The Ashes Of Worlds

by The Ashes of Worlds (v5. 0) [lit]

  He shook his head. “That is an irrevocable act, and it is tantamount to abandoning hope. Since I do not believe the Mage-Imperator is dead, any such action would therefore be premature. I will not do it.”

  “There are those who say that if you do not do this, then you are a coward, Prime Designate,” Ko’sh retorted.

  “There are those who say many stupid things,” Yazra’h snapped.

  The Prime Designate squared his shoulders, drew a deep breath, and turned to all of them. He had to be strong. “Even though he is not here, the Mage-Imperator left me in charge. I was not born to be Prime Designate, but that role has fallen to me. You are my best advisers; that is the role that has fallen to you.”

  He gave them a stern look. “Ildirans have trouble producing new solutions to problems. My father said that if we did not learn to change, it would be our downfall. I charge you with this task: Find me a solution. We are the Ildiran Empire! I do not care how desperate or unorthodox the plan may seem — suggest a way that we can fight back against the faeros.”

  25

  Faeros Incarnate Rusa’h

  Inside the seared-clean remnants of the Prism Palace, Rusa’h continued to burn the lines of his new thism to guide the Ildiran people. The soul-threads were bright and hot like the filaments in a blazer. He had to go out and see what he had accomplished.

  Rusa’h summoned flames from the floor and walls, pulling curtains of fire around him until they formed a fireball that enclosed him like a cocoon. He drifted through the already blasted passageways, shattering a heat-brittle door to reach the open air. His incandescent body floated above the now-slumping towers and minarets of the Palace, and from that vantage point, he surveyed his domain. He turned his flashing gaze out across the intricate metropolis of Mijistra that had been the jewel at the heart of the Ildiran Empire.

  Rusa’h was torn between two driving obligations: guiding and controlling the Ildiran people, and continuing the resurrection of the faeros. The fiery elementals within him didn’t care about the Empire; their battle had far vaster implications. But he wanted to save his people.

  He had learned to his frustration that the new faeros sparks on Theroc had been extinguished. The verdani had fought back with unexpected strength, aided by wentals, green priests, and even human military ships. It had been a setback for the faeros, but not for Rusa’h. He had everything he needed here on Ildira . . . except for Mage-Imperator Jora’h, who refused to return to his people, despite their loud outcries.

  Sooner or later, Rusa’h would find his brother. It was only a matter of time.

  In his flaming ship, he flew over the rooftops of Mijistra, gazing down on monuments, museums, and now-dry fountains. The Hall of Rememberers was empty, its interior charred. Most of the artisans’ quarters and communal dwellings for craftsmen, metal workers, technologists, and chemists had burned down. He passed over a medical center, a vehicle landing field, warehouses that held food for a populace that was no longer there.

  The sheer sense of emptiness saddened him. Now that the hydrogues were bottled up in their gas giants, the faeros had the freedom to run. They could destroy whatever they wished, grow unchecked until they became the dominant force in the Spiral Arm and beyond.

  Stretching his mind out to vast distances, Rusa’h joined the faeros leaping from star to star through their transgates. They frolicked in the reawakened Durris-B, where they had reignited nuclear reactions and set that star alight again. The faeros had reawakened many other old stellar battlegrounds, as well, reclaiming territory the hydrogues had taken from them.

  But Ildira was his. The Ildiran people were his. Again, he hammered that fact into the faeros.

  Below his flaming ship, Rusa’h spied a group of desperate refugees leaving a food warehouse from which they had retrieved supplies for one of the poorly hidden camps. True Ildirans should have stayed in Mijistra to praise him for restoring his people to the Lightsource.

  But when these people saw him, they ran in abject terror, many dropping the supplies they had taken. Rusa’h could have pursued them. With little more than a thought, he could have sent a surge of flame to burn down the buildings in which they hid. He could have swept in and stolen their soulfires to stoke the flames of the faeros.

  But he chose not to. Though he could feel the restless elementals within him, he held them back. He could not allow the faeros to run rampant. He had meant to use the fiery elementals to achieve his own ends, but his influence extended only so far. Their chaos was quite powerful.

  His fiery chariot circled over Mijistra and returned to the Prism Palace. A dozen of the giant fireballs appeared in the air overhead, milling about, always hungry, capricious, uncontrollable. They were eager for something to destroy.

  Perhaps the faeros could help him find Jora’h. . . .

  26

  Mage-Imperator Jora’h

  Desperately alone aboard the warliner — far from Earth, far from Ildira, far from anyone — Jora’h struggled to remain sane. Huddled in his private quarters, he had no idea how many days had passed. He felt only the gulf of emptiness extending forever.

  For most of his life, he had believed the Ildiran Empire to be all-powerful, all-encompassing. Splinter colonies spread across the Spiral Arm so that the thism web extended everywhere. He had been so misinformed.

  Though weak to the marrow of his bones, Jora’h made himself get up from his bunk. As Mage-Imperator, he must not allow himself to look defeated. He took three stuttering steps toward the bright blazers built into the wallplates, staring all the while at the dazzling light, using it as an anchor.

  At least it wasn’t dark. Chairman Wenceslas hadn’t inflicted that particular torture on him — not yet.

  If he cried out, if he surrendered, if he swore he would do as the Hansa demanded, would the EDF Admiral deliver him back to his people? Once he returned to the lunar base, though, he knew Chairman Wenceslas would probably string him along. The Chairman would never simply let him go.

  After an abrupt signal at his stateroom door, Admiral Diente entered without waiting to be invited. Jora’h forced himself not to shiver at the terrible, freezing aloneness that coursed through his veins. “What . . . do you want?”

  Diente kept his voice emotionless, as if delivering a bland report. “My software experts have been studying this warliner’s database. We found what seems to be some sort of a translation system designed to converse with the Klikiss. Is this true?”

  Jora’h closed his eyes, trying to concentrate in spite of the swirling vortex of solitude. He searched his memory. “In ancient times we communicated with the Klikiss.”

  “Does it still function?”

  “We have not used it in thousands of years.” He paused, struggling as other memories came back. “Wait. Adar Zan’nh used it. Yes, he spoke to the Klikiss . . . at Maratha.”

  Diente nodded. “Then we may be able to use it for negotiations with the Klikiss.”

  “Negotiations . . .” Jora’h heaved a breath, intending to laugh, but he could not find the strength to do so. “You have trespassed. You have angered them. The faeros may be Ildira’s greatest enemy, but the Klikiss are likely to be yours, Admiral. You are too blind to realize it.”

  Diente seemed very sad and weary. “We’re our own worst enemy.” His voice was so quiet Jora’h barely heard him. “I am acting under orders, Mage-Imperator. I do not wish to do this to you. It is . . . demeaning to the leader of a great Empire. I always admired your Solar Navy.”

  Now a flash of anger surfaced, allowing Jora’h to sharpen his thoughts. “Then how can you allow this? If you know your actions are wrong, why do you follow your Chairman?”

  Diente stared for a long moment, the focal point of his dark eyes far away. “Because, Mage-Imperator, the Chairman has my wife, my son, and my two daughters hostage. He has threatened to murder them if I show a hint of disloyalty.” He clenched his fists at his sides. “He has my family.”

  Jora’h was too distressed by
his isolation to understand the full import of what the Admiral was saying.

  From the pocket of his uniform, Diente pulled out a small display screen the size of the palm of his hand. Activating it, he showed a sequence of images: a beautiful woman, a teenage daughter, a handsome young man, and a smiling little girl, then another image with himself in the picture, a unified and happy family.

  “Perhaps I have said too much. Thank you for the information about the Klikiss translation system.” He abruptly switched off the images and pocketed the screen, embarrassed. As if dispensing a well-deserved reward, he added before he left the stateroom, “We should get back in a few days. Not so long after all.”

  “Not so long . . . ?” Jora’h said through clenched teeth. Time had already stretched out to a wintry infinity.

  After Diente left, Jora’h’s knees gave out, and he collapsed onto his bed.

  A few more days. He did not know how he could bear it.

  Days . . .

  27

  Margaret Colicos

  When the new breedex finally summoned Margaret into its hive fortress, she determined that she would have her answers. For so long she had watched the insect creatures slaughtering rival domates, wiping out rather than incorporating the defeated subhives. At last, though, the Klikiss had stopped ignoring her, and she hoped to learn why this hive mind was so different from all the others . . . so much more vicious.

  Margaret considered running to the trapezoidal frame of the main transportal. Before the hive mind guessed what she intended to do, she could punch any coordinate tile and simply leave. But the transportal network went only to other Klikiss planets, and any gateway would just take her to another insect-infested world. She was better off here.

  No, she would stay here and take her chances with the Llaro breedex. Though this one seemed more bloodthirsty than any of the others, it had intentionally kept Margaret safe. Therefore, the breedex must want something from her, if only she could understand what it was. She had no reason to be afraid. The Klikiss had kept her alive this long.

  From outside, the hall of the breedex appeared tall and lumpy with twisted candlewax towers on either side. Spiny warriors ushered Margaret into the dark opening of the central structure, and she went willingly. With their razor-edged serrated limbs, the Klikiss could have chopped her to pieces in an instant . . . but they could have done that at any time over the past several years. She knew they wouldn’t harm her — not yet, at least.

  Margaret was still a scientist and had spent many years with Louis studying the ancient ruins of the supposedly extinct race. She knew the Klikiss as well as any human could know an alien species. She straightened her shoulders and kept pace with the armored creatures along winding corridors like the chambers in a spiral seashell. The closeness of the numerous Klikiss intensified the smells that reminded her of sour bile, rotten eggs, decaying fish, and old sweat, a symphony of pheromones and chemical signals.

  Her warrior escort guided her into a buzzing, humming central grotto filled with horrors. The heads of more than a hundred vanquished domates lay stacked like trophies. In the middle of the chamber, beside the grisly trophies, lay a stirring heap composed of millions of squirming, shifting bodies. She had seen the breedex before, but she did not look forward to this encounter.

  Margaret stopped. The stench made it hard for her to breathe as the Llaro hive mind formed itself into a structure that could face her. The myriad mound began to move as hundreds of thousands of components assembled like the pixels of a broad and complex image. As the shape began to grow definite, Margaret realized that something else was different from the previous incarnations of the Klikiss hive minds.

  Not only the warriors, but hundreds of large workers, diggers, and other sub-breeds stood together like worshippers in a church. The background noise became more than just the incessant rustling of limbs and wings and shell casings. She heard a clacking of mandibles, a buzzing of chitin plates being rubbed together to create musical sounds. It became recognizable as a language.

  In her years among the Klikiss, Margaret had developed a rudimentary ability to communicate with the creatures. She comprehended some of their tones and chirps, and could make similar noises herself. Now, however, the background drone changed. Though it was slow and unpracticed, the sounds became recognizable. A word.

  “Margaret.”

  The warriors and workers made a single voice in an extended, eerie choir. “Margaret Colicos.” Never before had the Klikiss attempted to speak human words. Never, as far as she knew, had the creatures even understood the concept of names.

  Startled, she took a step backward and bumped into the spiny body of a warrior, but the Klikiss creature did not move. She faced the breedex, which continued to form itself like a gigantic, interlocking puzzle.

  “You’re different from the last breedex,” she said.

  The breedex mound finally completed shaping itself until it vaguely resembled a giant human head made out of clay by a clumsy child. Its mouth moved, and noises came out like swirling breezes that picked up sharp-edged sticks. “Margaret Colicos . . . I know you.”

  Something had definitely changed. “What are you?” she demanded.

  “I was . . . in part . . . a man.” The human features continued to resolve themselves into finer detail. “A man named Davlin Lotze.”

  She stared. “Davlin?” She had never learned what had happened to the man; obviously, the Klikiss had assimilated his genes as well as his memory. But Davlin must have done something to the formative breedex, retaining some kernel of his own mind, which was now coming to the fore.

  “After several fissionings, my subhive has gathered enough human DNA to make us more human.” The pieces shifted like an image coming into focus, and now the rough approximation of a face became more clearly Davlin’s. She could easily distinguish his features. “I fought the breedex larva, and I am now part of it.”

  “Your mind is the Klikiss mind?”

  “Part of it. We became stronger, and I struggle for dominance.” As he remembered how to communicate, the Davlin-breedex seemed to grow more proficient with his words. “I won’t let the faint human traces from the colonists be diluted further.”

  She saw a heartbreaking change of the portrayed expression, a slight alteration in the tone of voice. The image blurred and then sharpened again. “We now have . . . an uneasy peace, the Klikiss and I.”

  Margaret stepped closer to the horrendous mass. “Then why are you so bloodthirsty? Can’t you stop these hive wars and impose peace? The Llaro subhive has been more vicious than any other.” It made no sense to her.

  “Because we must be more vicious. I . . . we must eradicate all the others.”

  “Why?”

  “To save humanity. The subhives will attack, and dominate, and destroy. In the end, only one breedex will survive. One breedex will control all. One breedex will be the breedex.” He paused for a long moment, and Margaret struggled to understand what Davlin was implying. “Therefore, I must be that breedex. Humanity has no chance unless I conquer the other subhives.”

  Margaret caught her breath, though many questions tumbled through her mind. Was this why she had been saved? To become a liaison? “You want the human race to deal with you, instead of another breedex.”

  “Yes.”

  “And then there will be peace between the humans and the Klikiss? We’ll no longer have to fear you?”

  “I am strong, but I am not the only mind here. Even if I win, there are no guarantees. I am still part Klikiss.”

  Staring at the monstrous form, Margaret felt a chill go through her. “How many subhives do you still need to defeat?”

  “Five other subhives still fight on the Klikiss worlds, spreading outward. Two are battling at Relleker.” The face shuffled itself, crystallized again. “I remember Relleker from when I was . . . merely Davlin. My subhive will wait, and then crush whichever breedex wins there.”

  “And how can I help?”

&
nbsp; “Stay here. Do not let me forget my humanity.”

  28

  Orli Covitz

  When the last few crates were loaded in the Blind Faith’s cargo bay, Orli, DD, and Mr. Steinman climbed aboard, and the ship departed for Relleker. Captain Roberts was glad to be setting off again on a regular trading run, and very pleased to have such good company.

  The Blind Faith sailed smoothly across space. On the tablescreen, Roberts checked his manifest. All three of them had heated up mealpax of something called “nourishing stew.”

  “When we get to Relleker, those people will be so thrilled they’ll throw a feast in our honor,” Roberts said. “It used to be a resort, you know.”

  “Relleker was a well-respected and wealthy Hansa colony,” DD chimed in, reciting from his database, “best known for its spa cities, its comfortable climate, and its wineries. Only the wealthiest people settled there.”

  “And the snootiest,” Roberts said. “The colony head was a real piece of work, refused to lend us a hand saving the people on Crenna, tried to charge us docking fees while our ship was gathering emergency supplies.” He frowned. “Now, I’m not a man to hold a grudge, but maybe it was karma. The drogues wiped out Relleker, blasted every building to the ground, killed every last colonist.” He took three quick slurping mouthfuls of the alleged stew. “But it’s a whole new colony now, a fresh start.”

  “I can’t wait to see it,” Mr. Steinman said.

  When the Faith arrived, the planet looked like a beautiful blue-and-green gem mottled with clouds, a place to tempt human settlers. Grinning, Roberts transmitted, “Hey, down there! Send out the welcome wagon. We’ve brought a shipful of supplies, if anybody’s buying.” When the comm system remained quiet, his smile faltered. Glancing at Orli, he transmitted again, more formally now. “This is Captain Branson Roberts in the Blind Faith. We have a load of cargo for the settlement. Please transmit landing instructions.”