by J. F. Lewis
He couldn’t help but wonder if bringing Vander in to solve the problem hadn’t been somehow selfish. Still, it wasn’t as if Kholster was likely to have the chance to redefine his deific role over again and attempt a more timeless and self-sufficient approach.
Besides, Harvester intoned, Vander is already in place and growing to fill his appointed task admirably. Unless you feel you require his abilities, in which case, I have been thinking about—
Not necessary, Harvester. Kholster 8972 shook his head. We don’t hurt Vander. Ever.
As you say, sir.
While Kholster 8972 discussed Vander’s merits with Harvester, another of him (143) examined the rotted corpses of two Zaur who had attempted to ambush him a lifetime ago, after he and Rae’en had split up upon entering the Parliament of Ages, their journey of thousands of miles which had run from South Number Nine, through Darvan, along the great merchant road, through the Guild Cities, South Gate, Midian, North Gate, Kings Guard.
He remembered when they had both fallen asleep at the feet of Torgrimm’s statue on Pilgrim’s Hill and missed the Changing of the Gods completely. The simultaneous blessing and curse that was an Aern’s memory recalled every nuance . . . the feeling of Rae’en resting against him. He’d wondered if it would be the last time he and his daughter would ever share such a moment. It seemed likely.
Elsewhere, still watching, one step removed from the mortal world, the Prime Kholster frowned. Arms folded across his chest, wrinkling the smooth lines of his cotton shirt, the First Forged and, for millennia, the First of One Hundred, the Aern-turned-deity glared with disapproval at the new atrocity wrought by the being who had created him. His amber pupils seemed lit from within, illuminating the jade irises surrounding them and creating a ghostly second iris in the reflection of the black sclera of his eyes.
Blood spattered the cuffs of his steam-loomed jeans, spreading dark and wet across the top of his work boots. The blood was not his own. A single drop of it clung to a link of Kholster’s belt of corded bone-steel.
Sir, a voice intoned within his mind, I could easily cleanse your garments if . . .
No thank you, Harvester, Kholster thought back.
When he’d first ascended by ripping away roughly half of Torgrimm’s powers, Kholster had preferred to allow himself the illusion of mirrored reality when he stood apart, creating mortal environments to suit him in much the same way Aldo, the late god of knowledge, had generated a book-filled inner sanctum. Only, in Kholster’s case, he had tended to duplicate the material world around him not realizing that was what he was doing. Understanding had led Kholster to either ignore the need for such things completely or to do as he did now: stand at the edge of an omnipresent precipice similar in many ways to the watch station back home among the mountains of South Number Nine, viewing the rest of the world from above, creating a deliberate divide.
Harvester, his second warsuit, a massive thing of bone-steel, paced nearby, the light breeze of Kholster’s imaginings stirring the flowing red mane that decorated his helmet. Where Kholster’s first warsuit’s helm had been wrought in the likeness of a roaring irkanth—one of the horned lions native to the Eldren Plains where Kholster had been forged—Harvester’s helm echoed Kholster’s own transformation, its likeness that of an irkanth’s skull.
I assume we are going to do something about that. Vander’s familiar voice filled his mind, comforting Kholster not only with his presence, but, concurrent with Vander’s new role as Aldo’s replacement, by allowing Kholster, the Prime Kholster, First among an army of infinite selves, to endure the omnipresence required by his duties as the Harvester of Souls.
Still trying to understand exactly what Uled has done, Kholster thought back.
Ah, Harvester’s thoughts broke in, with Torgrimm’s former might split in twain, he as the Sower and we as the Reaper—
Not what I meant, Kholster thought back. That is what he appears to have done.
I assure you, sir—
No, Kholster’s thoughts were unintentionally stern. It is what he has accomplished, yes, but I am not certain exactly what it means or what he intends to achieve with it.
The endgame, Vander agreed, thinking to both Kholster and the warsuit.
You think there is more to it than a return to the material world?
Vax does. And that has me thinking: if this was Uled’s goal, Kholster thought, then why are the dead still rotting?
And— With a thought, Vander relayed visuals of a different scene. At the ruin of Port Ammond, the frozen and burned army of Zaur and Sri’Zaur poured over the rubble, clearing it as they went. Why are they doing this?
As they watched, the dead Zaur, Sri’Zaur, and the corpse of the dragon seemed intent on wiping the port city’s ruin from the face of Barrone. With the dragon’s help, it didn’t take them long to reduce the port city to a field of rubble bearing only a geological resemblance to the former capital city.
“Coal.” Kholster muttered the word despite himself. For hundreds of years, the great gray dragon had been his friend and confidant. For most of that time, the gargantuan wyrm’s scales had been the pale gray of spent coal. At the very end of his lifespan, as Coal had saved the Aernese fleet from a supernaturally summoned hurricane, leaching the heat from hundreds of miles of ocean, the old dragon’s scales had blackened again, a last burst of metabolic effort, the final stage of a dragon’s life.
Coal had lived for so long that Kholster could only think of one being who remembered a time before Coal had hunted the skies over the Eldren Plain. He should have had a hundred years in his second “youth,” but he’d chosen to spend it all for a last battle with Hasimak, eldest of the Eldrennai. Wizened, by elven standards, the Eldrennai High Elementalist and his apprentices had fought the dragon and won, but at the cost of Port Ammond’s destruction and the loss of two of his apprentices: Zerris and Lord Stone. Zerris (also called Lady Flame) had been the head of the Pyromantic School of Elemancy and identical twin of Klerris, Lady Air, the head of the Aeromantic School of Elemancy. She and her sister had swapped robes, tricking the dragon into attacking the one of them (Zerris) most likely to survive his flame instead of her sister, who had kept the dragon from taking flight with gale force winds.
Lord Stone, the head of the Geomantic School of Magic, had died with less heroic tactical value in Kholster’s opinion, but they had been the first elves Kholster, as the new god of death, had surrendered to the Horned Queen to be taken to their punishment or reward. They were Aiannai, Oathkeepers, whether they had been officially dubbed so or not. They had never held the leash and they had gone out of their way to help free their teacher, when he could not help himself—releasing slaves of one’s own accord was weighty currency in Kholster’s eyes.
When the Sea Lord, Hollis, had etched the grave marker and interred the bodies of Lord Stone and Zerris, Kholster had raised an eye at the inclusion of Hasimak’s name upon the rough monument. After all, he could see the old mage, floating unconscious between dimensions, half way between Barrone and the Never Dark, where the Ghaiattri dwelled. Injured? Yes. Dead or dying? Kholster knew the first to be untrue and doubted the second would be likely as long as two or perhaps even one of the Port Gates from which the old elf drew his mystic might remained intact.
Sir, Harvester prompted. I cannot discern an outline for what they are building.
Building? Kholster shook his head. They are eradicating. They are— Interesting.
Sir?
Kholster narrowed his gaze, allowing Vander’s capacity as both Overwatch and god of knowledge to enlarge and enhance the images that interested him. The gray and brown scaled corpses of Zaur, smaller and more homogenous than their Sri’Zaur cousins, swept in low to the ground, picking bits of shiny detritus and holding them aloft for a handful of Sri’Zaur to check. Several of the gilled Lurkers, a sub-breed of Sri’Zaur adapted for the ocean depths, moved among the Zaur inspecting their findings, discarding most, hissing with pleasure over others.
On a display in the upper-right quadrant of Kholster’s vision were arrayed the various types of Sri’Zaur, displaying common variances even among a single group by injury and coloration. Most bore scales worked in dark greens and blues with stripes or mottling resembling seaweed, but two displayed pale blue scales, with dark stripes along their limbs and bright red splashes of color above and around each eye.
More numerous, the black-scaled Sri’Zaur with zigzag bands of yellow or blue also searched, while their commander, his boiled scale-covered hide burst open, cracked, and torn in a manner so thorough there was more of it hanging loose than taut, surveyed the scene from a spot atop dragonback. Had the dead Sri’Zauran Commander, with his rheumy parboiled eyes, seen what his mount was doing?
Show me that again, Kholster prompted his Overwatch.
Vander replayed the careful way the dragon’s corpse plucked a melted lump of bone-steel and dropped it casually within the ruin of its own gaping chest, where it tumbled down inside the wound and froze snug against the chest cavity, out of sight beneath the garish blue glow of the being’s ruined torso.
Did you see it that time, Harvester? Kholster thought.
Yes, sir, but why—?
Why indeed? And why does a similar degree of autonomy appear to have been granted to Kuort back in the tunnels with Rae’en’s Overwatches and the two humans?
And how? Vander thought at both of them. Coal is dead, or he was the last time I checked. Kholster, you didn’t slip his soul back in while I wasn’t looking, did you?
Kholster transmitted the recent memory of one of him, a glowing egg-shaped soul in his arms, arriving at the home of Torgrimm and Minapsis. It was a small, unassuming farm by deific standards. The fields seemed to stretch on forever, but no wildlife populated it. Even the crops appeared to be mostly for display, edible, but planted whenever the Sower wanted to sow and harvest whenever the Harvester so desired.
“Do what you will with him,” Kholster told the Sower when he found him planting corn in a newly plowed field. “He feels finished to me, but I saw no afterlife for dragons, and that’s your wife’s dominion anyway, not mine.”
The memory ended with Torgrimm wiping dirt covered hands on his trousers before taking the soul reverently into his arms.
I didn’t really mean for you to answer that, Vander thought mirthfully. I did see it, you know.
I know, Kholster thought back, just to tease his friend, but in his mind’s eye he watched the dragon hide away the lump of bone metal and pondered. Next to the repeating image, he queued up a loop of the entire operation and watched for whatever else he was missing. But you also saw Kuort in the tunnel.
Yes, Vander admitted. Contrary to the opinions of many on the matter, however, knowledge and comprehension don’t always share a bunk.
Kholster snorted at that.
You care to put me on the scent? Vander asked.
When I’m certain I have it, Kholster assured him.
What do you expect to find? Harvester asked.
The real reason for all this destruction, Kholster mused, as the eradication of Port Ammond played out before him. Uled has a purpose even in events that appear to be mere vanity. I just don’t see what it is yet.
Or did he? What were those Zaur corpses doing off in the direction of the old barracks? And the others, moving down exposed stairs to the sublevels beneath the former keep? Kholster walked that way, only to find the openings covered over with stone and concealed. What had they done down there?
Should I connect you with Wylant? Harvester asked. She and Vax—
No, but . . . Kholster ground his teeth. Conflicting desires and emotions furrowed his brow. He wanted so much to see his wife, to spend time with her, with his sons, with Rae’en, and let the world hang, but that would be a great disservice to the Aern as whole. Vander, do you mind showing them to me?
*
And now? Vax asked.
Clemency, the newest of all the warsuits, stood across the practice room from Wylant, wielding a bone-steel warpick the spitting image of Kholster’s current warpick, Reaper. Wylant studied the weapon for any sign of deception, but the illusion was perfect. Even Clemency’s stance was a lie. Her raw bone-steel betrayed no hint that it was empty; even the leather portions visible at the joints appeared to have skin pressing against them, muscles shifting beneath.
Unlike many of the warsuits, Clemency showed no signs of decoration beyond the highly embellished helm. Lines of red crystal swooped and curled about the helm, reaching down as far as the center of the breastplate but no farther. All warsuits could adjust themselves to fit a new occupant, but ordinarily this occurred only when one Armored Aern chose to die, lending their spirit, their skills, and their memories to strengthen the whole and bestowing their warsuit upon an Incarna or heir.
She should not have found it so surprising. Most warsuits had not been forged by a half-born Aern who spent most of his time shapeshifted into a weapon wielded by his mother either.
Okay, Vax thought at her. Now check this.
As Wylant watched, Clemency’s proportions morphed into those more suited to Kholster: thicker in the waist, broader at the shoulders, flatter in other areas. Thus altered, Clemency executed a series of attacks, straight forward, but measured and in control. Each blow screamed precision, balanced by a sheer force no human or elf could equal.
Good?
“It’s excellent Vax, but it’s missing—” Wylant began. Her flaming tresses, torn so recently from the scalp of the fallen goddess Nomi, moved of their own accord as she walked around Clemency to judge her from all angles.
One more phase to go, mother.
“I wanted you,” Kholster’s voice came from the armor, “to judge each portion in turn.”
He froze, warpick held on the horizontal before slinging it on Clemency’s back and walking toward her. His stride, the swagger, was subtle, but conveyed confidence and drive. Kholster walked as if no obstacle could divert him from his intended path. Clemency mimicked it perfectly.
I can’t do his scent until— Vax let the last word hang. Well, not until later.
“Now.” Her own voice came from the warsuit. “Check me and see if I have you right, too.”
*
He will have you down, Vander thought. Give him a few weeks and—
Days, Kholster corrected.
You want to go to them, don’t you? Vander asked. He joined Kholster on the cold expanse that had once been the Lane of Review, the cracked ground shifting under his feet. Vander looked at the ruin as a chance for a new beginning, beautiful in its way. If Rae’en and her people, her newly combined peoples, wanted to reclaim this place, they would not be haunted by the architecture of the past.
Yes. Kholster knelt, studying the ground. Around them, unaware of their presence, the dead worked, the dragon in their midst.
Why not—? Vander knew Kholster was going to cut him off before he even began the sentence, but the words would have their effect all the same, designed as they were to spur Kholster forward, to get him to do whatever it was he already knew he should do next. Kholster almost always knew what had to come next. In Vander’s experience, Kholster’s chief problem was trying to look for other ways around it, if what Kholster had to do ran counter to what Kholster desired to do.
No. Wylant and Vax have their own roles to play, and Clemency with them, Kholster cut him off. This is mine. He encompassed the shambling and the more fully functional alike with a sweep of his hand. Uled is my responsibility.
Vander nodded.
Why? Harvester asked.
“He is my father.” Kholster strode a little way toward the dragon before speaking again. “I think Coal is still resisting him, too. Look.”
*
Bereft of their souls, few had the power to resist Uled’s grasp. Coal tried to watch the gods observing him without giving any outward sign. Uled’s thoughts flowed around and occasionally through the great wyrm’s mind, but the dragon responded only with gre
at deliberation to the annoying abomination’s commands. Coal, or what was left of the once-great dragon, fought the influence of the ancient evil in measured bursts: First, to warn the Bone Finders of his lack of control and then two more times, once to discreetly pluck a bit of bone metal from the wreckage of Port Ammond and another to deprive the exhausting little Zaur of a silver of the Life Forge by jamming it firmly into the tip of a foreclaw when it seemed clear he could not risk dropping the thing into his chest cavity with the bone-steel.
It had been risky enough to allow the Bone Finders, who had come to the shattered ruin of Port Ammond, the site of his glorious defeat at the hands of Hasimak and his favorite pupils, to flee. Oh, when Dryga had insisted, Coal had snapped and struck, but death (Alas! Ha!) seemed to have affected his reflexes. Other examples of the newly risen dead seemed slow and ungainly at first, so why then should he not emulate them?
It wasn’t as if he were under his own control. Was it? Or not so much so that Uled could tell without Coal wishing it. When Kholster had arrived in his skeletal warsuit to claim his draconic soul, it had been like being split in twain, cold filling up the spaces where his inner heat had once dwelled. Enough to end the sentience of most mortals, true. Enough to dim even his own self-control momentarily. He had possessed Jun’s breath, his destructive flame for his entire life, and being without it . . .
But I, Coal roared within his own mind. Soulless or not. Heartless or whole . . . as long as my brain is intact, my mind is ancient. Powerful. Indomitable! I AM DRAGON!
Wings flexing under the starlit sky, Coal’s eyes blazed with inner light, the gaping hole in his chest pulsing with an energy both raw and unfamiliar, yet he could feel the workings of his gas sacks and, while they functioned, drawing in power from the atmosphere around him, there existed fundamental error in their operation. He tried to draw in heat but sensed instead the raw influx of elements from the air.