“An engine? For what purpose?”
“For whatever purpose you desire,” Anuir-Ruhal’te said. Her body was fading now, becoming translucent, and the blanket of stars were going out, as if the universe itself was dying.
Even knowing that her ancient mother was not real, Keel-Tath still reached for her. “No, do not leave me!”
“It is all up to you now, precious daughter.”
Keel-Tath shook her head. “But what must I do?”
There was no answer. Anuir-Ruhal’te was gone.
As she stood there, feeling utterly helpless, the funnel cloud slowed, then stopped. The towering storm of black particles lost their momentum and hung in the sky as if vexed by indecision.
Then the cloud collapsed to the ground around her. But the motes did not simply float back to the ground as if they were dust. They rocketed into the moon’s glassine surface, throwing up geysers of shattered obsidian.
Keel-Tath was thrown to the ground as the moon shook, and she put her hands over her ears as thunder roared through the atmosphere. She was bruised and cut, her body tossed about as the ground shuddered.
The moon’s surface suddenly fell away. Taking her hands from her ears, she dug her talons into the fractured glass of the mound on which she lay that had been at the center of the crater. But the crater itself was gone, as was the rest of the moon. She felt unusually heavy, as if the gravity of the glassine mound had inexplicably increased.
Crawling nearer the edge of the mound, or what was left of it, her eyes widened as she realized the truth: the moon had not fallen away. She was being propelled upward, higher and higher, on a titanic pillar that was being thrust upward by some unimaginable force below the moon’s surface. Looking down and outward, she gasped at what she saw happening below.
The moon was being transformed. A black cloud was again rising, one that obscured the surface to every distant horizon. As the cloud rose higher, the black motes at the very top vanished. Even as they disappeared, the color of the atmosphere deepened and Keel-Tath gradually found it easier to breathe.
The rumbling and shaking stopped as the pillar slowed to a halt. Now it began to shake, leaning to and fro as the ground around it began to break up, shattering into massive chunks that were momentarily buoyed up by a growing sea of dark matter, blacker than the obsidian itself, that welled up from the depths. It took Keel-Tath a moment to realize that the smooth black sea that swelled around the gray chunks of obsidian was made up of more motes.
As she watched, the rocks began to disintegrate. For a league or more around her vantage point, the mote sea consumed everything, until the surface was smooth and glossy as the breastplate of a warrior’s ceremonial armor.
All was still for a brief time, as if the motes were gathering their energy. She could feel it, like the moon itself now had a voice in the Bloodsong. The idea was preposterous, for only those with souls had blood that sang, but it was every bit as real as the blood that flowed from the cuts on her exposed skin. It thrummed with power, with purpose. That power grew and grew, and she realized it was waiting for something.
It was waiting for her. For whatever purpose you desire, Anuir-Ruhal’te had said.
Closing her eyes, she fastened on an image she had seen as a child, sitting on Ayan-Dar’s knee while he pored through some of the ancient Books of Time with the temple’s keepers.
The dark sea around her rippled and shimmered. Then the motes, the black matrix that Anuir-Ruhal’te had created and that had awaited Keel-Tath across all these millennia, began to build.
CHAPTER SEVEN
When Ulan-Samir, high priest of the Nyur-A’il, and his accompanying priests and priestesses arrived, they were shocked at how effective had been Syr-Nagath’s attack. He had not believed her when she had told him that the Desh-Ka had been defeated in ages past, but he could not now deny that it could be done. Of course, it had been done in a fashion bereft of the smallest shred of honor, but that stain was not on his hands.
As if the dying Desh-Ka under their dome of lightning were a magnet to all who wore a sigil upon their collar, the most high of the other priesthoods arrived in short order, along with a contingent of their orders, all prepared to do battle.
In unspoken agreement, the five of the most high converged to confer as thousands of globes of energy continued to batter at the Desh-Ka defenses. The air was filled with the reek of ozone, scorched stone, and burning flesh.
Determined to make his claim upon the robed ones first, Ulan-Samir said, “I care not for those who wear the sigil, but I would offer the robed ones the chance to surrender their honor to me, and any acolytes who would give me their swords.”
“You presume a great deal,” said the most high of the Ana’il-Rukh. “The Desh-Ka must be eliminated, root and branch. This plateau and everything on it should be reduced to molten stone. As long as one survives, especially the keepers of the Books of Time, so then survives the Desh-Ka. Their time has ended, and so must they.”
“That is as we agreed,” said another. “We must not…”
Ulan-Samir rounded on them. “I agreed to nothing! Now you come here, squabbling like ill-disciplined younglings.” He gestured with a hand at the dome of lightning, which was visibly growing thinner, covered with white hot burn-throughs where the globes struck. The holes were quickly covered over by more lightning, but it was growing ever thinner, ever weaker. The defenders were visible only as shadows behind the crackling cyan veil. As long as that barrier remained, the priesthoods could not touch those on the other side, for the energy somehow blocked their powers of teleportation. But it was clear that the Desh-Ka could not hold out much longer. “They are doomed,” Ulan-Samir went on, “but the robed ones are precious. It is against the Way to take their lives. That which you so ardently defend on the one hand, you would now defile with the other.”
“Ulan-Samir is right,” Sian-Al’ai said. She cared little for the high priest of the Nyur-A’il, but in this she could agree with him. “You cannot preserve the Way by choosing when and how you would disregard its tenets. The lives of the robed ones and younglings are precious above all, to every warrior who wears a collar, regardless of order or bloodline. To put a single one of them to the sword reduces you to the same despicable level as Syr-Nagath.”
“Choose your words more wisely,” threatened the Ana’il-Rukh, “or I will have your head.”
Sian-Al’ai drew her sword. “Then take it if you can!”
“Stop!” Another of the most high pointed. “Look!”
Under the pounding of yet another salvo of Syr-Nagath’s weapons, the shield protecting the remnants of the Desh-Ka finally collapsed.
***
Alena-Khan had not known such agony since the Crystal of Souls had transformed her into a priestess and swept her body with cleansing fire. Whatever hellish weapon Syr-Nagath had unearthed from the Ka'i-Nur Books of Time, it was having a telling effect. Alena-Khan’s hands were no more than charred stumps, and the metal of her gauntlets and the plates around her forearms had melted, searing the flesh all the way to her shoulders. Every bit of her skin beyond that was blistering from the heat that washed across the rest of her armor, and her face felt as if she had thrust it into the glowing coals of an armorer’s forge.
While the ranks of the Desh-Ka priesthood had never been great, in the short, cataclysmic time since the ill-fated conclave had convened only thirteen had survived to join together in this last desperate defense of those who had called the temple home. Under the onslaught by the airships, that number had been reduced to eight. The other five had died on their feet despite the efforts of the healers who surrounded them, braving the searing heat and deadly lightning discharges with every bit as much courage as any warrior. The others of the robed castes had displayed similar courage in the defense of the temple, and Alena-Khan, in what she knew would be her last moments, was more proud than she had ever been to be a Desh-Ka.
But it would take more than pride to survive this day.
She sensed the arrival of the other priesthoods, moving in like carrion eaters awaiting the death of a genoth. As soon as they turned their powers upon the Desh-Ka, the battle would be over. Perhaps, Alena-Khan thought dimly, if the greatest of their order had survived to stand here now, or had so many not perished in the foolish fighting after the conclave, things might have been different. Her own powers were a mere fraction of what those such as Ayan-Dar or T’ier-Kunai could have brought to bear. She mourned for their loss and her part in it all, her only consolation the grim knowledge that she would soon be joining them in the Afterlife. She would, in the end, die with honor.
Holding her eyes closed against the savage heat, she used her second sight to look beyond the barrier she and the others stubbornly maintained. She cringed as the airships fired another titanic salvo. Thousands of the dreaded energy globes arced downward. The vessels had long since found their mark, and had maintained precise orbits to preserve their aim points, and all but a few of the weapons hit the shield.
With a wail of agony, another of the priests collapsed, his body little more than a seared corpse, and the surviving seven were driven to their knees.
Alena-Khan, the last of her energy spent, collapsed into the arms of the healers who tended her, ignoring the pain of their own charred skin.
As the priestess fell, the crackling cyan shield faded and disappeared. Their last defense had collapsed.
***
For a moment, the entire world stood still. The warrior priests and priestesses of the Desh-Ka, for the first time in all of history, save that known by the Ka’i-Nur keepers of the Books of Time, had fallen. Once the greatest of the ancient orders, its warriors universally feared and respected, the Desh-Ka were now nothing more than a few dazed acolytes and a mass of robed ones and younglings gathered around the charred remains of those who wore the priesthood’s sigil.
“The work before us we do not undertake lightly,” the leader of the Ana’il-Rukh said as he and his companions drew their swords, “but we shall do what must be done.”
“Where is she?” Ulan-Samir asked, ignoring the Ana’il-Rukh and casting his gaze upon the surviving Desh-Ka. “Keel-Tath, the white-haired child. Where is she?”
The others paused at his words.
“She is gone.” A bloodied warrior stepped from the group of Desh-Ka survivors. Sian-Al’ai recognized her as Dara-Kol, the First to Keel-Tath. Beside her two young warriors shouldered their way forward, whom Sian-Al’ai recognized as Tara-Khan and Ka’i-Lohr. The pair had already acquired a fearsome reputation. Dara-Kol held the two back and said, “She is beyond your reach, you honorless fools.”
“Mind your tongue, whelp,” Ulan-Samir snapped, and Dara-Kol fell to her knees, gagging, her hands at her throat as if trying to prevent unseen hands from strangling her.
She is gone. Dara-Kol’s words echoed in Sian-Al’ai’s mind. For the moment, at least, Keel-Tath must be safe. That was small reassurance given the situation, but she would seize upon any good fortune. She would need it in the time that must now come.
Her sword and those of her fellow priests and priestesses already drawn, Sian-Al’ai did not hesitate as the other priesthoods moved toward the huddled Desh-Ka. Flashing through space to take up positions around the beleaguered survivors, the priests and priestesses of Sian-Al’ai’s order, the Ima’il-Kush, faced outward in a defensive circle. “Brothers and sisters,” she called to the others, “return to your temples and contemplate the wrongs we have done and how we may return to the Way. No further harm shall come to those of the Desh-Ka. They have suffered more than enough. This I swear upon the blood of my ancestors.”
“I have already laid claim to the robed ones!” Ulan-Samir protested, drawing his own sword and baring his fangs in rage. The others of the Nyur-A’il followed suit. “You will not have them!”
“They are not property for any of us to claim!” Sian-Al’ai responded in a frigid voice.
“We have first right,” one of the other most-high growled, “to their blood!”
“It is one order against four,” Ulan-Samir warned as he and the others took a step closer, having formed a ring around the defending Ima’il-Kush. “You shall not prevail.”
“The four of you stand together this moment,” Sian-Al’ai shot back, “but you will fall upon one another like carrion-eating wo’olarh the moment you find you have no common purpose.”
“All of you are wrong!”
They turned at Dara-Kol’s rasping voice, having been released from Ulan-Samir’s invisible grip. They followed her raised arm.
“Look to the sky,” Dara-Kol shouted, “and behold your true enemy!” The circling airships had just fired another salvo of the deadly globes, and hundreds of enemy warriors were dropping from yet more airships passing directly overhead. While the other priesthoods had their own special powers, none could produce a defensive shield as powerful as that of the Desh-Ka, and certainly not in the seconds they had until the latest salvo arrived. The priests and priestesses had only moments to choose to flee or die. “Syr-Nagath has made fools of you all!”
***
Standing atop the great pillar, which Keel-Tath was sure had risen at least a full league into the moon’s sky, she watched the sea of dark matter that now surrounded her transform itself. Great curved structures, like the gleaming petals of a gigantic flower just blooming, began to rise. Like all the constructs favored by her kind, function and grace were intertwined. The great outer walls rose higher and higher, and from them sprouted stairs and floors, mezzanines and chambers that were soon too many for her to count. Curving walls and arches, spires and buttresses rose and bent to their purpose as if the growing structure were a thing alive, rising from the ocean.
Perhaps it is, in its own way, Keel-Tath mused as she stared wide-eyed at the spectacle from her lofty perch. The base of the structure continued to expand outward as it rose, expanding to cover as much of the moon’s surface as might a small city. The outer walls formed what might have been considered a multifaceted pyramid, while a great tower was growing around the slender spire on which she stood.
The spire began to tremble. Suppressing a surge of fear, she lay down and dared to peer over the edge of her vantage point, looking directly below. She gasped at what she saw.
A titanic building was growing up around the base of the spire, rising higher and higher. Then, still far below her, an enormous chamber, larger than any building she had ever seen, even the temple’s coliseum, began to form. Within the chamber a massive pyramid that reflected the architecture of the outer structure grew around the spire, reaching toward her. Faster and faster, the pyramid grew, rising higher and higher.
At the last moment, just as she was sure the pyramid would consume her, its growth slowed, then stopped, the top forming into a dais that came level with the column to which she had been clinging. Blinking her eyes, Keel-Tath saw that instead of lying on the broken obsidian of the moon’s surface, she was now lying on smooth, gleaming white stone, just like what made up the rest of the huge structure.
Getting to her knees, she looked up. The outer walls of the great tower continued to rise above her, half again as high as the pyramid stood. The walls glowed, providing an even illumination as if she were standing outside in the sun.
It was then that the stone all around the top of the chamber began to thin, and in but moments had transformed into some sort of clear crystal that gave a breathtaking view of the Homeworld above and the moon’s still barren surface beyond the boundaries of the construct.
This is not some mere construct, she thought. It was a palace. Her palace. This place was the seat of power from which she would someday guide her entire race, or so Anuir-Ruhal’te would have had her believe. Where she stood now atop the enormous pyramid, upon this very spot, would be her throne.
While the palace looked complete on the surface, she could sense that the transformation she had set in motion was far, far from over. A subtle vibration ran through the stone, and she
could sense in her blood that the moon was only now coming fully alive. It was as if the moon had paused to take a deep breath after a great exertion, but things deep and distant must yet run their course.
She wondered if the moon could defend her from Syr-Nagath, and in answer dark spires arose in the distance to form a cordon around the palace. Blue fire danced from their tips, and she felt a tingle of enormous energy held at bay. What she beheld was the technology that had once held off the greatest weapons her kind had ever produced. The palace would be safe from anything that Syr-Nagath could ever bring to bear. Or so she must hope.
Thinking of the Dark Queen, a tide of anger rose within her as she turned her gaze to the Homeworld. The Desh-Ka were in deadly peril, and what she had come to accomplish here was done. Now she had to save them.
She was terrified of what must come next. “Ayan-Dar,” she whispered as she closed her eyes and clamped down on her fear. “Please, take my hand and guide me.”
Picturing the Kal’ai-Il of the Desh-Ka temple in her mind, she willed herself to go there.
Opening her eyes, she looked around. She was still in the palace, standing on the same spot.
“They are dying,” she whispered fiercely as the tide of pain from her kin rose in the Bloodsong. “I…must…go…”
With a sudden rush of wind through the throne room, she stepped into the not-space between where she was and where she wished to be.
CHAPTER EIGHT
As the crackling globes rained down upon them, the host of Nyur-A’il conjured a whirling storm that swept most of the weapons aside. Most, but not all. Even though thousands were diverted from their intended targets, many of them falling from the plateau to slaughter the Dark Queen’s warriors below, hundreds still landed within the confines of the temple. Several of the remaining Desh-Ka acolytes sacrificed themselves, leaping to block glowing missiles that would otherwise have fallen among the robed ones and younglings. To their credit, priests and priestesses from the orders, even those that had come to claim the lives of the Desh-Ka survivors, gave in to their training and instincts and did the same, sacrificing nearly two dozen of their number.
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