The Shattering: Omnibus

by Van Allen Plexico

  “Stay where you are, Colonel,” he sent back to her. “Stay alive.” His smile grew grim but determined. “I am on my way.

  Tamerlane gathered the remaining few dozen members of the Nizam Legion on the broad plain beyond the training facility. The shuttles that were already parked there had been joined by another group of them; more than enough to hold every soldier of the legion that yet lived.

  Those remaining troops now stood at attention, weapons at the ready, khaki smartcloth uniforms crisp and clean on some, torn and bloody on others.

  “We will be boarding shortly,” Tamerlane called. “We are taking the shuttles directly to Ahknaton. Our mission is simple: we will strike hard and fast. Priority one is the extraction of survivors from the previous mission. Once that is accomplished, we will attempt infiltration of the Heliopolis and the palace itself. As before, our primary target is Governor Rameses. I want him alive if possible, but dead is perfectly acceptable.”

  “You will never get past the planetary defenses,” Teluria observed, her red lips pouty. “You must allow me to open a portal for you and your—”

  Tamerlane shook his head. “Don’t take this the wrong way, lady,” he said, “but, at this point, I feel more confident in our ability to survive a sky filled with anti-ship weaponry and orbital mines than in our ability to survive a doorway opened by you.”

  Teluria scowled. She moved back a step, anger flaring on her face.

  “To the ships,” Tamerlane called, ignoring her. “The faster we get out of here, the faster we bring our people home—and the bad guys to justice.”

  The Nizam Legion boarded their shuttles and seconds later the boxy vehicles lifted off. Only Teluria remained behind, having declined all offers of transport. She stood there on the dusty surface, watching as the last of the ships roared up into the Mysentian sky and disappeared.

  “He must be told,” she whispered to herself. “I have no choice.” Even so, for several long minutes she waited there, staring up at the sky, uncertain.

  “Yet I do chafe at simply obeying orders—from whatever direction,” she whispered. Fear seized at her then; she never knew if he was listening in. He was with her always, it seemed.

  Finally, cursing again, she waved a slender hand, opened a portal directly in front of her, and walked through, gone.

  17

  An exuberant Amon Rameses reentered the throne room on Ahknaton. “That was the best Tamerlane and Nakamura could do?” he crowed as his Sand Kings and Zahir’s two servants escorted him in. “What comedy! Am I to respect, to fear, the mighty Taiko and his lapdog, when all they can bring to bear against me is a force such as that?”

  Zahir bowed deeply to the governor. “Indeed,” he said, straightening. “Your victory would now appear assured.”

  “Of course it is,” Rameses laughed. He had removed the crimson armor—it was back to being a small red cube again, which he carried almost casually in one hand. He strode across the broad marble floor, its whiteness veined with crisscrossing lines of gray and black, and set the cube atop an ornamental granite pedestal. All of the tension—the fear—that had filled him earlier had utterly evaporated as he had witnessed his Sand Kings obliterating the ranks of the invaders. He felt exhilarated. He felt freed, somehow, though he wasn’t entirely certain what that might mean.

  And then he registered what he was seeing in front of him.

  He opened his mouth to speak, but no sound at first would come out. Eyes widening, he approached Zahir more slowly now, stopping some ten meters away. He stood there, staring.

  Lightning was flaring down from within the high arched dome of the ceiling. It didn’t strike the floor, however; instead it was playing across the prone bodies of Colonel Belisarius and the young girl.

  And, as Rameses looked more closely, he became aware of something else—something truly terrifying. A strange, ethereal, blood-red humanoid form was in the process of separating from Belisarius’s body and rising up to float in the air over him.

  “Governor,” Zahir started to say as he swept forward. “Perhaps you shouldn’t—”

  At that moment a warning alert sounded, vibrating and echoing throughout the big chamber. It was followed by a strident voice: “Alert! Alert! Starships dropping hyper in high orbit!”

  Zahir whirled about and raced over to a monitor. It displayed a visual of a number of large spacecraft exiting the hyperspace pathways of the lower Above and moving into Ahknaton airspace. The vizier blanched. “Governor,” he called, “we may be under another attack!”

  Rameses dismissed the words with a casual wave. “If Tamerlane has been stupid enough to send part of his starfleet to the same grim fate as his legion, so be it. The orbital defenses will deal with them in short order.”

  His eyes still on the monitor, Zahir shook his head slowly. “I don’t think these are Tamerlane’s ships...”

  Rameses wasn’t listening. He ignored both the vizier and the alert and returned his attention to the humanoid shape now hovering horizontally above Belisarius. The more Rameses stared at it the more disturbed he became. It looked somehow frightening, terrible, horrific. It appeared, in short, demoniacal.

  As Rameses looked on in fascinated horror, the crimson form began to solidify and slowly it moved into a seated position on the edge of Belisarius’s palanquin. It waited there for a few moments—long moments during which Rameses wondered exactly what was happening and what would happen next—and then it stood upright, its feet still not touching the floor, its height now much greater than the average human even as it continued to grow. It floated across the space separating Belisarius and Princess Marens, pausing about halfway, gazing down at her.

  Seeing that, Rameses at last found his voice.

  “What in the name of Those Who Remain is going on here?” he demanded.

  Fearing the situation was about to unravel, Zahir had no choice but to abandon the orbital display and hurry over to the governor. “Nothing untoward, I assure you,” soothed the slim vizier. His voice hardened slightly. “Nothing that has not long been planned.”

  Rameses stumbled back a step. The horrific figure floating in midair had become almost completely solid now, standing upright between the two platforms, yet still floating like some awful apparition. It looked entirely unearthly and terrifying with its dark red color, twisting horns, fangs, and narrow eyes.

  “Planned?” Rameses exclaimed. “This is nothing I ever planned or approved,” he all-but-shouted. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but that—” and he pointed with his right index finger— “is a demonform, and it has no business on my world.”

  The vizier was now growing visibly concerned. He hurried over to Rameses. “My lord,” he said, “this is nothing that you should allow yourself to get upset about.” He attempted to move closer, into the governor’s field of view—to capture his full attention. “All goes as it was meant to go.”

  “Meant to go?” Rameses was almost shrill now. He stomped past Zahir, never giving the vizier an opportunity to ensorcell him. “How is bringing a demonic creature onto my world helping anything conceivably go, as you say, ‘as it was meant to go?’” He whirled on Zahir, anger and outrage spilling out of him. “And exactly whose plan are we talking about? Certainly not mine!” He moved in closer to the vizier and brought a finger up in the slender man’s face. “This is base heresy,” he growled. “Heresy perpetrated on my world, in my name! I will not tolerate it!”

  “Heresy?” Zahir reddened. “What care you for accusations of heresy? You are beyond the reach of the Inquisition now! You are master of this world. Heresy on Ahknaton is what you say it is!”

  “Blasphemer!” Rameses backhanded Zahir, sending the man tumbling to the hard marble floor. The stunned vizier lay where he had fallen, mouth hanging open, as if he couldn’t quite believe what had just happened.

  Tension in the throne room had become almost overwhelming. The Sand Kings troops instantly moved up behind Rameses, weapons ready, even as Z
ahir’s four minions closed ranks behind him, one of them leaning over and helping him up. In the background, the orbital alarms continued to sound. For a moment, no one could have predicted what would happen next.

  On his feet, Zahir—now flushed and sporting a deep red mark across his left cheek—started forward, clearly ready to fight. An instant later, however, he restrained himself, apparently rethinking the situation. He breathed deeply in and out and motioned his servants back. His expression softened, his complexion growing ashen. “My lord,” he began, “I apologize for any impudence on my part. I understand that you were not expecting to see what you have seen here today, and I should have better prepared you for it.”

  “Silence!” Rameses bellowed. “Do not seek to talk your way out of this now, vizier!”

  Zahir started toward the governor again. “My lord,” he said imploringly, “if only you would listen for a moment—”

  “Guards!” shouted Rameses. “Arrest Zahir and hold him. Sand Kings! Prepare to destroy the demonform!”

  “No!” cried Zahir. “It is not yet fully in this universe—it is still vulnerable!” He hurried toward the governor, almost frantic now, arms raised.

  Reacting instinctively and protectively, the nearest of the Sand Kings directed his energy lance at Zahir and fired. An expanding sphere of superheated gas and energy erupted from the tip of his weapon and shot point blank directly at the vizier.

  It never struck him. A heretofore invisible barrier flared to life a short distance beyond and fully surrounding the vizier. It absorbed most of the blast and deflected the rest away.

  “How did you—?” Rameses stumbled back, away from Zahir. As he did so, he finally caught a glimpse of the orbital display monitor. He gasped.

  The image of the space above Ahknaton revealed a veritable armada of vessels. Only a few were of human origin and none of them were I Legion ships under Tamerlane’s command. Most were very alien indeed.

  “What—what is happening?” demanded Rameses, turning frantically from the display to the demonic form hovering over the princess to Zahir standing there unharmed after being shot point blank by an energy lance. He raised his hands to his eyes, grinding the palms into the sockets, crying out in confusion and dismay. A few seconds later, something about his face, his expression, changed. He lowered his hands, moved a step closer to Zahir, and frowned, appearing extremely puzzled.

  Zahir, still surrounded by Sand Kings, started to speak, but Rameses cut him off.

  “Who are you?” he asked, scowling. “How did you come to be my advisor—my vizier? I have no memory of ever hiring you or assigning you.” He moved another step closer, and this time his voice was loud and strong: “Who are you?”

  Before Zahir could formulate a response, the entire throne room was filled with blinding light.

  Turning to discern its source, Rameses had to raise a hand before his eyes to block the worst of the glare. Quickly enough he could tell that it was coming from—radiating from; pouring out from—the golden basin, and the small geyser of raw energy that constantly flowed up from it. That modest flow had in the past few seconds become a mighty geyser of energy erupting far up into the air of the throne room.

  And somehow, astonishingly, out of that light and energy stepped a figure.

  Rameses continued to shade his eyes from the awful light, but he struggled to make out exactly who this person was. He found the man looked somehow familiar.

  For man he was, at least superficially. Human. Male. Dark hair, dark eyes, black clothing.

  Seeing him fully, Zahir fell quickly to his knees. “My master,” he cried.

  The man in black had now fully emerged from the fountain, and subsequently its magnitude and radiance reverted to what they had been before. The man, meanwhile, strode confidently across the marble floor and spared the now-prostrate Zahir only a slight glance before standing directly before Rameses and pursing his lips.

  The governor stared at the man in black, astonished, but could find no words. He felt as if he’d seen—met, even talked with—this person before. The memory eluded him for a long moment before he suddenly gasped. “You! I remember! After the Council of Ascanius—you spoke with me. You brought the princess to me. You—”

  “Indeed,” the man in black replied, “you remember well. In fact, you remember far too much.” He glanced back momentarily at the kneeling vizier. “That is entirely Zahir’s fault. His ham-fisted approach to managing you has brought us to this juncture.”

  “Managing me?” Rameses grumbled, confused.

  “Yes—or attempting to. But instead he has allowed you to break free of your conditioning. And now I have been forced to come here to set things right again,” the man continued. “And that I shall do.”

  “My master,” Zahir said, “forgive me. There was a great deal of confusion here—we were attacked by Tamerlane’s forces, who somehow were able to travel directly here, in the manner of our people.”

  “I am well aware of Tamerlane’s actions,” the man in black barked. “Who do you think instigated them?”

  “What? Zahir gasped.

  “And it played out precisely as I foresaw that it would. Did you not deal with them swiftly and surely?”

  “I—well, yes, but—”

  “And the balance is restored.”

  Zahir, now frowning, shook his head as if in a daze. “But, master—”

  The man ignored him and continued. “The situation has reached a critical juncture. I cannot allow your ignorance and incompetence to jeopardize my goals.”

  At that point, Rameses had had more than enough. “Who are you people?” he demanded. “What are you doing here? What do you want with me—and my world?”

  Zahir leapt across the distance separating them and returned Rameses’ backhand slap, knocking the governor down. “You will address our lord Goraddon with respect!” he shouted.

  Recovering, looking up from where he’d sprawled, Rameses’ expression conveyed the depths of his shock. “Goraddon?” he gasped. He looked around the chamber, as if somehow he could spot some piece of evidence that this was all a ruse, a joke, a performance. Alas, no such bit of evidence presented itself. “That—that’s not possible! Goraddon was one of the old gods—he died along with most of the others. Everyone knows this!”

  “To the contrary, it is entirely possible,” declared Zahir, hands on hips, standing over the governor. “Some few of the gods merely used that event as an opportunity—an opportunity to retreat for a time, gather their strength, and—”

  “Enough, Zahir,” said the man in black. He turned from the slender vizier in the Egyptian headgear to the fallen Rameses. He extended a hand and Rameses reluctantly took it, and he pulled the man back up to his feet. “What your vizier says is true, Governor.”

  “He is not my vizier,” Rameses hissed, eyeing Zahir sharply.

  “He is,” the man in black stated, “because I willed it to be thus.” He offered Rameses an almost apologetic smile. “What I want with the princess is what I wanted with her father, the Emperor, before. Unfortunately, his mortal shell was not able to withstand the force of carrying a demon lord of the Below within him for very long, particularly when provoked by the unexpected interference of certain other parties, and...” He shrugged. “We all recall the unfortunate outcome, at the Council on Ascanius.”

  “Yes! I do remember seeing you there,” Rameses blurted. Then he blanched. “You—you were responsible for that atrocity—that unspeakable—”

  The man in black nodded slowly. “Oh yes. And without the untimely intervention of Nakamura and Tamerlane, all would have happened as I envisioned it.” He laughed once, sharply, and looked around at the ornate, opulently decorated, Egyptian-themed interior of the vast throne room, regarding it as if it were the lowliest cave of some hermit on a backwater world. “But, in any case, here we are now, doing it all again. Fortunately, we have one last demon lord at our disposal.” He nodded toward the grotesque, blood-red form hovering near
by.

  “Yes,” chimed in Zahir, grinning madly. “The demon that traveled out of the Below inside the old Ecclesiarch, Zoric, and then hopped into Belisarius’s body during the Council.” He looked away, distracted for a moment, and muttered, “If only we’d known all along that it had jumped inside Belisarius. We had no idea where it had gone.” He tsked. “It would have saved so much time and trouble.” Then he shrugged and turned back to the governor. “And we also have one last royal alive to receive it. The heiress to the imperial throne.” He laughed. “And this time, we have taken a number of precautions to be certain there will be no interference—to be sure that both the so-called Taiko and his lapdog Tamerlane have been rendered impotent and removed from the picture.”

  “Indeed,” stated Goraddon.

  By the hardest, Rameses was able to tear his eyes away from the man in black and stare at the apparently comatose young girl lying on the catafalque. The horrific shape of the demon hovered over her now, and the meaning was clear: it was preparing to possess her. Rameses fought down the urge to throw up.

  Goraddon watched the governor’s reaction and chuckled. “As to what I want with you and your world, well...” His smile broadened. “You and your Sand Kings are important pawns on the board. You have already served to confuse matters with Tamerlane—to keep him off-balance and concerned with his internal security as well as all the external attacks I have engineered.” He smiled warmly at Rameses and shrugged. “But now I am afraid the time has come for the sacrificial move.”

  “Sacrificial?” Rameses was both utterly confused and completely terrified now. He stumbled back a step. “What do you mean?”

  The man in black gestured toward the monitor screen and Rameses followed with his eyes. He gasped. He had forgotten the wave of starships that had been dropping out of hyperspace into high orbit just before this alleged Goraddon had appeared. As he stared at the screen, his mind reeled: Now there were scores of ships—hundreds of them; thousands— of every conceivable known race and empire, alongside many that were entirely unfamiliar.