Madalena looked around again and gasped. “You’re right! I do see Dyonari writing now.”
The warrior who had trained to be an acolyte spoke up again. “Yes. It is not just you, co-commander,” he said. “It is how this place works.”
“What do you mean?”
“The city of the gods reflects in its appearance—in what it looks like, and how spectacularly that is presented—the esteem its inhabitants hold for it.”
“What?” Madalena asked, confused. She shook her head. “I didn’t get a word of that.”
“I understood it,” Mirana said. “We hold it in high esteem, and so it appears glorious to us. And we are Dyonari, so parts of it have begun to take that form, as we look at it.”
“Precisely,” the warrior said, nodding.
“So—you’re saying it doesn’t really look this way?” Madalena asked. “This is just an illusion, for our benefit?”
“Not necessarily for our benefit,” the warrior said. “But that is how I understand that it works. As to the other…” He shrugged. “I do not know.”
“Fascinating,” Madalena stated, gazing about one more time, “but not relevant to our purpose here. We have a job to do, and we will focus entirely on that job.” She looked at the others sharply. “Am I understood?”
“Understood, co-commander,” the others said quickly.
Moving to the front of the formation, Madalena urged them onward again.
“Where are we going?” Mirana asked after they had passed out of the square they’d occupied previously and were traveling along a narrow alley. They had now left behind the broad avenue that led away from the gates. She pointed to a plume of something that towered above the tops of the buildings off to their left. It flowed up and rained back down like water from a geyser, but didn’t take the form of water. It was luminous; it glowed, spilling forth brightness. At more careful inspection, it was a column of light—of raw energy.
Of the Power.
“This is not the way,” Mirana added, sounding puzzled.
“We are taking an indirect route,” responded her co-commander. “To avoid any who might yet linger here.”
“Ah. A good plan,” Mirana commented.
They continued on in that manner until at last they arrived on the outer fringes of the central plaza. There they stopped and merely stood, staring, for at least a full minute.
Ahead of them, at the center of the square, the Fountain of the City roared up into the too-blue sky. Suns and stars and constellations danced about the great column of energy.
“That—” Mirana almost choked, cleared her throat, and tried again: “That—is the Fountain of the gods!”
“It is.”
“I never dreamed I would see it,” she said, her voice filled with wonder. “Not in the flesh.” She gazed up at the luminous column of raw Power. Then she glanced over at her co-commander, frowned at what she saw, and turned fully to stare at her.
Madalena had stripped off her armor and the uniform underneath and stood there naked now, tearing at something in the inner lining of her uniform. She looked back at Mirana as if her behavior was the most natural thing one would have expected to see under these circumstances. “What?” she asked, still pulling at the lining.
“What in the name of the Lower Pathways are you doing?”
Before Madalena could answer, a part of the lining ripped and came loose. The co-commander grinned and pulled it free along its entire length, from ankle to wrist. She held the resulting long band of what appeared to be fabric out for Mirana to inspect. “There,” she said with a look of great satisfaction. “You see? It worked.”
Mirana’s frown deepened. “First, put your uniform back on,” she hissed. “Second—what worked?”
“Wha—? Oh…” Madalena seemed to realize for the first time that she was naked. She swiftly pulled her uniform back on. “As I was saying—”
“Keep going,” Mirana insisted. “The rest of it.”
Madalena gave her an ugly look but sat down on the smooth walkway that surrounded the central square of the City and began to pull her transparent armor back on, piece by piece. When she was finished, she again held up the strip she had pulled out of her uniform. “This,” she said, as though the other should easily recognize it.
Mirana understood by now that her co-commander had not taken leave of her senses. Instead, most likely, she had been given something—or knowledge of something—that the others had not. And it involved whatever she had just ripped out of her clothing. She leaned in closer and peered at the ribbon of fabric. “What is it?” she asked.
“Tear yours out, too,” she said by way of reply.
“Mine?” Mirana’s eyebrows knitted together and she slowly stared down at herself. “I have a whatever-that-is in my clothing, too?”
“I certainly hope so,” Madalena replied. She turned to the other four Dyonari there with them. “All of you—do as I just did. Tear out this strip. Now!”
At the sound of the barked order, the other Dyonari all quickly shed their reservations and inhibitions, followed quickly by their uniforms. A few moments later, they had undressed, found the ribbons, pulled them free, and re-dressed.
Madalena moved among them quickly, gathering the thin cloth strips. “This was deemed to be the safest way to transport them into the City,” she said in answer to their questioning expressions.
“I ask again,” Mirana said, shaking her head slowly, “what are they? What are they for?”
“All I know is what I was told to do,” Madalena said. She tapped the side of her head as she gazed back at the others. “And what I was shown.”
“Shown?” Mirana looked puzzled at first, but then realization dawned upon her. “Ah. The seer.”
Madalena nodded. “The mission,” she said.
The strips of cloth seemed to possess some sort of magnetic or adhesive quality, and Mirana watched as the other commander connected each together, nose to tail. Soon she held a single long piece about fifteen meters in length. Gathering it up in her long-fingered hands, she began to walk toward the Fountain.
The others watched her move for only a couple of seconds before they shot one another questioning looks, and then followed along after her.
No one spoke until they arrived at the edge of the broad, shallow basin that lay at the foot of the Fountain. What first looked like water but upon closer inspection revealed itself to be raw cosmic energy shimmered within the basin, sloshing about restlessly. Madalena paused for a few seconds, her eyes staring blankly ahead as she accessed information planted there by the seers. Then she blinked, looked down at the basin, and lowered one end of the ribbon into the gently churning pool. She trailed the rest of the ribbon out into the plaza, laying it on the ground in a straight line that pointed back in the direction of the City’s gates.
Almost immediately tendrils of shimmering energy surged up out of the basin and wound their way along the ribbon, lacing and spiraling around it like fast-growing ivy. The coruscating threads of raw cosmic power reached the end and continued on for a short distance before curving back around in tight arcs and working their way back toward the basin.
“Quite lovely,” Mirana observed. “But it doesn’t seem terribly useful.”
“It isn’t finished,” Madalena said. “If only I can remember the other part...”
“Remember?” Mirana turned to her, puzzled. “Oh,” she said after a moment. “They did not see fit to give you conscious access to all the information up front. You can only unlock the steps one at a time.”
Madalena’s lack of response was all the confirmation Mirana needed.
“So,” she went on after a brief reflection, “you don’t even know the ultimate objective of our mission, do you?”
Madalena paused and glared at her. “I have no need to,” she snapped. “Just as you have no need to ask about it.”
Mirana appeared to sulk after that. Madalena, meanwhile, brightened, as though some good idea had
just struck her. She sat down on the ground and once again removed her boots. This time she actually began to dismantle the heels.
“Ah,” said Mirana, watching her. “I see you have remembered the next step. Either that, or you have lost your mind.”
Madalena did not see fit to respond to this. Instead she continued to work with the components she had removed from the soles of her boots, rapidly assembling from the little devices a single, larger mechanism. At last she looked up at Mirana expectantly.
The co-commander required only a moment to understand what was being required of her. She in turn sat down and began to remove her own boots. “The others, too?” she asked as she did so.
“Not this time,” Madalena said.
As the four warriors looked on silently, Mirana unfastened the hidden components from the soles of her boots—components that, until this moment, she’d had no idea were there—and handed them over. As she did so, she asked, “Why did they require these components to be hidden?”
“The seers did not know whom we might encounter on the way to the city, or after we arrived,” Madalena replied. “They did not want us to be stopped by anyone who might recognize the equipment we brought with us in an assembled condition.”
“I see.”
Madalena added the new components to the device she was building. When she was finished, a few moments later, she held up a cube about six inches square, transparent, and with multicolored lights flashing inside it. Faint lines were traced along its surfaces, like printed circuits. As more memories were unlocked within her mind, she learned the next step. In retrospect, it appeared obvious. She stood and walked over to the ribbon she had laid out—upon closer inspection, it, too, was covered with faint circuit lines—and set the little cube down upon its end. The same invisible force that had fastened the individual strands of cloth together took hold again, attaching the ribbon firmly to the cube. The cosmic energies now flowed over, into, and through the cube, lighting it up with a million colors. And then, as the others looked on in surprise, the cube began to grow. In seconds it had expanded to nearly a meter per side, the lights within it growing even brighter.
The six of them stood there, staring in wonder at the strange object Madalena had constructed. Energy continued to flow along the ribbon and into the cube. The cube continued to glow. Seconds passed, then minutes. Nothing new happened.
“Is there anything more?” Mirana wondered aloud. “What is it doing? What is it for?”
Madalena closed her eyes and appeared to be concentrating. Then she opened them again and looked at Mirana. “I don’t know,” she said. “There doesn’t seem to be anything else planted within my memories.”
The two co-commanders looked at one another, growing more concerned by the second. Neither of them spoke, but it was obvious to the other four, as well as to each other, what they were thinking: Have we come so far and done so much, only to fail in our mission here at the end, because we cannot remember the final steps that should have been implanted in our memories?
And then one of the warriors stepped forward. “I have it,” he said. “I remember. I know what to do.”
The two co-commanders looked at him skeptically. “You?” demanded Madalena. “You were given the final steps, and not one of us?”
“I cannot imagine that’s true,” added Mirana. “Prove it.”
At that, the warrior nodded respectfully to each of his two co-commanders—he seemed unfazed by their lack of confidence in his claims—and strode confidently toward the cube. Kneeling in front of it, he laid both hands upon it and closed his eyes. For several seconds, nothing happened. The two co-commanders looked at one another, looks of scorn and derision beginning to spring forth upon their faces.
And then the top of the cube began to change.
The top panel curved inwards, like a bowl. It spread out, much wider than the width of the cube from which it was extruding. In less than a minute it had formed a sort of dish shape, two meters in diameter. A protrusion in the form of an antenna emerged from the center of the dish and reached upward a few inches.
“What is that?” Madalena demanded, moving forward to study this new development. “Why did you make it do that?”
The warrior shook his head. “I know as little about it all as you two do. Probably less.”
“The seers must not have wanted you to have all the fun, Madalena,” Mirana said—to which the other commander shot her an ugly look.
“What now?” the two co-commanders said at precisely the same time. The four others did something then that Dyonari warriors rarely did: they laughed. The co-commanders ignored them.
The six of them stood there, waiting, uncertain of what to do.
“Our orders were to stay and guard whatever we constructed,” Madalena said.
“Guard it from what? From whom?” Mirana gestured broadly at the plaza and the Golden City beyond. “It is obvious that this place is deserted, just as we suspected it would be. No one has lived here in a very long time. Nearly all the gods are dead now. Perhaps Moranna is the last one. Perhaps even she has been dead all these long centuries since she presented those early seers with the hand.”
Madalena considered this. “Still,” she said, “if we could find our way here, others could, too.” She shrugged. “And, in any case, we have our orders. We are to remain here and guard this machine until further notice.”
Mirana didn’t appear entirely persuaded by that argument. She started to say something in objection—but no one present would ever learn what it was going to be. For at that moment the energy flowing from the Fountain into the cube spilled out into the parabolic dish at its top—and then blasted into the sky in a broad, blinding beam of raw, coruscating power. The column of elemental cosmic plasma ripped a hole in the sky and shot through it, disappearing beyond that point. The stream continued as the six looked on, as if it was steadily pumping the energies of the Fountain off to some other dimension, for some unimaginable purpose.
All talk of leaving now having evaporated, the six Dyonari sat down upon the smooth ground of the plaza, stared at the device they had built with undisguised awe, and pondered exactly what it was doing, and why.
And they waited.
BOOK ELEVEN:
THE TOWER BETWEEN
THE WORLDS
1
The Dyonari troops marched through the fog, their swords out and at the ready. Behind them followed the Bravo Squad troopers of the Imperial III Legion. Within an enclosed space between the two formations came General Arnem Agrippa, Major Darius Torgon, the two Dyonari commanders, and Solonis the seer-god.
Once it became clear that the two groups of soldiers, human and alien, were going to cooperate to attempt to stop the future destruction of the galaxy, the second Dyonari leader had at last identified himself and greeted Agrippa with something approaching respect. His name, as it turned out, was Ralin. Now he looked toward the blond human general and said, “The rest of our forces are only a short distance away.”
“You’re sure about that?” Agrippa asked, his mouth twisting in a half-smile. “In all this fog and distortion, we’ve found it difficult to gauge distances.”
The Dyonari looked back at him for a moment but said nothing.
Beside them, Major Torgon had been glancing occasionally and curiously at Solonis. Finally the seer-god looked back at him. “Yes, Major?” he asked. “You have a question for me?”
Torgon was taken aback but summoned up his courage and said, “There’s something I don’t quite understand.”
Solonis appeared weary, but he spared this a laugh that was not unkind. “By all means, then—ask away.”
“You said your...” Torgon sought the correct term, found it. “Your astral form could move forward and backward in time.”
“Indeed.”
“But this—” Torgon nodded toward Solonis. “This is a real body, yes? Not an astral form. And you needed that tomb thing to travel to our time here.”
“The Temporal Vault, yes.” Solonis smiled. “And you are quite correct: this is not my original body.”
Now Agrippa was interested. “I had wondered,” he rumbled. “In ancient times, your appearance was not described as anything like the way you now appear. That was part of why I was so dubious of your claims at first.”
“It was a matter of necessity,” Solonis said. “For, even as I was returning from the future, my physical body in the past was killed.”
“Killed?” Torgon’s eyes widened.
“Likely by Vorthan or one of his accomplices, during the war.” He shook his head. “I will probably never learn the details.”
“How do you know it was killed?” Agrippa asked.
The seer-god almost laughed at that. “How could I not know?” He grinned at Agrippa. “Believe me, General—one can tell.”
Torgon gestured toward him. “You were killed. Yet…you’re still here.”
“Very observant, Major.” Solonis grinned at him now. “Yes—but, as you have observed, in a new body.” He shrugged. “I told you earlier that I am essentially a ghost.” He hesitated a moment, growing wistful. “It was a very strange sensation, somewhat like having one’s legs cut out from underneath. I felt...untethered. My connection to the past—to my own natural time—grew weaker, more tenuous.” He spread his hands. “I had no choice. I inhabited—perhaps you would prefer the term ‘possessed,’ though I don’t—this body, in order to sustain my existence while I continued my investigation.” At Agrippa’s frown, he quickly added, “The individual to whom this body originally belonged was already dead—the body was brain-dead, from some sort of accident or incident. My astral form animates it and it has served me well.”
Agrippa continued to regard him with some degree of skepticism.
“But you couldn’t travel back in time in your usual manner while inhabiting a physical body,” Torgon said, looking up with excitement as if he’d unraveled some great mystery.
“Precisely, Major” Solonis said, nodding. “Yet if I hadn’t assumed a physical form, I would’ve...drifted away, I suppose.” He shook his head. “I am not certain exactly what would’ve happened, to be honest. But I didn’t wish to find out. And so, inhabiting a real body again, I constructed—at great trouble and expense—a Temporal Vault, to carry both my spirit and this new body backwards in time. I set the controls to take me back, back, all the way to the moment when the shockwaves switched from moving forwards to moving backwards. Or rather,” he added, “to a moment just days or hours prior to that.”
The Shattering: Omnibus Page 72