by Will Wight
***
Iteration 216: Limit
Iteration 217 Harrow
TERMINATED
As Harrow and Limit dissolved and crumbled away into the void, Suriel witnessed once again the death of an Iteration.
The endless darkness of empty space had peeled away first, like black wallpaper peeling away…only to reveal an even deeper hole. The void surrounded them, infinite nothing dotted with swirling balls of color, like a rainbow of fireflies dancing in the night.
The planet itself faded away like a ghost, leaving fragments: pieces of the planet with a strong enough identity to hold together even in the chaos of the void. There, a disc of earth holding a forest spun into the distance, its trees frozen in a wind that no longer blew.
Time worked strangely in the void. Fragments tended to either live the same moments in a loop or to freeze entirely, waiting to join back into an Iteration. Fragments with inhabitants crawled along, their time drifting slowly forward, but the inhabitants tended not to fare well.
She had sent Ozriel’s population shelter straight to Pioneer 8089. With a population of over thirteen million, they had good odds of surviving until their world stabilized into a true Iteration.
Of course, if the Abidan didn’t survive Ozriel’s absence, it wouldn’t matter.
Iterations were like fruits, and the Way was the vine. So long as the worlds were healthy and connected to the Way, they enjoyed luxuries like causality and existence. As a world’s population shriveled, that strained its connection to the Way, which invited infection.
Whenever a corrupted world—like Limit and Harrow—broke into fragments, those pieces still contained some of their corruption. Corrupted fragments were like parasites, drifting up and down the vine, looking for healthy fruits to infest. When that world was corrupted, it broke into diseased fragments as well, and the corruption spread exponentially.
A few thousand standard years ago, the Abidan could only care for two hundred and fifty Iterations. That was as far as they could stretch their forces, because they had to protect each world from the chaos-tainted fragments that hunted the edges of the Way.
When Ozriel appeared, someone who could dispose of a corrupted world without breaking it into toxic pieces, the Abidan went through a period of explosive growth. They stitched healthy fragments together into new Iterations, spinning out new universes that they could protect.
Without infected world fragments flying around, they could expand without worry. And they did.
Suriel and her predecessor had known the danger of putting the weight of their entire system on a single component—Ozriel—but they were saving lives. Every Iteration under Abidan protection was another reality not left to the ravages of chaos or the Vroshir.
And everyone agreed: they would replace Ozriel as soon as they found another candidate.
The problem was, they had never found one. And they’d kept expanding.
They held ten thousand worlds now, with only enough Abidan to secure two and a half percent of that number. If any of the other Judges had gone missing, they could have found someone else to fill their function, but not Ozriel. He was irreplaceable.
And now, in all likelihood, dead.
[The probability of Ozriel’s death is unknown,] her Presence said, its voice robotic and cool. [If he is capable of hiding from the Court of Seven, he is capable of faking his own death.]
He had left a fractured message behind with just enough information to allow her to reconstruct its contents. And a body’s worth of unidentifiable blood and decay staining the walls. And evidence of a battle that had conveniently not spilled over into the room where the rescued inhabitants of Limit lay sleeping.
But there was no reason to fake his death. Makiel wouldn’t believe it, so Suriel couldn’t call off the search. And if he were pretending to be dead, he wouldn’t have left her instructions on what to do in his absence.
He had most likely been attacked while preparing to disappear, and either been killed or driven deeper into hiding.
She had to assume he was dead. If he was still alive and hiding even from her, she’d never find him until he wanted her to. The only logical step was to proceed as though he had been killed here.
His death was another weight on her soul. She had known everything: the pressure they put on him, his desire to change the restrictive rules of the Abidan, Makiel’s refusal to listen. She could have joined him, lobbied for change.
Another chunk of the planet crumbled to nothing, leaving a loose collection of fragments drifting in an ocean of nothing. A slice of city spun away, all but frozen in time. A great machine of springs and copper gears kept pumping away as it tumbled into the distance, and a hundred-kilometer mass of flesh and limbs drifted away.
Ozriel had finally taken matters into his own hands, as he always did. He’d manipulated Fate so that no one could see his departure coming—if anyone could twist the future to such a degree, Ozriel could. He’d prepared to minimize the damage of his absence, but he’d been caught.
But who had caught him?
[Entities confirmed capable of killing Ozriel, while he is fully armed and aware: NOT FOUND.]
Well, that was telling.
[Entities possibly capable, though not confirmed:]
The possibilities spooled out in Suriel’s consciousness, a mix of images, text, and memory.
Information requested: Judge Killers
Beginning report…
Vroshir:
Our information on Vroshir worlds is limited, so the capabilities of the Vroshir themselves are largely unknown. Only a handful are projected to possess combat power that rivals a Judge.
The Silverlords gather armies from the worlds they conquer. Between them, they may have found a combination of specialists and assassins capable of catching Ozriel unaware.
The Horseman rides from world to world, gathering energy systems and replicating their effects. He has demonstrated capabilities from at least thirteen dead worlds, and under certain conditions, he could have bypassed Ozriel’s protection.
The Mad King hosts an entity that has killed Judges before, but the Court would have been notified if he had left his Iteration. If he has found a way to cross the Way without alerting Sector Control, then he represents a Class One threat.
The Angler has stolen six weapons from Abidan Iterations, and she remains at large. Her confirmed arsenal holds nothing that could threaten the Reaper, but certainly possesses other weapons beyond the knowledge of the Court.
Fiends of Chaos:
True Fiends defy classification by nature, and the only individuals known capable of threatening Judges remain imprisoned in Asylum. Also, no Fiend has ever demonstrated the ability to pass into existence without disturbing the Way, and the Spider Division has reported no such violation near Harrow or Limit prior to Limit’s expiration.
If a Fiend capable of doing battle with Ozriel has passed through the Way undetected, current quarantine levels are insufficient. Contact the other Judges to prepare for system collapse.
Abidan:
For security reasons, each Judge’s combat potential is not available for access. However, inferences can be made from publicly available data.
Razael, the Wolf, has expressed a personal grudge against Ozriel since the creation of the Reaper’s office. She was capable of depopulating an Iteration even before her first conscious contact with the Way, and Razael’s Sword was designed for the execution of Judges and Class One threats. The Wolf Division contains many destructive powers that are not public record, and Ozriel may have underestimated them.
Makiel, the Hound. As the Judge of Fate, he is the only individual whose prediction skills rival Ozriel’s. In combat power alone, he was once considered capable of assuming the role of Razael, though he declined the mantle. He has attempted to replace Ozriel many times, fought to deny Ozriel the rank of Judge, and led the opposition to all Ozriel’s proposed modifications to the Eledari Pact. With the Reaper gone, he will pro
pose an imperfect replacement within the standard year, and unofficial reports suggest he has been developing his own Scythe.
Due to the personal biases involved, an encounter between Makiel and Ozriel is virtually guaranteed to end in conflict.
Report complete.
As the report faded away, so did Harrow. Suriel drifted in a black nothingness like the darkness of space, with swirling balls of color instead of stars. They were world fragments—one of the closer spots carried the fractured black tower from Harrow. Another fragment was a shining blue bubble with an island floating inside; water streamed down from the island and hit the bubble, looping up the inside to fall as rain.
The power of the Way was weak here, where chaos thrived. Each fragment was a little pocket of order and energy, which could someday be combined once again into a new Iteration.
With Gadrael’s isolation gone, her information requests arrived from Cradle one after the other:
Lindon and Yerin, together, left Sacred Valley and went into the Desolate Wilds.
He was trained by a local Soulsmith in the very basics of the art.
They encountered the Transcendent Ruins, where they were the first to retrieve the treasure at the top.
Lindon killed a Highgold, initiating a rivalry with a young man named Jai Long. Good. Pressure would help him grow. His sister was more interesting: she would have met Lindon in a few more years, if not for Suriel’s interference.
The exact nature of their relationship would have changed depending on several factors, but the destiny between them must have been quite strong to survive Lindon’s divergence.
A minor point of interest, nothing alarming. Fate adjusted for such small variations as a matter of course.
After a few moments of reviewing her Presence’s predicted future for Lindon and Jai Long, Suriel noticed a handful of gaps. She reviewed the data, pulling up extra information, comparing the reports.
Finally, she found what her automated requests had overlooked.
The Arelius family.
A young Underlord had found Lindon and Yerin, adopting them, and taken them back into the Blackflame Empire for training.
Suriel frowned. That could be a problem. She was familiar with the Arelius family—or rather, their ancestors—and they hadn’t come anywhere near Lindon in any of her projections. Why would they? He was a weak child from nowhere.
She tore open a blue hole in the void, stepping into the Way: the power of order washed over her, soothing and empowering, soaking her body and mind in comfort.
Here, she was close to every Iteration of reality. She could get some answers.
Through her Presence, she reached out to Cradle, requesting information on Wei Shi Lindon.
[Significant deviations detected,] her Presence announced. [Entity Wei Shi Lindon has deviated from primary course. Any analysis of current conditions or projections of future activity will have a low degree of accuracy.]
She’d made a mistake somewhere, but a quick review of her actions found nothing to account for this degree of change. She’d altered his future, true, but she should still be able to call up information about his current status.
If her Presence couldn’t even connect to the fate of Cradle, then something was badly off-course. None of her assumptions were reliable any longer.
And all of her predictions were wrong.
Irritation growing, she requested general information about the status of Iteration One-one-zero.
[Iteration One-one-zero has deviated from primary course. Any relevant information will have a low degree of accuracy. Direct contact with Iteration is recommended to ensure precision.]
Suriel cut off her physical reactions before she could feel irritation, anger, and uncertainty.
Abidan were allowed a certain degree of autonomy when responding to a spatial or temporal violation, especially Judges. She was permitted to alter the course of many individual lives, so long as the fate of the world remained intact.
Nothing she’d done should have violated those restrictions. Even if Wei Shi Lindon defied all odds and transcended Cradle, it would only mean one more potential Abidan recruit. On a cosmic scale, that was virtually irrelevant. Cradle wouldn’t notice when he was gone.
Something else had changed.
The Hound Division would have seen this. She had to go back to Cradle and determine the origin of this deviation before—
An eyeball the size of her head popped into being in front of her. A human eye, in appearance: pure white sclera, black pupil, purple iris ringed with symbols like a Cradle script-circle.
It looked very much like one of her eyes, in fact, only larger.
[Judge designation zero-zero-six, Suriel,] Makiel’s Presence said, by way of greeting. [Please travel to the following coordinates. Judge designation zero-zero-one, Makiel, requests a meeting.]
Chapter 22
Years ago, when Renfei had first earned her way into the Skysworn, her instructor had congratulated her with these words:
“You’ll stop rebels, rivals, and runaway killers all over the empire, and you’ll do great service to the emperor. But somewhere, someday, you’ll run across somebody trying to revive the Path of Black Flame.” He’d chewed on a straw as he spoke, tapping the burned half of his face. “When the Blackflames return, that’s when you’ll really stretch your oath. Can’t help but wonder if you’ll fight, or if you’ll leave your honor behind.”
The challenge had hovered over her, unanswered, for twelve years. She had fought with the Kotai clan against walking sharks on the beaches of the Trackless Sea, executed exiled criminals trying to sneak in across the eastern border, and returned runaways to the Stonedeep Mines. But, though she had kept her spirit open in special vigilance, she had never encountered a Blackflame.
Until a week ago.
She and her partner had been patrolling near Serpent’s Grave, keeping an eye on the battle in the city with their spiritual perception. They wouldn’t interfere in the battle; a clan was well within their rights to pass judgment on citizens in their territory. But conflicts led to crimes, so they remained vigilant wherever swords were drawn.
Of the many things they sensed that night, one in particular had drawn them to Serpent’s Grave like flies to rotting flesh: the power of Blackflame.
The Arelius turtle, Orthos, was known to them. His madra had flared during the battle, which was to be expected, but what they hadn’t anticipated was a second source of the Path of Black Flame.
As they had for the past seven days, Renfei drifted next to Bai Rou over the dragon-bone city, dodging horned skulls and yellow ribs that clawed the sky. They flew on emerald green Thousand-Mile Clouds: the symbols of the Skysworn.
Over this week, they’d sensed occasional flares of Blackflame through the city, but not much they could track.
“South-southeast?” Bai Rou asked, his voice coming from the shadow beneath his broad bamboo hat. His great bulk was shrouded by a huge, heavy coat that covered him from shoulders to toes, and his eyes—his Goldsign—shone yellow from within the shadows over his face.
She extended her own perception and checked. Not a Blackflame, just a fire artist practicing. “No. Two more days, and then we confront the Jai Underlord.”
Renfei had come to her own conclusion: their mysterious source wasn’t a sacred artist at all. Rather, it must be a Blackflame weapon that one of the two Serpent’s Grave Underlords had unearthed for their battle. The hints they’d gotten since then were only the weapon being transported throughout the city.
They had planned to confront both Underlords once they had evidence of the weapon’s existence, but thus far, they’d found none. And the Arelius Patriarch had fled the city before the Skysworn arrived. That suggested a guilty conscience to Renfei, but she needed more than suspicions to pursue claims against a Lord.
So if they found no more trace of the weapon soon, they would take Jai Daishou’s testimony anyway.
Bai Rou wordlessly agreed—he was on
ly twenty-eighth among the Skysworn Truegolds, while she was rank thirteen and a disciple of the prestigious Cloud Hammer School. While they were assigned together, her opinion would override his.
Deadly heat flashed in the direction of the great black mountain that loomed over the city, and she started to call its position to Bai Rou.
Then flames blasted into the sky from Mount Shiryu’s peak.
The fire was streaked with red and black, and Blackflame aura gushed into the sky. All over the city, scripts flared to life, as sacred artists scrambled to defend themselves from another attack.
Renfei and Bai Rou streaked toward the dark peak, their clouds leaving green trails behind them.
“Testing,” Bai Rou said, voice hollow.
She agreed. Someone had decided to test the weapon; it must be based around a Ruler binding, based on the vital aura and flame that erupted from the mountain.
As part of standard procedure, the Skysworn each veiled their spirits, suppressing their power so they wouldn’t be detected as they approached. An Arelius would see through it, but Naru Cassias Arelius was with his family at the moment, and Eithan Arelius was gone.
They hovered over the mountain until they looked down into a canyon. The same narrow canyon that contained the Black Dragon Trials.
Renfei had checked this location as soon as they had arrived, finding no extra lingering Blackflame power, but obviously someone had managed to hide the weapon from her. It was their own foolishness that they had revealed it so soon.
She and Bai Rou flew over a circle of ninety-nine black, scripted dummies. The Ruler Trial. No better place to test out a Blackflame Ruler weapon than the course that taught them to use their Ruler technique.