are using. That’s all I could get from his corpse before the research facility was smashed to pieces by their fliers. And besides, I wouldn’t want to dirty myself by tampering with the kind of soul-stealing they’re doing.”
Martin felt Amun’s relief course through him as he saw Mut’s expression soften.
She remained silent for a moment before responding. “And what can we do with this knowledge?”
“Nothing.” Amun shook his head, unable to stop despair from crawling up from his stomach. “We just don’t have enough time.”
A loud explosion rocked the chamber, dimming the lights around Mut and Amun. “And it looks like they’ve found us. Damn it all!” Another explosion. They were probably under attack by the enemy’s archers, with their explosive arrows pummeling Amun’s pyramid and collapsing entire sections with each volley.
“All is lost, then,” sobbed Mut, her composition finally giving way as the bombardment intensified and rubble started to fall from the ceiling.
“For us, yes. For this generation, we are lost. For the generations that will come, they will be too crushed by the invaders to fight back. But then again, these invaders are only interested in souls—nothing else.”
Mut’s eyes rounded as she turned her full attention to Amun, with Martin feeling that small spark of hope. Before she could interrogate him further, Amun slammed a palm down on a button and shouted his commands out.
“This is Chief Engineer Amun, and I grant full clearance to any and all surviving Custodians throughout Copsis to take control of Project Osiris as they see fit! It’s all—” an explosion cut him off mid-sentence, but he continued on even as a large chunk of rock blew out of the wall behind him. “Dammit! It’s all up to you now!!! Make sure that—”
The second explosion threw debris at Amun, knocking him away from the desk and preventing him from continuing his command. Mut had managed to avoid injury thanks to the desk blocking the way.
“P-project what?” she stammered, coughing to remove the dust from her throat. “What… what in the underworld is Project Osiris?”
Amun joined Mut in coughing, pushing himself up before shouting in pain. Martin shared Amun’s suffering, all the pain in his broken body as well as his panic when he looked down and saw the mangled mess that used to be his leg. He gritted his teeth hard as he pulled himself up, leaning his back on a wall.
“We don’t have enough time to use the knowledge we’ve gained, Mut,” Amun powered on, knowing that the adrenaline masking the pain would not last long. “But the Custodians do.”
Mut was lost for words before comprehension dawned on her face. “The neural networks controlling the constructs… they can study the data for us! They can come up with some way to use this pnevma you discovered, long after these invaders are done harvesting souls!”
Amun allowed himself a weak smile. “Exactly. The Custodians will do the job for us. I don’t know what plans they’ll put in place, but it will not involve the peoples of Copsis. The invaders are watching too closely, coming in too frequently with too much power. They will have to find others to help us, others that will be able to tap into the pnevma in a way that none of us can. They might even need to reach out beyond the void, toward other worlds untouched by these invaders.”
He sighed and winced as the sunlight from the blasted hole in the wall was blocked out by an approaching figure. “You and me though…”
A woman entered through the breach, her wings folding back behind her as she stepped in with glowing yellow armor. Mut didn’t even have time to scream as the winged woman unceremoniously stuck a javelin through her heart, pulling it back and allowing Mut’s body to slide bonelessly on the ground. The winged woman held a palm out, coaxing Mut’s soul out from her freshly-slain corpse. Martin saw what Amun could not: Mut’s soul materializing, a gaseous, indistinct cloud that glowed, right before the winged woman closed her palm into a fist and pulled. Mut’s soul abruptly flew into the woman’s fist. She had, for all intents and purposes, breathed in Mut’s soul, which caused Martin to recoil in disgust. She then turned h
er attention toward Amun, her face blank and expressionless as she hefted her javelin toward him.
With the last of Amun’s strength, he pressed a button on the collar around his neck to transmit the records of all his memories to the Custodians scattered around the planet—severing his scarred soul from the signal feeding Martin’s view of these events.
***
Every single one of Martin’s constructs froze in their tracks—dolls, cow-boxes, eyeballs—as his soul bellowed in pain.
He could still feel all that Amun felt. Most acute of all was the rage of seeing all the people being slaughtered like cattle, then the despair of being unable to do anything. Then he turned his attention to the people he had discovered in the desert. They were all clutching their heads, groaning in pain. He didn’t know them, didn’t owe them anything, but imagining them being cut down without mercy? That didn’t sit well with him. It didn’t matter if they fought back, surrendered, or ran away. The invaders hunted everyone down, hungry for their souls. He imagined folks back home seeing portals open all over the land, with armies of superpowered savages pouring out of them. He imagined his mom and dad being ripped to shreds, their souls sucked out. He imagined his friends—Marissa, Tim, and Jake—begging for their lives only to end up on the end of a spear or blown to a bloody pulp.
At the end of it all, though, he felt Amun’s hope. The man had known he could do no more for his people, but he had distinctly felt that rush of leaving something usable for the generations that would follow. And yet Martin still smarted about being pulled from his world into this one and basically gang-pressed to fight someone else’s war.
Martin could reject all this. He could find some way to save himself, maybe just hide away and forget all about it. He could hide away in his pyramid when they came, as it was obviously overlooked by the invaders, and wait until they finished harvesting souls.
The thought only passed through his mind for a brief second before he crushed it altogether. Martin had never been one to stand on the sidelines and watch, especially when he knew he could do something to remedy the situation. Martin always stepped up, whether it was schoolyard bullies looking for their next target, power-tripping football coaches, or enraged ghosts who could not find respite even after death.
It didn’t matter if the AI governing this Osiris Project had stolen him from his world and ripped him apart from all that he knew. He could not betray the hope that Amun had placed in the project, that it would find someone to shield his descendants and the descendants of this world.
That is when Martin decided on what he had to do.
First, he had to find more of these pyramids. He knew that the original Builders were spread far and wide, setting up pyramids all over the world. Some were research facilities like the one Amun had occupied. Others were residential facilities, supporting trade and agriculture that could help the people of this world. Others were industrial facilities, supporting factories and generators. All were valuable resources that Martin would need to fend off this enemy when it next came in through its portals.
Second, he had to learn more about this land. From his visions of Amun, he had seen that the world, Copsis, had two major continents. He currently occupied the smaller western continent, with the much larger continent off to the east. A vast ocean separated them, with the tide being violent and powerful thanks to the two moons orbiting this planet. This knowledge was paramount, especially if he had to deal with enemies that could open up portals wherever they pleased.
Third, he had to understand the people he aimed to protect. He did not fail to notice the strange entities that the people of the desert could summon, like the shimmering one accompanying the prince. These ‘jinn’ manifested some form of magical ability, something that Martin was eager to learn more about. He had to keep his eyes open to the other peoples of the world, learn what he could from them, and get them to prepare for the coming disaster. The people of Amun’s time had dismissed their enemy as mere myths, and they had paid the price for their willful ignorance.
Fourth, he needed to better understand war. Movies, books, lectures, and even video games gave him a very rough idea of what to expect. The realities of war, like logistics and operations, were different things altogether. He needed to learn more, especially if he planned to control all his constructs by himself. It was getting easier to split his attention to manage the thousands of constructs under his control, but they were all doing routine tasks. Hauling materials and salvaging ruined machinery was a far cry from wielding different weapons and fighting in formations—not to mention taking lives from living, breathing people.
And finally, Martin needed to learn more about this soul-magic powering him—this pnevma as Amun had put it. All he knew was that Amun had copied it from the enemy, and that the AI Custodians had spent centuries refining the technology to control this magic. Martin then realized that the pyramids in Egypt were at least 4,500 years old. A chill ran through his being as he realized just how long this cycle of harvesting had been going on for. No, the Custodians had probably spent thousands of years working on pnevma, studying its ins and outs in their virtual prisons. And then they had to spend even more time reaching out, finding ways to travel through space and time to find others who could use this soul-based magic. They definitely had a role in building the pyramids back on Earth, though he had yet to learn how they had done so. This underscored the importance of finding more pyramids, as the memories of surviving Custodians could help him to better understand soul magic.
His mind now set firmly on these five goals, Martin immediately ramped up production of his constructs and began making a beeline for the next site on his list—the one buried underneath a swamp north of his main pyramid. Nothing quite like a literal threat to your existence to get you working overtime.
But first, he had to start building bridges with the people that were already in front of him.
Chapter 07
“What was that?” The young prince clutched his head, as did the other people around him. Even the magical creature he conjured was reeling in pain, shaking her head to dispel whatever was left of it.
The sphere sputtered as it disconnected from its pedestal, finding difficulty in forming coherent words. “That… that was a vision left by the people who first built this place. A horrible vision, one that shows how the world ended, how it will end, and how it will keep ending in the future.”
The prince turned a questioning gaze at the sphere, which seemed to wobble unsteadily in the air. He turned to Uhi, who likewise shrugged her shoulders. “I have no idea what he’s talking about.” Then something about what the sphere had said registered within Suhaib’s addled mind. “Wait… did you say the world ended?”
The floating sphere faced up then down unsteadily in a disconcerting copy of a human nod.
“What did you mean ‘how the world ended’? People still live, plants still grow, animals keep breeding, the ground is still there… the world seems to look just fine if you ask me. And what’s all this about how the world will keep ending? Ah, before that, do you mind explaining why everyone here—you included—seem like we’ve just woken up from a night of drinking more than we should?” Prince Suhaib looked around, and was surprised to see even the usually stoic armsmasters staggering about and collecting their wits.
“One question at a time, prince… uh… prince… wait, what was your name again?”
“Suhaib… Prince Suhaib Ma’an, sixth in line to Emir Rifaah Ma’an the Sturdy.” He reintroduced himself quickly, noticing that his armsmasters had snapped to attention at the relic’s disrespect.
“I’m Martin Fuller. Just call me Martin... your, uh… your highness. Am I getting it right?” The prince ignored the brevity in the man’s, no, the relic’s introduction, and waited for an answer to his questions. He quietly signaled to his armsmasters, waving them off; he would rather not have to explain to his new ally why one of his spherical relics had a throwing knife embedded i
n its crystalline eye.
“That honorific is reserved for the Emir, my father. I’m just one of his sons, the furthest down the line to inherit. But never mind that. What happened?”
It took a moment for Martin to recover from his gaffe, but he recovered all the same. “The vision I just had, it was left behind by those who built this pyramid. It showed these other people arrive through giant portals, rifts opening up in the sky, and they started butchering everyone. Man or woman, young or old, fighting or fleeing—they didn’t make any distinctions. They were literally slaughtering people to suck up their souls, and there was not a damned thing anyone could do to stop them. The invaders were just too powerful, the people just too weak and disorganized. The worst part is that they’ll be coming back to do it all over again.”
Prince Suhaib was skeptical and was tempted to consider one of these as Martin’s rambling moments, but he bit his tongue and let Martin finish.
“The Builder, Amun, he said that these invaders already came before, that the ‘writing was on the walls.’ They seem to do this slaughtering on a cycle, leaving just enough people alive to repopulate. They then come back later, when enough people have been born, to reap their souls all over again. The vision was thoroughly disturbing. Entire cities, no, entire peoples, being systematically cut down for their souls… it’s insane.”
The sphere drooped, then gathered itself up once more as it floated closer to Suhaib. “This is why I need your help.”
All this talk of doom and gloom seemed to slip off Suhaib’s mind, paying little attention to the ramblings, but Martin’s mention of needing help was something that he latched on to. If he could give Martin what he needed to deal with these fantastic ‘invaders from the sky,’ then maybe he could ask for more direct aid from the relic. His dreams of gaining forces to deal with the cartels would not be so far off then!
“I promised you a boon for saving me and my people, Martin. Ask, and I will do my best to deliver once I reach my father.”