down towards the forest floor, towards a sheltered
pocket of old, impenetrable shadows where an ancient
swamp lay. It quivered as he plunged into it, a black,
gritty wetness grasping his struggling limbs, dragging
him down further down . . .
Return to the soil, return to the seed of things ...
He was drowning yet not drowning, while immense
thoughts coursed through his mind.
... to your soil, to your seed ...
The swamp faded, its enfolding dark trembling into
misty night strewn with stars and swirling haze, and the
rich light of a planet turning slowly overhead. Umara,
the beautiful blue orb that he had watched countless
times from the high towns of Segrana. But his gaze was
drawn to another distant quarter of the sky where an
array of glittering points moved steadily nearer, stretch-
ing across almost half the firmament, and behind it was
another vast formation and behind that another and
another. Then his mind . . .
His mind was within one of those points, a vessel
crammed with metallic shapes, incomprehensible
devices, all webbed with furious energies while lodged at
the vessel's heart was a creature, an intelligent being ...
An enemy to be pitied, a knight of the Legion of
Avatars, the truncated remnant of something that had
once walked upright. Their race became entangled in
its own technical hubris, eventually surrendering to a
union with the machine, inveigled by promises of
immortality. They hate the flesh and its flaws, a hate
that bred fear and a hatred of other species less invaded
by technology ...
Suddenly Chel was back, staring up into the deepness
of the night as arrow-formations of glittering points
swept towards the spreading web of Legion vessels. An
eyeblink and he saw the graceful lines of the newcomers,
long contours adorned with curved wings and vanes yet
seemingly too few against the swarming attackers.
In their millions the Legion invaded from another
universe, and battles like this bloomed in hundreds of
star systems. Facing desperate odds, the High Ancients
rallied together and wrought a terrible weapon in the
cause of the Great Purpose ...
As battle was joined he was shown fleeting glimpses
of clashes near other farflung worlds, saw scientists and
workers of many races working without cease to finish
the weapons that would end the Legion's destructive
rampage, tunnels bored down into the deep layers of
reality - warpwells.
Vast amounts of power were needed to bring the
warpwells to life, so hundreds of millions of High
Ancients gave up the energy of their minds and bodies to
create those vortices of destruction. Witness their dignity
as they sacrificed themselves to the greater good. A hun-
dred thousand years ago, a sacrifice long forgotten by
almost all, yet our memory is everlasting and we will
deny the Unmaker a final victory . . .
Chel saw the warpwells reach out to drag everything
into their dazzling maws, dust and meteorites, the debris
of battle, lifeless bodies, warships of either side. Some
Legion craft on the edge of the conflicts tried to escape
but the High Ancients gave more minds to fuel the
warpwells and their reach extended out to the space
between the stars. He saw Legion vessels by the thou-
sand drawn inexorably down, many reduced to
wreckage, spilling vapour and ragged fragments, while
others still grappled with the larger High Ancient war-
ships, all funnelled inwards, crashing together, hull
against hull. Then Chel was . ..
Chel was in the middle of it, hurtling downward
amidst the grinding shriek of metal, the buzz of horrify-
ing weapons and the roar of the warpwell vortex, whose
ice-blue-spear-black light blurred everything. Suddenly, a
world loomed - his second descent - rushing upwards, a
dazzling bright eye that gaped, a lacuna of energies into
which he plunged.
From all sides came glimpses of strange worlds and
stranger firmaments, deranged landscapes, inconstant
tracts, distortion, decay and desolation, fleeting and
fading, a shadowy succession of realities through which
he fell. Openings began to appear, pulling great swathes
of mangled machines and vessels, and Chel seemed to
see this from outside, see all the warships, Legion and
High Ancient alike, disintegrate and scatter across the
dark, deep layers of hyperspace. He realised that the
same thing was happening at all the other warpwells,
the utter destruction of the Legion of Avatars, millions,
perhaps billions of them, a cataclysm to stagger the
mind.
Could anything survive such a descent? The rushing
blur slowed as he fell with the battered, broken rem-
nants into a foggy abyss webbed with flickers of silver
radiance, slowing still further, drifting down past black
cliffs . . .
Many died that still many more and their successors
might live on . . . yet Unmaker takes many forms . . .
The cold shadows faded, and he blinked slowly as he
looked up. Once more he stood on that high place,
gazing at the planet overhead and almost crying out
when he saw that it was burning from horizon to hori-
zon. A few stretches of pockets were still green but
smoke veiled the surface of Umara, great wings and tails
of darkness sweeping across forests, plains and moun-
tains.
Ten thousand years ago Unmaker came again as the
Dreamless ...
Something crossed the bright edge of the planet, a
strange cluster of spikes growing as a large silhouette
came into view, a solid curve of blackness, some kind of
disc with antennae and probes radiating, Chel guessed.
Then a rod of polychromatic light stabbed out and
something exploded in planetary orbit, shedding a burst
of illumination upon the silhouette. Chel saw that it was
a massive globe covered with countless columns and
spires of varying sizes, wavering like the spines of a
colossal sea creature. And there were others drifting in
from the lightless gulf of interplanetary space, black
bristling orbs unleashing glittering barbs that fell on the
world below.
From a mountaintop on Umara he saw them strike
and tear apart the land, great slabs of ground and forest
rising up, twisting and disintegrating in the grip of a
terrifying destruction. But the Uvovo held their posi-
tions throughout the burning, tormented forests. Chel
could see them in underground chambers, in hilltop
strongholds, in fortified caves, all working with strange
mechanisms through which the green force of the
planet-girdling forests was channelled.
As I once was, with unity and with a voice . . .
He saw the Waonwir temple in its original state, pil-
lared, open floors rising from the hollowed-out
/> prominence, Uvovo everywhere engaged in serious
tasks. Its uppermost levels tapered to a slender tower
that sprouted numerous leaflike vanes which shimmered
with energy. Periodically, a massive flash obscured great
stretches of forest and a glowing membrane of light
would leap up into the sky, straight and fast, flying up
out of the atmosphere and wrapping itself around one of
the Dreamless vessels. Spines sheared and snapped, the
globular hulls cracked, the energy membrane surged
inside and found . . . nothing.
So weak, the last remaining, yet an old ally came . . .
Chel knew the story in his heart - at the darkest
moment of the battle, when it seemed that the
Dreamless had won, the Ghost Gods arrived - and now
he was seeing it. Their ships were immense and fash-
ioned to resemble ferocious beasts, four- and six-limbed,
winged and serpentine, many-tentacled and carapaced,
all bigger than mountains and numbering but thirty all
told. When battle was joined they were like giants
assailed by insects, but the Dreamless were relentless.
Wave after wave, horde upon horde of their machines
was hurled against the Ghost Gods' massive vessels, and
while most were destroyed a few got through the
weapon barrages and shields. Of those even fewer sur-
vived the defences and Sentinels, managing to break
through the hull, and of them just a handful evaded the
interior guards.
But that was all that was needed to seed ducts and
pipes with swarms of deadly metal vermin, to infect the
vitals with contagion. Eventually, even these colossal
craft began to succumb one by one to the pitiless tide of
Dreamless machines, to fail and break apart amid blos-
soming clouds of fire.
And Segrana, knowing that defeat could now be
avoided only by paying a terrible price, gave up the
greater part of itself. The forces of the world-forest
were diverted into opening a way to the domains of
hyperspace where the Dreamless kept their vast citadels.
There went the greater essence of Segrana to infiltrate
those strongholds, to spread itself transformed and
unseen across every sense and knot of fleshless mind,
every source of power, and to perish in a cataclysmic
destruction from which not a single machine escaped.
The interlinked meshes of communication and domina-
tion which had given them such strength were also the
cause of their downfall.
Such a victory, such loss, yet Unmaker never wholly
dies.
The vision of ships and fortresses burning in star
mists faded.
These new Dreamless know of our great well, the
last, and they hunger for it.
Sky-filling planetary vistas rolled away into shadow.
Weak and untested, still we must prepare for battle,
for invasions, for desperate sacrifice.
Cold silence enclosed him, limbs held fast, body
curled up, thoughts at rest, eyes tightly shut.
Your time approaches. Elders wish you remade but I
want less from you, much more later.
Was he inside a shell or was he the shell that was
going to crack open and reveal something new? Some
kind of pressure eased and he could relax fingers from
gripping, arms chest-wrapped, shifting his limbs a little,
then shakily standing, feeling with eyes still closed for
the vodrun chamber inner wall, running a hand over
the rough carvings.
'Are you well, seeker?' came the Unburdener's voice
from outside.
Chel smiled as he heard the sound of the door being
unfastened and cracked open his eyes to the lamplight
pouring in.
And screamed.
As soon as he heard the screaming, Listener Eshlo broke
off from his meditations and climbed quickly up to the
Contemplation platform then to the Threshold. It was
not unusual for the freshly husked to be overwhelmed
and distraught, although such a vocal outburst was
quite rare. But when he clambered onto the small shelf
he was helped to his feet by a panicky Unburdener who
pointed to the vodrun. Its door stood open and the
naked, unchanged form of Cheluvahar lay slumped half
inside, head bowed in the shadows, shoulders trembling
as he wept uncontrollably.
'My son,' he said. 'Compose yourself, stem your
sorrow.'
The sobbing abated a little.
'Pain . . . Master, in everything I see . . .'
The Unburdener gripped Eshlo's arm. 'His eyes,
Master!'
Eshlo met her fearful gaze for a moment then put
aside his own unease and reached down to drag
Cheluvahar out of the vodrun chamber. The scholar
cried out, shielding his face from the lamplight. But not
before Eshlo saw the four new eyes spaced across his
forehead, blinking and watering.
'Sister Unburdener,' Eshlo said, barely able to keep
his voice from shaking. 'Tear a strip from your robe -
our brother needs a blindfold.'
23
KAO CHIH
He was dreaming, a disjointed reverie of arguments held
in odd, shadowy halls, and inexplicable searches
through dusty, half-lit shelves, all the while evading
threatening, dog-headed men in a pursuit that led
through the storerooms and backstages of a strange and
immense theatre. Then he came to a towering, cav-
ernous corridor that sloped down towards a colossal
door of fire which was the sole source of light as well as
a smothering warmth. A series of wagons and carriages
passed by, filled with beings from every species, a noisy,
chattering cavalcade that seemed unaware of their jour-
ney into fiery doom. He ran alongside them, away from
the blazing portal, shouting and trying to warn them,
but they took no notice.
The carriages grew larger as the procession moved
onwards and downwards, became interstellar vessels,
tierliners and freighters, garbage scows and warships,
then great cityships and immense orbitals of wheel or
cone or helix or cluster configuration. And, impossibly,
entire planets and their moons joined the parade, sailing
ponderously past, their cloud-strewn surfaces tinged
reddish-gold by the furnace that awaited them.
Then suddenly he was on one of the great, open-
topped carriages, accelerating down towards the
stupendous flaming maw. There was no way to escape -
he was hemmed in by oblivious sentients as the heat
grew intense and the incinerating light flooded his
senses, blinding, burning . . .
And he awoke, stretched out on a wooden floor,
bound hand and foot, with a bright light shining in his
face.
'It's awake,' said a sibilant voice. The words were in
a guttural 4Peljan variant, but the linguistic enabler
Tumakri had given him made them understandable.
'Good,' said another, deep and hoarse. 'Get it on its
feet and move that band up to its knees. It can walk -
I'm not carrying it.'
With the light trained on his eyes, one of his captors
hauled him upright then slid the restraint from ankle- to
knee-level. Kao Chih felt groggy and full of aches from
erratic sleep and lack of food - he didn't know how
long he had been held prisoner but guessed it to be
nearly a day. They had locked him in an upper-floor
room in poor Avriqui's residence, during which time he
had been given nothing but a plastic bowl of brackish
water.
Now, as he was led along a low passageway by a
rope tethered to his neck, he was able to see his guards
more clearly. Both were Henkayan, a brawny, four-
armed race of humanoids taller than Humans by head
and shoulders. However, one of these two was if any-
thing slightly shorter than Kao Chih, scrawny and
walking with a limp. This was the one with the torch,
still held carelessly, and who suddenly became aware of
Kao Chih's regard. Without turning the Henkayan
paused and buffeted the side of his head with an upper
hand.
'Why you looking, Human scum?'
'Leave it alone,' said the other. 'Munaak wants it
undamaged.'
'But it stare at me. Curses with eyes, maybe.'
'Everyone stares at you, Grol, trying to understand
why you're so ugly.'
Grol shook the torch in anger. 'You shut, Tekik, you
shut! You scum-eater ...'
'Shut up your vlasking,' said Tekik, voice louder and
threatening, 'or I'll ram that light down your gullet and
Munaak will shove a spikel up your waster - if you
don't get a move on!'
Kao Chih stared at the floor, his gaze never lifting as
he was steered up a narrow stairway consisting of many
shallow steps. Earlier, while lying awake in the darkness,
he had almost been overwhelmed by the grimness of his
situation, lost far from home, his only companion,
Tumakri, almost certainly dead, while he himself was in
the hand of ruthless brigands. Even if he could somehow
escape, all the border documents and the ship ID tag
had been in the Roug's pocket, along with the hard cash
and the credit spines. But without his or Tumakri's live
presence, they were useless to whoever had them, which
wasn't much of a consolation. Yet somehow the worst
of the bleak dread had ebbed as the hours had dragged
Seeds of Earth Page 22