In Nadir's Shadow

by E. J. Heijnis

  Raisa slapped his shoulder. "Come on. Let's go wrap this up."

  *****

  Rain hammered the forest, drenching the earth and loosening Azial's grip as he traveled through the trees. The deluge had started the previous day, a final gift from the dying rainy season, and it had slowed their progress to a crawl. Below, Tihamtu and his entourage struggled through the mud. Azial suppressed a spike of anxiety with a deep breath smelling of wet earth. They were close, but he'd wanted to be home by now. With Tihamtu's grudging approval, he'd left the Circle even before the Udaki delegation had departed, searching for Musuri. He had found nothing, and after he'd rejoined the column for the last leg home, he'd learned that no word had come from Lakhmu since she set out to look for his son.

  Even his aching worries couldn't fully eclipse the regret of having killed Gusur. The challenge had been fairly made and fairly met, but the outcome left Azial with a sickness in his stomach. He couldn't help but think he'd failed, even though it had been Balbasu who made the challenge, and Balbasu who refused to accept the consequences. A warrior of the Kith had been slain in righteous combat. The sacrifice should have been enough to settle any dispute. The fact that it hadn't left Azial wondering: what other sacred laws would Balbasu break, and what would become of the Kith because of it?

  Cries of challenge pierced the rattle of the rain. The village gate appeared through the curtain of water, already swinging open.

  Someone stood in the opening.

  Azial increased his pace, closing the remaining distance ahead of Tihamtu and the rest. Whoever stood in the open gate held another in their arms. As he slipped out of the trees and landed in a splatter of mud, he recognized Lakhmu. The Sharyukin had lost an eye to a deep cut across her face. Blood and rain dripped down her face.

  The one she held―

  Azial halted. One more step and he'd know. He stood at the edge of despair, searching for a way out, a different answer. Nothing came. He'd taken every step to get here, and now he couldn't go back. If he could only stay here, in this moment, before his last shred of hope―

  "Azial," Lakhmu called in a broken voice, anguish twisting her face. "Come and take your brave son. He walks with his ancestors."

  He screamed and ran. Seizing the body from Lakhmu, he sank to the ground and cradled his son's still form. Musuri's eyes were closed, and a grimace twisted his features. Deep cuts all over his body. One leg dangled by a shred of flesh. "Musuri! Come back to me! Come back to me, my son! Don't leave me now!"

  Musuri didn't stir. His wet limbs remained stiff and cold.

  "He found Tamzi," Lakhmu said, her voice a distant echo. "But the Vile was there. He fought it. I know, because it had wounds when I found them. He wounded it, Azial! I killed that one, but more came. I could only bring back his body."

  Musuri!

  My son!

  I've killed you!

  Azial squeezed his son's body and rocked back and forth. If I'd gone instead of Lakhmu! If hadn't spoken to you so harshly! What did I say to you? "The things that follow from what you do, are on your shoulders."

  A hand rested on his shoulder. "Where is Pirisati?" Tihamtu said.

  "She went to her hut after seeing Musuri. She hasn't come out."

  "Azial, you have to go to her."

  Don't you understand? He'd failed her as much as he'd failed his son. With brutal, mocking clarity, he understood only now that he'd sent Musuri down this path. Bad enough that he'd been cursed with a father he could never hope to surpass, but Azial had ever refused to express his pride. His stubborn fear that his son might content himself with mediocrity now returned as a knife twisting in his heart. And Pirisati had seen it all, and tried to make him understand. She'd shown him all the patience he should have had for his son.

  He'd thought she was teaching him to be weak.

  Burying his face in Musuri's wet hair, he screamed. Throat raw and lungs heaving, he found no relief no matter how loud his cry. His voice had left him by the time hands gently lifted him up and took Musuri away. Tihamtu half-carried him into the village, to his home. No light waited within.

  "I'll take care of Musuri," Tihamtu said. "We will prepare him. Rest, and calm your heart. He feels no pain now. He found glory with his end, and honor. Even now, he sits with our ancestors as they celebrate his life. Tonight, we will do the same."

  Azial staggered into the hut to escape Tihamtu's cutting words. He sank to the ground in the shadows, unable to see or think past the merciless knowledge that his son's life had ended.

  "You wasted him."

  He recoiled from Pirisati's dead voice. "I know everything you could say. Please."

  "Please?" Listless mockery in her tone. "You think because now you understand what you did, you can silence me? No, you will hear me. I told you. I told you what he needed. But you insisted he learn everything the hard way. You refused to bolster his confidence. What choice did he have, but to make some grand gesture? You are Sharyukin. He wasn't. He was always going to feel unworthy, but you made sure that he did. Imagine his pride, stunted from the start, and how it must have stung every time you refused to acknowledge his success."

  "Be quiet."

  "No. I have no compassion for you. I have no feelings at all. I died when Musuri did. I'm a ghost now, and the hurts of the living cost me nothing. You took my son from me. You think you feel pain now? You at least know why you suffer. After all, it was your fault."

  His palms stung as tears leaked into cuts made by his own fingernails. "I love him. I wished him well. I wanted him to have a good life."

  "Wishing and wanting aren't enough. It's what you wanted, but it's not what you gave him."

  "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I want him back."

  "He's gone. Forever. He walks with our ancestors, but where are they? No, he is gone. Lie there, Azial, and think about that. Your son is gone."

  That night, once the rain had abated, Tihamtu personally came to escort them to Musuri's funeral. The boy's lanky frame lay on a wooden frame, sideways since the body had stiffened while Lakhmu carried it. The tribe had gathered in a circle around the pyre. Azial kept his eyes to the ground, terrified that he might be caught by a sympathetic glance. Cringing with every soft, empty word of condolence, he fought the urge to flee. Only his desire to honor his son prevented him.

  Merodakh stood alone inside the circle next to the pyre, a burning torch in one hand. His ash-covered face revealed nothing besides the nod he offered. Once Azial and Pirisati took their place in the circle, he spoke: "Musuri, son of Azial and Pirisati, child of the Udaki tribe, is dead. His flesh is empty. His spirit is free. Our fathers' fathers and mothers' mothers welcome him home as one of the Kith." He looked around the circle. "Musuri fell to the Vile. I've said this about others before. The monsters remain. Our sacred task remains. But Musuri didn't fall easily. He took a wrathblade on his journey, and the monster that took his life paid in blood. Musuri fought the Vile! A young man, born without the Blood in him, fought back against the Vile! It is said his enemy bled from a dozen wounds, and died easily soon after. This is glory! This is strength! Musuri lost his life in service to our oldest law: slay the Vile wherever they are found."

  Merodakh turned and looked at Azial and Pirisati. "It's been said that Musuri sought renown. Let it be known to all the Kith that Musuri, son of Azial and Pirisati, died a brave warrior, carrying the spirit of the Kith into battle! His faults are washed away with the blood of his enemy. We will remember him by his strength and his bravery." Merodakh approached and held out the torch. When Azial didn't take it, the medicine man gently reached for his hand and lifted it to place it on the torch. "Light the pyre, Azial. Send your son home."

  It took all his strength to step forward and hold the flame to the oil-soaked wood. The fire spread quickly, aided by the light breeze. In minutes, the area bathed in the flickering light of his son's ascendance. Azial found he had no power or inclination to hold back his tears. It shocked him how empty his life now seemed. He'd filled a
ll his days with work for the future of the Kith, yet Musuri's death stole the meaning from his every act. Despair tempted him. Why continue?

  Pirisati moved faster than he'd thought she could, aiming to climb the pyre. He barely managed to grab her ankle before she could get away. Others came forward and helped him drag her down. "Leave me!" she screamed. "I laid him to rest, now let me follow! Cowards! Selfish thieves! I spit on all your names!"

  He knew she was right. How could he ask her to stay? For what? And yet he couldn't bring himself to let her go. His tears now came from shame and frustration as he dragged her away and laid her down. She curled up at once, weeping bitter tears with long, heaving sobs. He'd never heard a more wretched sound. He sat beside her and watched the fire consume Musuri's body. Ashes floated away with the smoke.

  Chapter Fourteen

  As soon as the door closed, Seruya said, "Get out."

  "I am not able to."

  Of course not. So her trust had been betrayed after all. "You know I will force you."

  "You must try to understand. This place is protected by a field of energy that drives away my kind. I can only be here clothed in your flesh. You cannot eject me, because there is nowhere for me to go."

  "How convenient for you."

  "I would be able to scout this location much more quickly were I free to move around. I had intended to explain this before entry, but circumstances made that impossible. As soon as we leave, or manage to disable the field, I will vacate your body."

  Seruya felt Sage's presence as a constant, inaccessible awareness. It felt like a violation, and having agreed to it initially didn't make it any better, but she could endure it a while longer.

  She slowly scanned her new surroundings, so unlike anything she had seen before. She stood in a short corridor with white walls and a grey floor that felt cold to her feet, with a single door leading further into the structure. A bright part of the ceiling lit the space. "Since you're going to be here, guide me. How do I open that door?"

  "There is a knob on the wall to the right. Pushing it should open the door."

  She followed the instructions and the door slid sideways to disappear into the wall. Light spilling out from the corridor revealed only vague shapes, but as soon as she stepped through, glowing rectangles in the ceiling blinked to life. She stood at a crossroads of three corridors. The two to either side featured doors on one side, spaced regularly apart, and terminated at corners leading further into the building. Ahead, the third corridor led to another intersection, but a section of the wall to the right had been cut down to chest height, creating a separate, square space that contained many small doors and things she had no words for.

  Nothing she saw existed in her world, and the sour, dry air added to her sense of displacement. She couldn't begin to grasp how this place had been created, or what purpose all these things served. Her reflexes and experience were useless. She wouldn't even know how to detect a threat, let alone deal with it.

  "I suggest you go into the enclosed area ahead. We may be able to access information there."

  Somewhere inside, she would find the way out of this place. As much as she detested relying on the spirit, she would use it to learn everything she could. A Sharyukin was nothing if not adaptable. She approached the low wall.

  A stool sat behind it. Bones lay scattered on the seat and the floor around it, along with a skull and a shiny round object. The confirmation that someone had been here before sparked a sense of relief and reassurance, that she hadn't accidentally passed into some demonic underworld. "This one will be of little help."

  "Perhaps. Do you see the small square object lying among the bones?"

  She'd assumed it was debris. "What of it?"

  "It is a device that contains information. Its placement on the floor suggests this individual held it in their hand when they died, which might mean they wanted it to be found."

  She picked it up and held it up to her eye. A black square the size of her thumbnail, as thin as a flake of flint. "This contains information?"

  "Additional devices are needed to access it. If you turn to your right, you will see a desk. Towards the―"

  "What's a desk?" she snapped. "Speak plainly!"

  "A horizontal surface used for work. Do you see the hand-shaped objects on top? Just below the one on the right, there is a small opening that should fit the device."

  "What will happen if I put it in?"

  "I am not sure. You may hear a voice, or see an image. Nothing may happen, since this place is very old."

  Sage wasn't as useful as it claimed to be. Still, she had no other ideas. She found the opening and inserted the device.

  A sigh echoed through the space. Seruya found a wall to put her back to and drew her weapons. No one was present to have made that sound. She glared around, expecting an attack.

  "There is no immediate danger. As I explained, the information on the device is recorded in the form of a voice. It is like a memory kept outside your head. I suggest we listen."

  "I don't quite know where to begin," said a deep voice. Exhaustion and resignation weighed heavy on its tone, and Seruya could barely penetrate the slurring accent. "I suppose I might introduce myself. Hiam Antipin, Director of Biotech Weapons Research, Human Enhancement Division. I had a not-insignificant part in the mess we made for ourselves. I assume you're aware of what I'm talking about, or maybe you're hearing this hundreds of years later and it's all ancient history." He sighed again. "I dearly hope not. In any case, the reason for this recording is that I won't be leaving here, and I want to leave behind something of a record for the benefit of anyone that might make it this far. If you're here, it means you've made it past the Marauders outside, which means you have substantial motivation. Either that, or they've all died, but I can't believe that. Not for a moment. Those things are a nightmare, and I can't help but believe that you're here because of them, because you're trying to exterminate them and you're having a difficult time. The good news is, you came to the right place. Sadly, there isn't a grand secret I can tell you that will solve your problem."

  Seruya blinked furiously, trying to understand. Half these words she'd never heard before.

  A sloshing sound filled a pause in the man's words, followed by a wet cough and a pained grunt. "All right. A brief history lecture. Once upon a time, there existed two schools of thought in regards to biological weapons. One held that microscopic entities held the most promise. Too small to see, and hard for the enemy to identify even when engaged. Diseases, bacteria, all such unpleasantness. The other concerned itself with enhancing the capabilities of the human body. The theory was to multiply the strength, agility and intelligence of a human being, while retaining an independent mind that could analyze situations and make appropriate decisions, even if circumstances developed beyond the scope of the initial assignment.

  "I suspect I sound biased." A loose chuckle. "That's because I am. The human enhancement program was mine. The Ascension program. The microscopic technology program was headed by someone else. I'll discuss it further shortly. What we did was collect a group of the local primitives and place them in a controlled environment. We needed healthy specimens to work with. We took the strongest, healthiest young adults, and we changed them. Although I'm tempted, I'll restrain myself and leave out the technical details, since I'm a bit too drunk to do twenty-three years of research any justice.

  "Now, depending on your moral standard, you may think that this was uh, cruel. That we didn't have the right. And you'd be right to think that. Those people were perfectly happy where they were, in their rainforest. Which we were cutting down a few thousand acres at a time." He paused. "What to say? What can I say? Nothing. I did it. And I understand now. But I won't regret having done it. If not for my work, those things out there would strip the world bare in less than a hundred years. Not to mention... I never would've..." The voice trailed off, and paused in favor of a slurping noise. "The technology failed in one specific way. We hadn't inte
nded for any of the traits we were enhancing to be hereditary. As it turned out, nearly all of them were. Inconsistently so, and it was entirely possible for an Ascended to have unenhanced children. But even these unenhanced children could produce Ascended offspring.

  A rattling belch. "So then. I promised I'd address the other school of thought, so here you are. Microscopic entities. As long as their research was limited to bacteria and viruses, their progress was glacial. But then they employed a breakthrough in robotics, and that's when they became dangerous. They staged endless experiments, including with my subjects. Some truly terrible work. But in the end, they developed an entirely new concept: a core of microscopic automatons, with the unique ability to take organic matter and modify its form and function. The core collected material and used it to construct an entirely new being around itself. The resulting creature was essentially part robot, but one couldn't tell by looking at them.

  "Perfect obedience. Astounding strength and speed, and powerful natural weaponry. Camouflage in the form of environmentally adaptive skin. Not something to be thrust into open battle, but in urban or forest environments, they were lethal. In numbers, they were unstoppable. But the most unpleasant aspect of the project was the creature's primary mode of reproduction. The intention was to create something that could sustain operations in the long term, even in the face of heavy losses. So they endowed them with the ability to repurpose living beings. Mechanical spores enter the host body and start rewriting its biology. They make a cocoon inside, and a new creature grows. The host dies at some point, of course, but not before being compelled to find a quiet spot for the cocoon to finish developing. And the spores are in constant communication, so each time a host is successfully infected, a Marauder comes to protect the cocoon.

  "What makes them truly terrifying is the problem they were never able to address: if left alone with standing orders long enough, the Marauders start to reinterpret those orders. For instance, say they are instructed to take a structure from the enemy and keep it secure. After completing the initial objective, they will expand their numbers, and venture beyond the established perimeter to seek out incoming threats and eliminate them. The more of them there are, the further afield they go, and their definition of 'enemy' starts to erode. The only major field test had to be terminated with the help of four entire infantry divisions and substantial air support, because the Marauders threatened to overrun the entire test range with no signs of slowing down."