Reality's Plaything

by Will Greenway

  His dying was so wrong.

  He realized he was shivering. Through the blur of his tears he saw that Wren now stood holding Irodee’s hand. The Myrmigyne knelt with her head thrown back and eyes closed. Only Laramis stared at the fallen warrior. The paladin’s face looked sad but composed. A tear glinted on the man’s cheek.

  “Ah, my friend,” Laramis said in a thick voice. “Go thou now to a better place. You depart in honor and glory.” He passed his hand over Dac’s face, closing his eyes forever.

  “Such a loss,” Bannor breathed. “He was a good man, with many good summers left to live.”

  Laramis looked up, expression hard. “The avatars stole him from us. It is up to us to make sure it does not go unpunished!” He reached out and touched Irodee’s arm.

  The Myrmigyne flinched and her eyes flickered open. She stared at Laramis, lips tight.

  “I must keep my promise. I will meet you at the outpost as we planned. Wait for me.” He focused on Bannor. “Stay out of trouble.”

  “What? Where are you—?”

  Laramis smiled. “Valhalla.” The word echoed. Lightning flickered, and thunder rumbled. The winds calmed.

  Laramis scooped Dac up in his arms. As he rose, a glow illuminated his face. The light made Wren turn. The woman’s cheeks glistened. She put Dac’s weapons on his chest and laid his arms across them. “Pick a good one for me, too,” she said.

  “Aye,” Laramis replied. “I shall.” He turned and started up the slope behind them. Irodee’s trooper saluted as he passed. As he walked, he started singing in a strange, guttural tongue. Each hard syllable rung in the air like a bell. Bannor felt his heart beat in syncopation with the chant.

  Bolts forked through the sky, and the air filled with a boom. The rain started faster. The drops felt hot rather than cold.

  Sarai took his arm and watched with him as Laramis marched up the hill singing, carrying Dac in his arms.

  “I don’t understand—” Bannor started.

  “Watch,” Wren said.

  Bannor glanced at Irodee. The big woman stood with her hands clasped at her breast, her pale face turned to greet the warm rain. Her lips moved in what must be a prayer.

  Blazes of light flicked across the sky, jumping all through the clouds overhead. The roars that followed sounded more like the blare of battle horns than thunder. The rumble did not fade, but continued to rise and fall. The sky brightened and glowing shapes appeared in the clouds, winged shapes.

  He looked again for Laramis in time to see something rise into the sky on scintillating wings. The flying forms dropped to meet the one that rose from the hilltop. They came together and formed a circle. The rumbling in the sky rose in pitch and the light brightened until Bannor had to look away.

  The brilliance vanished. In its place, the clouds broke and shafts of sunlight illuminated a rainbow arching into the distance.

  Bannor’s skin prickled. “The Bifrost Bridge.” He let out a breath. “Farewell, Dac.”

  Sarai pulled him tight as she stared at the rainbow. She said something in Elvish to her mother. The Queen nodded solemnly and laced her fingers in Sarai’s. Janai took Bannor’s hand.

  He glanced at Sarai’s older sister. She looked weathered and tired. He gave her hand a firm pressure. They were in this together. A horrible fear said that more than one of them would walk that rainbow into the heavens and into the waiting arms of the Valkyries.

  Wren wiped her eyes. She patted Irodee’s shoulder. The Myrmigyne put her arm around Wren and pulled her close.

  The echoes dwindled, leaving Bannor feeling spent. He looked around and saw that not only did Dac and Laramis vanish, but all of the slain dwarves. Only the fallen demons and the avatar staked out in the crater remained.

  “Odin,” he breathed.

  Wren looked over, her eyes widened. She glanced back to the sky. “He took them all. Laramis can still amaze me.” She sucked in a breath. “The avatar’s forces will be coming. We need to get moving.”

  “Let’s check the area quickly, then,” the Queen said, her voice more request than command. “We must know how the dwarves did this. Hecate still has avatars left.”

  They moved to the crater. A dark skinned male humanoid lay at the center. His cadaverous face was frozen in a grimace. A belt of snake skulls ringed his waist. Tattoos of serpents twined down his arms. Silver stakes impaled his arms and legs and a fifth his chest. Not obvious from a distance, dozens of circular wounds and burns also peppered his body. What did the dwarves do to weaken the avatar enough to make him vulnerable? In the shadow realm he’d hit Nystruul with several bolts of lightning and still that creature fought. What did the dwarves do differently?

  “It’s obvious he didn’t just lay down for them,” Janai said.

  Bannor glanced around the crater. “Laramis must have been right about enough silver driving out the god’s spirit. If people knew about silver hurting avatars, why didn’t they use it before?”

  “It wasn’t known for sure.” Wren kicked through the crater. “Avatars rarely stay where they don’t have exclusive control. If anyone ever proved the theory, they didn’t live to document it.”

  Irodee finished a circuit of the perimeter. She pointed around. “One thing unusual. All of them had crossbows.”

  “Add that to this,” Wren said. She reached down into the ashes and held up a metallic blob. “Silver—melted—probably by the avatar’s magic. There are remnants of dozens of silver objects here.”

  Sarai picked up a crossbow quiver and dumped out the contents. “Silver crossbow bolts.”

  “They probably hit him with enough to disrupt his link to Hecate. While he was stunned, they spiked him out.”

  The Queen chewed on a knuckle. “Leave it to dwarves to find the simplest and most direct way. It’s brilliant!”

  “It’s costly,” Bannor growled. “Look how many died!”

  “Tragic, yes,” Kalindinai said. “But this is a means to deal with the avatars. Dac had the right idea, but too small a force. Armed with this knowledge and silver weapons our armies can hurt the avatars. Up to now, they’ve been invincible. They’ve decimated our rank and file. If we’re fast enough, we might be able to bring down more, maybe even cripple Hecate’s chain of command.” She looked over at Irodee. “Make sure we have plenty of samples.”

  The big woman nodded, she gave orders to her troops who gathered up crossbows and silver bolts.

  “Dac did more than kill an avatar,” Wren said. “He found a way to make this war costly to Hecate.”

  Bannor dared to hope. “How many avatars are left?”

  “Six, I’d guess,” Wren said. “Each god can have up to nine. Hecate’s lost three now, Nystruul, Meliandri, and now this one. Three more dead avatars might back her off for a while.”

  “Whether she retreats or not,” Janai growled. “That thing isn’t going anywhere.” She pointed up to the black rift.

  Everyone looked.

  Bannor felt a stirring in his chest as he looked up at the spire rising into the sky. “It will go,” he rumbled low in his throat. “It’s going away.”

  “There’s an army of demons that will disagree with you,” Wren said. “Right now, it’s not a good time to argue. Look.” She pointed.

  Bannor’s heart felt like it froze in his chest as he looked where the savant indicated. The horizon appeared to boil. A mass of black, red, and blue figures churned toward them like a flash flood.

  * * *

  When finesse is insufficient to the task, I prefer a strong dose of overkill…

  —From the Dedriad, ‘musings of an immortal’

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  « ^ »

  Bannor stood in the crater by the staked-out avatar, the warm rain turning frosty against his face. His moment of revelation was shattered. Enemy creatures spilled across the grassy plain like a mountain avalanche, enough demons to drown a city. Their small, thirty-member troop would be swept away in an eye blink.

  Maybe ev
en if they ran.

  “Bannor, come on!” Wren yelled.

  Sarai grabbed his arm and pulled. He didn’t move.

  “My One?”

  He looked beyond the flood of creatures to the league high black rift-the source of their woes. He’d promised himself to face the enemy, but kept finding himself forced to retreat. He hated war. He hated the avatars. Most of all, he hated seeing friends and loved ones harassed and slain by these abominations.

  Dac’s death was a seething ball of heat in his chest. His death and the loss of all those brave dwarves cried for retribution. He had the power to mete out that vengeance.

  Irodee growled and grabbed his other arm. “We go!”

  “No.”

  “No?!” The Myrmigyne cried. “There’s too many!”

  “Trust me. Not for long.”

  “What can you do!?” Wren demanded. “They’re almost here.”

  Thunder rumbled in the distance and lightning flicked and jumped in the clouds.

  “Something I learned when you weren’t around.”

  He forced himself to relax and let his Nola sight take over. The myriad threads of the world shimmered into view. He scanned for one pattern. The one he had learned to use. He’d find those crucial strands in the storm boiling around the rift. He found it fitting to use the avatar’s rift as a weapon against them. Now, he would shock them. Later, he’d close their plans for good.

  Bannor called on the Garmtur, probing deeper into the networks of traceries. He needed the skeins deep in those thunderheads. He stretched out his hands and mind, gathering in every filament he could hold.

  The hair on his arms and head stiffened. A painful tingling shot through his body. “You like death, Hecate,” he growled. “You like pain. Let’s see if you like it coming the other way.”

  Wren apparently sensed what he’d put in motion. “Everyone cover your eyes!”

  Irodee barked a translation in Elvish.

  Bannor yanked the sky threads hard, flinging them into the path of the onrushing army.

  “Hit the dirt!” Wren yelled.

  Irodee pulled him to the ground as the heavens exploded. The storm gray sky went flash powder bright. The clouds rained lightning. Multicolored bolts formed a curtain of annihilating force that wreaked havoc on the plain. The ground shook, and the air reverberated with a long bone-grinding detonation.

  Bannor clutched his ears. Irodee and Sarai writhed beside him. Flames and smoke geysered upward.

  The maelstrom winked out.

  Silence.

  Dots danced in Bannor’s vision. His ears rang. His sight cleared by stages. A painful throb pounded in the back of his head. Overhead, the clouds broke and the rain stopped.

  “Lords,” the Queen breathed.

  Gasps of surprise came from nearby, followed by whoops of triumph. A giant swath of carnage cut across their view of the south. Where an army once advanced, now lay only blast craters filled with shattered and smoking husks. Further out, through columns of smoke, bodies twitched or spun in circles.

  “Nethra,” Irodee gasped next to him.

  It worked! Bannor rose and pumped his fist toward the rift. “That one’s for Dac! Yes! Who says I don’t have control. What do you think of—” His vision spun. “—that? Ow.” It felt as if someone stabbed him in the skull with a knife. He staggered.

  “Grab him!” Kalindinai snapped.

  Hands caught his arms as he started to fall.

  “I think,” Wren said with a concerned expression. “You’ll wish you hadn’t done that.”

  “An awesome display.” Kalindinai murmured, eyes round. “But guaranteed to be a six powder headache.”

  Six powder headache? He didn’t like the sound of that.

  Wren looked around anxiously. “Can’t care for him here. Everyone on the continent knows where we are now.”

  Bannor’s vision flickered gray and brown. “What’s wrong—I—” He blinked, trying to focus through the searing pain.

  Sarai’s face swam as she felt his forehead. “He’s burning up.”

  “You’d be too, if you’d tapped the energy of the weather patterns for a hundred leagues around. Crazy woodsman.” She shook her head. “Never, ever leave yourself without enough strength to resist the backlash.”

  “I’ll help carry him,” Kalindinai said.

  The world danced as he felt himself shifted and sensed people moving around him.

  “I showed them, though,” he croaked. “They’ll remember that.”

  Kalindinai gave a halfhearted laugh. “They aren’t the only ones who will remember today.” She took his face in her hands. “Bannor, you aren’t much good to us if you turn your brain to mush!” She turned away from him. “Janai, come help. Wish we hadn’t been forced to leave the horses behind.”

  A litter was improvised from a blanket, spears, and some rope. As they moved him, Irodee’s soldiers all came by one at time and gave their congratulations.

  He’d destroyed an army that would have taken thousands of lives to combat. Though Wren and Kalindinai rebuked him for his foolishness, no one denied he’d struck a major blow against the avatars. It was worth the pain to do that.

  At least, he told himself that each time the litter was jostled. Every bump, rock, and slip made the anguish worse. It hurt so much that tears spilled down his cheeks. Periodically, the agony overwhelmed him and he’d slip into a gray fog toward unconsciousness.

  Each time, Wren would shake him, pat his cheeks, and rouse him. “No fading, Bannor, you might not wake up—hear me? Stay awake.”

  “I’m with you, my One.” Sarai squeezed his hand.

  “Odin, it hurts,” he mumbled.

  “I know,” she said. “Stay awake and fight the backlash, otherwise it will paralyze you.”

  He groaned.

  “Mother, can’t we give him any pain killer?”

  “No,” the Queen answered. “Be the worst thing for him. We want him awake.”

  “But he’s hurting so much.”

  “I empathize.” She paused. “After two millennia, I clearly recall the backlash the time I was overzealous. I won’t make that mistake again.”

  “You?”

  The Queen laughed. “Believe it or not, I was young and brash once, too.” She let out a breath. “Carellion, for a moment, I thought he would split the continent in two.”

  “I think he took a century off my life!” Janai mumbled.

  “You did say you wanted excitement, Sister.”

  Janai muttered a curse.

  “Excitement definitely follows Bannor,” Wren said. He felt a hand on his chest. “One thing’s sure, it’ll have shaken the avatars. Just hope we have time to capitalize on it, so his effort isn’t wasted.”

  “Better not,” he grunted.

  “We’re going fast as we can, my One,” Sarai caressed his cheek.

  He cracked his lids against the grayish light to catch sight of her face. He wrapped his hand around hers. “Think I did right?”

  “Nothing wrong with destroying Hecate’s vermin.” She paused. “Almost killing yourself—and us—and scaring me … I’m not happy about that.” Sarai kissed him. “Guess we have to take the good with the bad.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Don’t thank me … I’ll yell at you later.”

  It made him laugh, and it felt like his skull tried to explode. He clutched his head and gritted his teeth, wishing for the millionth time that the agony would end.

  The trek continued westward along the Malan border, in and out of valleys, fording small streams, and skirting dense copses of trees. Twice during the day the sky treated them to a light drizzle, both times lasting only for a short span.

  The soldiers took turns helping bring his litter. Wren, Sarai, Janai and the Queen took turns standing vigil over him.

  “Still no signs of pursuit?” Wren asked.

  “None,” Irodee answered. “Think Bannor scared them. Avatar’s forces take big losses in last two days. Bannor
probably killed some of their best operatives.” She let out a breath. “Wish he hit them harder. Irodee miss Dac.”

  “A good fellow,” Wren agreed. “I think this time around, those bastards will finally get the defeat they deserve.”

  “Then what Wren do?”

  The savant went quiet, the only sounds being the creak of the travois, the whistle of the wind, and the crunch of boots on dirt. “We’ll worry about that when it happens.” She sighed. “Don’t know about you, but it’s been too quiet. I’m taking point and see if I find anything.”

  “Take care,” Irodee said.

  Bannor heard Wren’s footsteps recede.

  A hand touched his shoulder. “How Bannor?”

  He looked up at the huge ebony-haired woman as she strode next to him. “My worst hangover was a tenth this bad,” he mumbled.

  She nodded. “We get you to outpost. Be there in five bells.”

  “Good.”

  She paused as if expecting him to say something. In his foggy, pain-dazed state he couldn’t think what she was waiting for.

  “Time is short,” she prompted. “You be able to make anchors and close gate?”

  You have the power, but can you come through when it’s needed most? “I’ll do it.” He winced at the sound of his own voice. “I’m getting better with the Garmtur.”

  She put a hand on his arm, her dusky face serious. “Irodee see better, but wonder if smarter.”

  Bannor rocked his head and put his palm over her knuckles. He looked into the woman’s dark eyes. He didn’t have to tell her how much this plan scared him. She knew. Step by step, together they were forging toward the ultimate gamble. If he failed, chances were the rest of the world would die with him. “I’m trying. You know I’ll do my best.”

  “We know, all of us do.” She closed her eyes and frowned. The Myrmigyne appeared ready to say something, but then stopped. She shook her head and patted his shoulder. “We talk later.” She pushed ahead.

  They continued moving after dark. In the south, the rift looked like a rip in the night sky, blocking a view of the stars. Their march slowed, but continued westward. The ground grew more broken and rocky, and they needed to make some hazardous nighttime fording of small rivers.