God's Last Breath

by Sam Sykes

  Mototaru was silent for a long time. “Shaab Sahaar is gone.”

  Gariath thought he should express outrage over that. He wasn’t sure why it didn’t surprise him.

  “It was shicts,” the old tulwar said. “They circled around us as we marched to Cier’Djaal. And more emerged from the forests. They crept in, set the city ablaze. Those warriors that survived came to join us.”

  “And those who weren’t warriors?”

  Mototaru was silent for a longer time. “We are all warriors now.”

  This was what he had given them.

  He had promised them war; he had given them death. He had promised them vengeance; he had given them corpses. He had promised them a city, and he had lost their home. And at the end of their long struggles, all he had to offer them was empty houses and broken streets.

  They had given everything to him.

  He pulled his battered body to its feet. He cast one final look out over the city they had taken. He let out a snort and began to remove the splint from his arm.

  He would spend a very long time repaying them.

  “What are you doing?” Mototaru asked, quirking a brow. “The healer said—”

  “Tell the healer I will need a new sling,” Gariath interrupted. “Tell the warriors to begin searching the city. Tell them we need food and steel. Any beast that cannot carry a load should be slaughtered for meat. Any human …”

  He finished tying the bandages around his splint. He snorted.

  “Kill any who try to fight. The others … let them go.”

  “That is not wise,” Mototaru said. “We are weak right now. We should limit the humans who know it.”

  “Let every human know it. Let every shict know it. And every tulwar must hear that we are not weak.” He reached down and plucked the pipe from Mototaru’s lips. “We survived the demons. We will have vengeance on the shicts. And now …”

  He pressed the pipe to his splint. The embers caught the bandages. A makeshift torch blossomed in his hand.

  “We will do what we should have done during the first Uprising.”

  He looked to the Silken Spire above. He looked to its fluttering silken sails. He looked to its skittering, lazy spiders. He narrowed his eyes.

  “The humans are not the only ones who can build. We will take what we need. We will build our own empire. They have given me everything.” He growled. “I will give them their home.”

  “This city is too big for us to defend properly,” Mototaru mused. “Still, there is much for us to take here. The silk stores alone could—”

  “No.” Gariath stalked to the Spire. “I will not build on human weakness. Take stone, take steel, take meat and wood and solid things. Leave the gold and the silk.”

  “And everything else?”

  Gariath stared at the torch in his hand and spit three words.

  “Burn it down.”

  He raised the torch to the silk. In the breeze, it caught slowly. But from just one spark, a fire spread. It nibbled at the silk in timid orange jaws. It found the taste to its liking and spread to a cackling gape. And then, as it swept up the great silken sheet, it began to feed in earnest.

  The spiders barely knew it was happening. Those that saw it coming made a halfhearted effort to escape the flames. But all were consumed, disappearing soundlessly beneath the roar of the flames to be devoured.

  And as night fell, Cier’Djaal’s last moments were of glorious brightness.

  FIFTY-ONE

  RESPITE FOR THE LOST

  The bells are tolling, my children!”

  Teneir’s voice was loud and gay as she walked among the white square of Silktown. Her arms were thrust out wide and inviting, her mouth full of songlike laughter, and though she had but one eye left, it offered a brightness the like of which could only be matched by her smile.

  “Can you not hear them?” she asked the assembled. “They are singing to us! They are the voice of Ancaa! She has come to give us that which we deserve!”

  The people of the square were rapt in attention. Their eyes, unblinking, were fixed on her, save for those who were watching heaven. Their mouths hung open in awe as she twirled and danced through the square. Not a soul moved as she made her way between them.

  “Rise up, my children!” Her voice shuddered with laughter. “Rise up and hear the bells! Come and be adored! Come and let her love you!”

  She turned to a child upon the lawns surrounding the square. She leaned down and took his face gently in her hands. She smiled widely at him, at the empty wonder in his eyes, at the red smear around his mouth.

  “Child … child …” she whispered. “It is as I promised. Ancaa has come, child. Rise up and greet her!”

  The child’s mouth hung open, silent. A fly buzzed around his head, landed on his bloodshot eye, and crawled across it.

  “Child … child!” Teneir whispered. “Rise up!”

  From the edges of the lawn, Dreadaeleon watched. It had not been long since he had arrived in Silktown, even less since he had seen this creature.

  He did not know what else to call her. The fasha, noble and draped in silks, was gone. So, too, was the monstrosity that Lenk had described. The woman here now, bereft of Khoth-Kapira’s influence, was wounded from many cuts, including a great hole where an eye should be. Her nude flesh was scabbed over with scaly patches, her hair gone and left with thick hide. Her remaining ochre eye shone brightly and her mouth was wide with fangs.

  But he could not call her a monster.

  “Ah, their song is beautiful! You glorious few who believed in her, she has come to reward you!”

  What mind, however fiendish, could keep their sanity in the wake of this?

  The lawns were scattered with their corpses. The square was stained red with their bloody vomit. The sky was alive with the flies that fed on them and the few enterprising carrion birds that had returned to feast in their wake.

  Young and old. Men and women and children. A few hulking dragonmen sprawled on the ground, a number of slain saccarii strewn across the square. Each one wearing the last moments of horror when the thick slop that had been their entrails had spilled out onto the stones.

  Thus was the fury of the shicts.

  He had deduced it from what Kataria had told him. But it only came together once he found the barrels of wine. The remnants of the poison still clung to the wood in a thick green sheen.

  With just a few barrels of wine and just a few drops of poison, the shicts had accomplished more carnage than a colossal demon could with an army of abominations.

  Faced with the scope of such hatred …

  “Brothers! Sisters! Sing with me! Rise up and be heard!”

  What mind would not simply break?

  It would be better to leave her, he supposed. Whatever madness had claimed her had given her more bliss than the sane world ever had. Perhaps it would be kinder to simply let her live out whatever remaining fantasy she had.

  But then his eyes drifted to the Souk and the burning pillars of the Silken Spire.

  He had been too weak to take on the entire tulwar army. But even weakened, the threat of him had been enough to convince them to slow their march long enough for Asper’s plan to evacuate.

  He had … opted not to aid the evacuation in a way that would put him at the fore. Better that he not be seen, he thought. Better that he remain behind, to further warn the tulwar. Even now, as they prowled the city, he had no fear of them.

  But they would not know what to do with this woman. She was no threat to them, clearly. But they would not leave her in peace. This was Gariath’s army, after all.

  A familiar urge crept into his gullet. An unfamiliar voice crept into his head.

  Perhaps it would be kinder, it whispered, to make better use of her. His fingertips ached. Wisps of smoke peeled from them. You are still weak. You must eat something soon. Why not ease her agony? Why not use her strength? You could protect so many …

  He shook his head.

 
; “Prophet,” he said. “Prophet … they have heard you.”

  Teneir looked up toward him. Her eye lit up brightly, her smile wide at him. She came rushing up to him and took his hand in her own. He could feel the warmth racing through her fingers, the pulse of her blood in her palm.

  “Brother!” she whispered, reverent. “You have heard! You have risen!”

  “I have.” He nodded and smiled softly as he reached up and laid a hand on her cheek. “But it is these mortal distractions that cloud my mind so. I can only hear her clearly when I shut them out.” He looked skyward and closed his eyes. “They are so much clearer now, sister.”

  “Are they?” Teneir followed his gaze. Her eyes fell shut. Her smile grew broader, almost tranquil. “Yes … yes, I can hear her! Tell me, brother, do you think she is pleased with all I have done?”

  “She is. Rest easy, sister.”

  Bright electricity flashed from his fingers into her skull. She stiffened in his grip for a moment. Her hand slipped from his.

  “Your work is done,” he whispered.

  It had been a kind death, he told himself, even if she had not been a kind woman. Perhaps Asper would have made her suffer more—or at least wanted her to suffer more. But he had a grander view of death these days; its scale, its scope, its intimacy. Perhaps in these, he had learned compassion.

  Yes, another voice whispered. What with blowing people to bits. You positively ooze compassion.

  He ignored that.

  Or tried to.

  “I would have let her suffer.”

  He looked up at the sound of a voice. Sitting on a bench beside a fountain, perhaps the last living man—or the last living mere man—stared at Dreadaeleon.

  One wouldn’t guess it to look at him, though. His spectacles were cracked. A gash streaked his shaven head with red. His clothes were in tatters. He was the pale color of a northerner, though, not the dark Djaalic color. Pity to have come all this way to visit on this day.

  “She deserved it,” the northerner said, “for what she did to this city.”

  Dreadaeleon looked down to the many corpses strewn about the square. “And them?”

  The man looked at them, sniffed. “Them, I tried to save.”

  “You didn’t do a very good job.”

  “No. I did not.” The man sighed, stood up, and knuckled the small of his back. “I would argue that my intentions were good in the long term. But …” He looked up to the burning Spire. “This was my city, you know.”

  “This city seemed to have many masters.”

  “This city had no masters,” the man said. “And few friends. Many thought they were the former, of course, that they could just push the city to do what they want. Only a few of us knew the truth.”

  “That being?”

  “The city makes silk. Silk makes gold. Gold makes fashas. Fashas make thieves. Thieves make corpses.” He shook his head. “The city does what it wants. It humors tyrants until it’s done. It indulges thieves until it doesn’t. Best you can do is just try to be in a spot where you benefit.”

  “You were a thief, then.”

  “Me?” The man shook his head again. “No. I was a friend.” He grinned. “Not a very good one, I suppose. But I tried to do right.” He glanced at Teneir’s corpse. “She and I … we both did, I suppose.”

  Dreadaeleon followed his gaze. “Seems you failed each other.”

  “Seems so.” The man sighed. “Understand, though, this city … it doesn’t have room for ideals. Hers or the Prophet’s.”

  Dreadaeleon felt his eyes narrow at the last word.

  “But hers? She wanted a god that would never come. Dreams, we could make room for. The Prophet, though, wanted change.” He shrugged. “And the city … well, she got in its way, anyway.”

  “What did you say your name was?” Dreadaeleon asked.

  “No need. I died here today, friend. Along with all of Cier’Djaal’s friends.” He turned and began to trudge away. “But it wouldn’t be the first time. Someday I’ll be back with a new name.” He threw up a halfhearted wave. “Maybe I’ll see you around then, friend.”

  The man froze suddenly.

  His body stiffened and went straight as a spear. His jaw clenched itself shut. His eyes bulged from his skull, made the spectacles fall from his face and shatter on the ground. He let out a thick, wet choking noise as he tried to turn to face Dreadaeleon.

  The wizard held his hand out, the air shimmering about his fingertips. He felt the man’s rib cage in his grip, felt it resist as he began to curl his fingers.

  “Yeah,” Dreadaeleon said.

  He closed his hand into a fist. There was a loud, cracking sound.

  “Maybe you will.”

  The man flopped over, still. Dreadaeleon walked to his body and stared at him.

  A kind death, in its own way. This was a day when cruel people received such, anyway. He supposed, if they were still alive to do so, they might ask him who he was to mete out such judgment.

  He might reply, if he felt like it, that it was for the same reason he did not go to see the ships off when they left. Mere men, they had such a tiny view of death: Either a thing was alive or it wasn’t. But him? He had a grander view of such things now.

  And he was no mere man.

  Not anymore.

  He closed his eyes. He pressed his fingers to the man’s scalp. He felt the smoke peel off his fingers.

  And beneath the burning Spire, he fed.

  FIFTY-TWO

  THE PARTING WORD

  It had been a long time since Mundas had last smiled.

  It hadn’t been sudden. He remembered the joy he had felt when he had first renounced. But over the years, he slowly gave up his capacity for it. There was no real point in it. There was no pleasure to be had in seeing the necessary done, no satisfaction in seeing the inevitable occur as it should; the outcome was the same, regardless. Mirth was simply a momentary lapse of concentration he could ill afford.

  To that end, Mundas thought he had also lost the capacity to despair.

  But as he stared at the great column of fire as the Silken Spire burned brightly into the night, he began to doubt that.

  Decades of planning. Years of implementation. Months of execution. Undone in a few days. Destroyed with a single spark.

  A savior slain. A civilization destroyed. A world doomed.

  He paused, allowing himself to search for sorrow.

  He found nothing.

  Across the long verdant fields of the Green Belt, he felt something. Miles away, a pair of eyes were set upon him. A single breath later, someone was behind him. He turned. He regarded his new company.

  A man made of threads stared back at him.

  He supposed others must see something else when they looked at the dark figure that stood before him. Most might see a shadow in the shape of a human. A select few might see the colorless husk beneath. But for someone like Mundas, who no longer perceived flesh or breath as others did, he could see but the few thin threads by which this unliving thing clung to this dark earth.

  Qulon had employed things like these before; hers was to challenge the flesh, after all, and death held no more mystery than life for her. This thread-man was but the latest of her private army of killers. No doubt, this one had taken many for her.

  Yet he hesitated.

  “You seem nervous,” Mundas observed. “Generous of Qulon to leave you that quality.” He stared at the shadow for a long moment. “Do you wish to introduce yourself?”

  The shadow did not. But he did not need to. Mundas knew this one’s name, for he had heard it once, in a time not here, in a place not here.

  “Perhaps you believe I will react with violence to you for your part in this?” He glanced back to the burning Spire and shook his head. “That is forbidden by our agreement. Speak whatever message you were commanded to deliver.”

  “Qulon wishes you to know that she will be moving on,” Denaos said. “She feels her time will be better spent p
reparing for what is to come.”

  Mundas accepted that with a quirked brow. Qulon rarely considered other activities more worthy than gloating. But, then, this was a rare victory for her. Perhaps she simply didn’t know what to do with it.

  “She advises you not to worry. What is coming will ultimately result in a stronger world, after weakness and corruption have been forcibly shed.”

  Mundas did not worry. Nor did he respond to that. Whatever mistakes Qulon labored under, he would correct, eventually. Though it would be many lives before he could.

  He turned away from Denaos, the thread-man, and looked back to the burning Spire to contemplate this. But the thread-man did not leave.

  “And people are free now,” he said, his voice hesitant. “Whatever else happens, there’ll be no demons to lord over mortality. Everything else, it almost doesn’t matter.”

  Mundas did not bother looking over his shoulder. He almost didn’t bother answering. But something in Denaos’s voice compelled him to. Bereft of joy or despair, perhaps he still had a fragment of pity left in him.

  “Qulon did not instruct you to say that,” he said. “Nor do you believe I will heed you. You are speaking to soothe yourself.”

  “And?” Denaos asked. “It doesn’t make it any less true. Khoth-Kapira is dead.”

  “He is.”

  “The demons are gone.”

  “They are.”

  “Mortals are free.”

  “To kill each other, destroy their homes, and eat their children, yes.” Mundas sighed. “And you think that this virtue, however small, justifies what happened to you? What she made you?”

  Denaos was silent for a moment. “I have to.”

  Mundas was silent for a longer moment. “You do.”

  Whatever allowed Qulon to create as she did, he had no desire to know—this was the truth she had discovered when she had renounced, just as he had found his own. But there was something different about this one. She had returned his flesh but had not spared him the fears and worries that had come with them. Cruel of her, he thought. Or perhaps her truth was deeper than mere cruelty.