by Chris Bunch
They communicated in touches, grasping organs signaling who was to go forward, who was to come from the side, who was to wait until he was immobilized and then deal the killing stroke.
The one who had been chosen leader lifted his grasping organ, hood flaring, about to give the signal.
He came at them from behind, where he’d stalked them from when they left their cave.
The first died as a grasping organ darted into an eye socket, and ‘blood’ oozed, the second as a knee took ‘her’ in the back of the head, snapping the grouped tendons that was an Al’ar spine. The third swung with a club, missed as his target vanished, reappeared out of reach, and the club smashed into the fourth’s chest. The last, the leader, had time to snap out a kick that sent the attacker stumbling.
The two from the cave came at him from either side.
The one Wolfe dreamed he was jumped straight up, turned and both his legs snapped out. He felt the kick land, felt body organs crush, felt death come.
The last turned to flee, but somehow the attacker was in front of him, slits of his eyes burning, fire demanding fuel, and the last one’s spirit was that fuel and there were five young Al’ar sprawled dead, not far from a dying fire and a waterway.
It was not long after that the Choices were made. Some chose to breed, some chose to accept breeding. The tasks of the future were clear, and each picked the one he’d been called to as his lifework.
He had known forever what his own task would be.
Warrior.
Guardians further tested him, taught him.
Then they gave him a Lumina to hold, and a new name, honoring what he had done in the night, in the desolation.
He was the One Who Fights From Shadows.
There was no greater honor for an Al’ar than to be a warrior, except to be chosen as a Guardian.
He learned other skills while he refined those of the body. He learned the use of weapons, those that the Wolfe-dreamer could name as knife, gun, missile, others that had no name or image to him.
More important, he learned when not to fight but to flee or to dissemble and lie until the weight lay on his side.
He learned how to use vehicles that let him fly, both in various kinds of atmosphere as well as space.
He was taught how to help a ship transition from one part of the great Al’ar Empire to another.
Finally he was ready.
He was named a Keeper of Order, on the far edges of the Al’ar space. Here he would be in charge of the lives of the lesser beings the Al’ar ruled, beings of many planets and thoughts, but none of real worth.
Wolfe stirred, half woke, muttered in protest, then returned to the ‘dream.’
The One Who Fights From Shadows knew the codex and ruled firmly, giving all as much life as he thought necessary, and bringing it to an end when the time for that came, as well.
Time passed.
Then the changes began.
Worlds fell out of contact with the parent culture.
Sometimes a handful of ships managed to flee to momentary safety, but as often as not the Al’ar inside them were dead or had twisted minds that could no longer make sense.
Other Al’ar Keepers of Order went into darkness, with no explanation for their death.
Something had come into their galaxy, something strange, something deadly, something unutterably alien.
Wolfe, in his dream, tried to feel what that threat was, tried to see it, but his thrust was turned aside.
The One Who Fights From Shadows was summoned to a great conference. All of the Al’ar homeworlds were linked together.
They were told the worst.
The Al’ar were doomed.
That which had entered their galaxy would be their destruction.
They could either stand and fight, or flee.
The Guardians had found a way to transition through space-time into another place, a place where they could not, would not be followed.
There was no debate, no reason for discussion. The path was clear.
To gain time, it would be necessary for some Al’ar, the best warriors, the strongest Keepers of Order, to counterattack, to hold back the evil until their people could escape.
The One Who Fought From Shadows knew he was one of the lucky ones and was lifted higher than others with the knowledge.
He was trained again, this time by Guardians, in ways to make his mind, his will harder than any metalloid, sharper than any blade or ray.
Special ships were built for the Keepers who would go out to that final battle, ships that dwarfed the biggest Al’ar battleships, but each crewed by only one being.
These ships had a single purpose, a single enemy.
The One Who Fights From Shadows was in the first group. He leapt from change-point to change-point among the stars, each time knowing he was closer to the unseen enemy.
He came into ‘real’ space from his last vaulting point, and the enemy hung in space before him, a dark cloud blocking the stars it had already killed.
His grasping organs swept over weapons banks, and wave after wave of long-strikers shot forth.
He felt them strike home, felt the enemy’s agony.
Far behind him, half across the galaxy, he knew the first of his people were preparing to flee to safety.
Then his foe regained strength and reached out, through space, through metal, for him, and took him, held him.
The One Who Fights From Shadows knew a moment, an eternity of red torment, fire, cried out, was no more.
Joshua Wolfe woke, shouting in pain, a dull buzzing in his mind. His arms, legs, and stomach were seared with red welts.
TWELVE
‘How was that done?’ Wolfe demanded.
‘Fairly simply,’ Jadera said. ‘There are records of events. We know you possess a Lumina and have become skilled in its use. We used one of our own as a link and gave you the life of the honored one who previously bore your name.’
Joshua grimaced, caught a reflection of himself in a polished wall panel, looked away His eyes were deeply shadowed, his newly young countenance pallid from the night’s ‘dream.’
‘So you - the Al’ar - were driven from your own universe into this one?’
‘Exactly.’
‘And now this . . . thing, whatever it is, is in our own space-time?’
‘Not yet. But it threatens.’
‘What is it? I could not determine.’
‘We did not permit you to see. Now we shall. Follow me.’
‘May I accompany you?’ Taen asked.
‘No,’ Jadera said.
‘Why is this not possible?’ Wolfe asked. ‘Is there danger? Taen is my partner. It would be good for him to have all knowledge that I do.’
‘There could be some danger,’ Jadera replied ‘But it is not that. We try to avoid contact with . . . with what you are going to encounter. There is an Al’ar saying: “The scent of the falaas attracts the food-gatherer.”’
‘Or,’ Joshua said, ‘in Terran, “The bleating of the kid excites the tiger.”’
‘Just so.’
It took a moment for Wolfe to realize that Jadera had understood him. He started to comment, changed his mind, and followed the Guardian out the chamber door and to a slideway.
The room was an irregular polygon. The floor rose and fell in a series of small concave waves, and was flat only in the center. The ceiling was dimpled. The walls were crystalline with colors that were motionless when looked at directly, but shifted prismatically for peripheral vision.
‘We shall need your Lumina for this.’
Wolfe turned his back, took the egg-shaped gem from its hiding place, a pouch between his legs slung on a thin band around his waist.
Jadera held out his hand, and reluctantly Joshua gave the Lumina to him.
Jadera walked across the humped floor easily, as if it were flat. Wolfe followed, moving carefully.
Jadera set the Lumina down in the center of the flat area, then took two other ge
ms, each a bit larger than Wolfe’s, from the pockets of his robes.
‘Position yourself on the floor,’ he ordered. ‘You know how to liberate yourself from your body, do you not?’
‘I do. But only for a moment.’
‘Time is of no import now. It has ceased to exist. Once you have freed yourself physically, you will know how to do the rest.’
Wolfe sank to his knees, placing both hands, fingers pointed inward, on his thighs. Jadera set the other two Lumina to form a line with Wolfe and his own gem.
‘Now the machine is ready.
‘Be advised, One Who Fights From Shadows, that what you are going to see is not real, although I use the word only as a label.’
‘What is it then?’
Jadera considered his words. ‘This enemy was not native to our original galaxy, or so it is believed, but comes from yet another time and space. It has more than a fourth-dimensional presence, unlike you and I.
‘Therefore, what you will see, all your experiences, will be what your mind and your Terran culture suggests.
‘To understand this more completely, imagine that you are a being in only two dimensions, such as in one of your hanging pictures. Now imagine that somehow you are lifted from that picture and inserted into what we call the “real world.” Forgive my use of this obvious fiction.
‘You would be only able to perceive cross-sections of this other, three-dimensional world, so an object, your Lumina, perhaps, would appear as a series of varying-sized ovals, smaller at first, then larger, then smaller as it moved past your perception.
‘Similarly, you, who consider yourself a three-dimensional being, perceive the Al’ar in a manner that we are not.’
Joshua blinked, began to ask something.
‘No. Concentrate on the matter at hand,’ Jadera said. ‘Experience all, but remember it is all ultimately false and will give you no more than a hint of what is out there.’
He returned to the door and touched the wall in several places. ‘You may begin to see whenever you wish.’
He left the room, and the door slid closed behind him.
Breathe . . . breathe . . .
Joshua lifted his hands, fingers splayed, thumb and forefinger touching, in front of his face.
Zai . . . Accept all . . . welcome the universe . . .
Reflexively his fingers came together into knife-edge, interlocked.
The void reaches out . . . accept ku . . . all is one . . .
He appeared to be in a huge cavern, the walls dank, dripping. It was illuminated by unknown phosphorescence.
The stone under his feet was worn to a wide, smooth path by the passage of numberless beings.
He heard that insect-buzzing once more. It came from ahead of him.
He went down the path, and the buzzing grew louder.
There was a wall visible through the dimness and, in its center, an enormous door.
It was like no door he’d ever seen. It was a dark stone, broken with obsidianlike streaks. It and its frame were carved with symbols and letters Wolfe thought might be an archaic form of Al’ar script. It seemed to open on either side, and above and below.
The buzzing grew louder.
Wolfe reached out, touched the door, felt heat.
The stone shimmered, became opaque, and he was in emptiness. There was a distant galaxy, its stars swirling as if he were seeing it over millions of years.
He was somehow closer, so stars were all around him. There was a scattering of red giants, more white dwarfs, still more dark, burned-out black dwarf stars. In the far distance, he saw the white heat from a pair of supernova.
As he watched, the light flashed, died. Where the supernova had been were neutron stars, falling into collapsars.
This universe was contracting, blue-shifting, dying toward its phoenix rebirth.
The being called Wolfe now saw something strange.
The space between the stars was not dark, was not night, but was filled with millions of minuscule red dots. He could see them pulsing, but they had no light of their own.
He shuddered, feeling fear, feeling death in their swirling life.
He willed himself to move closer, to study them.
Pain washed over him, flaring as if he’d been cast into a great, invisible fire.
Before he could scream, before he could move, he was on the far side of the portal, crouched in a fighting stance in the strangely floored room.
The three Luminas blazed in front of him, not with the usual multicolored lights, but solid red, the same red as he’d seen in that distant galaxy.
Then their light died, and they were nothing more than unimpressive, gray oval stones.
Breathe . . . breathe . . .
Jadera came into the room.
‘You have seen.’ It was not a question.
Wolfe rose, bowed to the three stones. It seemed correct. ‘I did. That is the universe from which you came?’
‘Yes. I assume you also saw some sort of a door, a gateway?’
‘I did.’
‘That represents the rift in space, in time, that we created to leave that universe for this. Because it cannot be sealed we Guardians were created, to stand watch against our ancient enemy. You saw it?’
‘I saw something between the stars, in space, that appeared red to me. It had filled the distance between the nearest ones completely but was patchier farther out, toward the ends of the galaxy.’
‘That was it.’
‘What is it?’
‘Once more, I must remind you, there are no correct words for it. Not in my language, not in yours.’
‘It reminds me, for some unknown reason,’ Wolfe said slowly, ‘of what we call a virus.’
‘I know the term. Except this virus can take anything, take all for a host, from small, living beings to planets to the space between them. Perhaps it even infects the very fabric of space. Once these things have been touched by our enemy, they become different. If they lived once, they live no longer, at least not in the form we call life. Inanimate objects become part of the creature, the being, as if their particles have been altered to match its own.
‘Call it a virus, if that pleases you. It is a single entity; it is many. It bears a resemblance to your microorganism in two other ways - it is all-consuming and it is always growing, increasing.’
‘I saw but one galaxy. What of the others in that universe?’
‘I assume they are “infected” by this time, since within the last time periods we have been aware that the enemy is looking about for new territory to grow into.’
‘This universe?’
‘Yes.’
‘So it followed you.’
‘It has not yet followed us. But it appears aware of our flight, as if we somehow left a trail.’
‘Thanks,’ Wolfe said, changing language. ‘So humanity’s next. And we can’t run like you Al’ar did.’
‘What would your people have done if they had our powers and were threatened by this being? Would Terrans have done differently?’
‘No,’ Wolfe admitted. ‘But what you said doesn’t make me feel any fonder of you at the moment.’
Jadera remained silent, and Wolfe thought he sensed indifference.
‘Can this enemy be fought?’ Joshua asked
‘It could have been once.’
‘You speak in the past. Please explain.’
‘I shall show you. Come.’
Taen was waiting in the hall outside. Wolfe quickly explained what had happened.
‘I was told what you would see by another Guardian,’ the Al’ar said. ‘I will say I have no regrets at not looking at the enemy who destroyed my people’s home and sent us into exile in this terrible universe you inhabit.’
Wolfe eyed him, made no comment.
Jadera led them into a circular room. A featureless gray column five feet high and a foot in diameter rose to one side. Jadera walked behind it and touched places on the column.
There was darknes
s and then a huge Lumina appeared. It was about the size of Wolfe’s head.
‘This is an image of the Overlord Stone,’ Jadera said, ‘the greatest of all Lumina. It is said that all the other stones hived from this one, although how that could be possible is not known.
‘This stone, like its smaller sisters, is actually little more than a lens, and gives the properly trained adept something on which to focus his powers - even his wishes, if he is of a high enough level - and causes certain events to occur that seem impossible.
‘The Lumina were native to our original universe. They were used by many generations of Al’ar as tools to help build our powers to fight, to move in hostile environments and times. They are weapons, learning tools, many things, depending on who looks into them, with what desires.
‘When the enemy appeared, our forefathers were just beginning to use this great Lumina to explore other possible universes. We thought it might even be possible to enter those of the past and future, although no one had yet accomplished that.
‘Then, as I said, the enemy came, and all of our efforts were concentrated on defeating that horror.
‘As you dreamed in our records, one was the original One Who Fights From Shadows. He and his fellows died an honorable death giving us valuable time to flee.
‘Once we had reached this universe, we tried to close the rift, but were unsuccessful.
‘We positioned one of our starships close to the rift and created Guardians to watch for any signs that our enemy might sense us and follow. While a handful of us kept watch, the rest of the Al’ar expanded into this new galaxy and began settling new worlds.
‘After some time, we encountered humans.
‘We studied your techniques for moving planetoids, improved them, and, about one hundred years ago, positioned this world you are on to replace the Guardians’ ship and armed it to be nearly impregnable, although you proved that there is no fortress that cannot be assaulted with success.
‘The rest is as you know it.
‘Eventually we realized that only one race could exist in this universe, and the other would be doomed to extinction.’