My perspective rose, so I could see the gentle downward slope of the land beyond the ridge. It was pale sand as far as the eye could see, a desert of bleached and baked hardpan without a plant or a single sign of life.
I woke up before I saw what the people were fleeing from.
THE GOD LOOKED DOWN,
AND NOT A SOUND
“I can’t believe you were giving Magna a hard time about her prophecy.”
“I tried not to,” Greyblade reminded him.
“Even so…” Gabriel chided.
“I know. Look, I know. Maybe I was embarrassed to face them with this level of crap,” Greyblade admitted. “Call it an old soldier’s stiff-necked pride. I left them as much information as I could put together about all this, by the way, including the dream, in a file on Galatine’s system. They will have found it by now. Probably having a good laugh.”
“Considering what you’ve basically proposed and left us to work on while you go prophecy-hunting, I don’t think anyone’s going to be laughing,” Gabriel pointed out. “There is more, though. Isn’t there?”
“I didn’t speak to the Pinians,” Greyblade insisted. “But … Ildar might have spoken to me. It’s…” he hesitated, picking his words carefully. “It was almost as if I had to hear the orders that weren’t being spoken. Pick them out of the silence.”
“Are you sure you weren’t just listening to jazz?”
“The majority of my professional life has taken place in the mortal sphere,” Greyblade said seriously. “Punching the bad guys in hooded robes. Blowing up enemy convoys. Police actions on the ragged edges of the dominion. Even the high-profile missions, the Knights were still just shooting other organics and dismantling machines. The Pinians were fighting up on their level – and usually ill-advisedly above their level, and quite a few times below it, all at the same time – but we left the Gods to the Gods.”
“The majority of your professional life?” Gabriel echoed.
“The more unusual missions … it was always with their sanction,” Greyblade went on. “And always within the Firstmade code. They only involved us when the other side had gotten their mortals involved. And they only stepped in when the other side did. They couldn’t send me here to do what we’re considering. They couldn’t give the order. They could only lead me to it in the waffliest prophetic way possible, and trust that I could find some way to reconcile that with my … my everything.”
“And did you?”
“I don’t know,” Greyblade admitted. “I suppose I’ll let you know when I get back from this search for the daughters of Magna’s prophecy. Maybe that will make the rest of it real, nail it down. Show me why I’ve come back here.”
“Let’s hope it’s not too late,” Gabriel grumbled.
“Regardless, the Pinians can’t do this,” Greyblade told him. “Can’t even be caught watching. Quite aside from the fact that you’re right – any official acknowledgement that they know what’s happening down here will also obligate them to respond pretty categorically – aside from that, if they get involved it opens all the doors above, and the shit will rain down on this place.”
“And why Karl?”
Greyblade spread his hands. “To be honest, I have no idea,” he said. “But I have to admit He’s the perfect tactical choice. He’s a Lapgod, but neither as influential nor as purely powerful as Leviathan or the Imp. He’s a big part of Damorak culture, and it’s possible that other forces on Earth – this Demon Mercibald, or just the humans themselves – are still in league with Him. Those sociocultural correlations may not be sociocultural causations, but they definitely constitute smoke.”
“And it has to be our enemies breaking the agreement,” Gabriel added thoughtfully, “and us lowly mortals and near-mortals enacting the punishment,” Greyblade nodded. “Ildar couldn’t send you to do this.”
“And this is it for me,” Greyblade said. “My last mission. Doing what Ildar wills me to do, but she can’t even say. It’s the culminating expression of my life’s service. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want it to be at least a little bit spectacular.”
“It usually is pretty spectacular when a soldier starts obeying the orders his superiors can’t say,” Gabriel noted. “Have you considered the possibility that you’re going rogue in your old age?”
“Only every twenty minutes or so.”
Gabriel puffed in amusement. “I figured you would have,” he said. “Don’t worry, I saw a lot of this from the priesthood under the veil. Trying to figure out God’s Word from radio silence.”
“Let’s hope I do better than they did.”
“And have you considered the possibility that this dream of yours was some attempt on your military programming’s part to reconcile and explain a more profound form of communication?” Gabriel asked.
“You mean, the Pinians are trying to talk or act through me like I’m some sort of holy madman,” Greyblade said, “but my cognitive hardware is incompatible with any instructions not given in the form of an order?”
“I wouldn’t have put it exactly like that,” Gabriel replied, “but now that you have – yes, that’s precisely what I mean.”
Greyblade chuckled. “Also every twenty minutes. And I know perfectly well that the dream I had was useless as any sort of forecast, which is another reason I didn’t mention it before,” he went on. “It was just enough, with the other information I’d collected – about the veil, and the rest – to convince me there was more to look into on Earth. Turns out I was right.”
“And it turns out that the people in your dream were running from Karl the Bloody-Handed,” Gabriel said.
“I didn’t expect that,” Greyblade admitted, although he was pretty sure that Karl was not what the people had been fleeing from.
He’d recognised the wasteland, though, the future into which the humans were fleeing, slaughtering one another all the while. He’d remembered that listless pallid nothingness when he’d looked into the centre of one of Earth’s pollution-condensing sinkholes.
It was what was left of a world poisoned by tormented souls.
“So you jumped on a transport,” Gabriel said. “And when you leave here? What then?”
“That’s what I have no idea about,” Greyblade admitted. “All I know is, ultimately I think we do need to move the Earth, not hide it. Even if the rest of the urverse carries on, Earth will die under a second veil. After all this effort. All this pain and death.”
“Maybe it’s time,” Gabriel said quietly.
“You don’t mean that.”
Gabriel waved a hand. “We’ve been over this,” he said bluntly. “You’re saying that as well as finding a way to turn Earth into a relative-capable vessel, we need to find a way to keep Heaven, Hell and Cursèd from crashing into Castle Void when the Eden Road is severed.”
Greyblade nodded. “Three sisters,” he recounted, “to stand between Heaven and Hell, and hold aloft the tattered dominion of the Eternals.”
Gabriel grunted acknowledgement. “We need more power,” he said. “For all of it.”
“Much more,” Greyblade agreed. “We might be able to move the Earth by blowing out every trapped soul and burning the whole system out by the roots. That depends on Gazmouth’s work, which we were very fortunate he’d started on already. We can trap Karl using some facet of the same system, and with a scaled-up version of the assemblage Stormburg used. Imprison Him, and drain Him dry. Actually killing Him might destroy Earth anyway, but at least we will have moved the explosion to a safe distance.”
“Well like I say, maybe it’s time,” Gabriel said. “And let’s not pretend that if you don’t get to stick your sword in Karl, you won’t be coming out of retirement and destroying Earth anyway. It may mean the enemy’s victory, but it’s still what you’re going to have to do.”
“Maybe,” Greyblade admitted. “I don’t want to give up quite yet, though. Not when we’re just beginning.”
“I guess I’m not quite ready to
give the Earth up for dead either,” Gabriel smiled. “It’s a shame that Zylow’s no longer with us, really.”
“Zylow?”
“The Fweig,” Gabriel clarified.
“Yes, I figured that’s what you meant,” Greyblade said. “Not sure I’d classify that as a shame…”
“He would have provided all the scaling-up power we needed to make this work.”
“Really?” Greyblade asked. “Seems like that was the sort of thing that got Earth stuck under the veil in the first place.”
“I know,” Gabriel said in frustration. “I hate to be the one to break this to you, but the sort of muscle you’re talking about can’t just be found lying around. Not even the Destarion will be able to help – never mind the fact that she’d be far more likely to open fire than help anyway.”
Greyblade knew this was true. As truly creepy neutral territory, the Godfang had long been home to a small community of humans who wanted to live free of the Pinian Brotherhood and the stupidity of their fellow humans. Historically, the Destarion had been a place where even the agents of the Darkings might be heard – although no half-sane denizen of Castle Void would dare set foot on the ancient ship. Humans could ride the vessel all the way down to the Castle itself, and even disembark if they chose. That was where her nickname, the Elevator, had come from.
Still, it was more common for humans to simply live inside the platform. There were no verified cases of humans actually defecting to Darking space. The old myths and the fresh prejudices of the Ghoans, for example, were enough to make any human think twice about visiting Castle Void. And for all their reputation, the Elevator People weren’t bad humans. May in fact have been the best of them. At least they hadn’t started a war of secession against a religion to which they continued to pay obnoxious lip service.
And a lot of this freedom, superiority and ideological purity came from the fact that, terrifying and dangerous to live in as she clearly was, the Godfang was a formidable power. Practically invincible. Untouched even by the living guns, if only – largely – by dint of non-involvement. Possessed of firepower that would have made the old Galatine Gazmouth wake up sweating in the night. She floated above the Earth like something out of the old tales. Which is exactly what she was.
He supposed he and the Godfang had that in common.
“Like you already said yourself,” Greyblade told Gabriel, “a single Category 9 couldn’t take on the combined might of the Damorak civilisation. Let alone Karl the Bloody-Handed. But more of them?”
Gabriel stared. “More … more Category 9s?”
“The Destarion’s sisters,” Greyblade said.
“Ten of them?”
“Nine,” Greyblade corrected him, “probably. Six to do battle with Karl, and die. And three to stand between Heaven and Hell, and hold Heaven and the seared realms together when Earth is gone.”
“Oh, so just nine. Nine Godfangs.”
Greyblade ignored the Archangel’s tone. “At this point I’m assuming the tenth, abandoned and weeping as her sisters turn their backs on her again, is the Destarion herself. Since they already turned their backs on her once. It’s the simplest answer.”
“And do you happen to know where they might have gone when they turned their backs on her that first time?” Gabriel asked. “All those charming myths about post-Cult migration and arms treaties notwithstanding?”
Greyblade sighed one more time. “That’s the problem,” he said. “I have absolutely no idea.”
THE GOD LOOKED DOWN,
SAID NOT A WORD
About the nicest thing Greyblade could say about Axis Mundi was that it was diverse. There were a few humans, and they seemed reasonably pleasant and well-thought-of by their fellow citizens, but they were a distinct minority. Molren, Gróbs, and assorted Heaven-folk abounded, and the great city-state blazed with light and life and joy from one edge of the great stone slab of its foundation-stair to the other. This was a standard Void Dimension demographic set. Still a bit more rustic than The Centre, even if The Centre’s ‘more cosmopolitan’ really just meant ‘more Molren’.
He still didn’t really like Axis Mundi, but it wasn’t Earth – although it was, to be fair to both places, rather like Adelbairn’s alien quarter.
The bar he’d chosen was the first where the clientele hadn’t either risen in respectful unison or started a polite stampede for the door the moment he’d arrived. Some of them had looked up, a couple had raised drinks or other refreshments in quiet toast, and a couple more had shuffled aside to make room for him at the bar, but for the most part he’d been just another employee of the Pinian Brotherhood, looking to wet his whistle after a hard stint of don’t-ask.
“What’ll it be, Sir Knight?” the bartender, a towering Vorontessi with thick, curved spires of gold-plated horn ringing her cranium and a row of bead-studded trophy tattoos down one arm, asked him politely. “On the house.”
Greyblade shook his head. “Make it a Skeg’s Courage, middle of the range,” he requested. “But I’d prefer to pay,” be accessed the Axis Mundi system and opened his goodwill register. Considering his service history it was functionally infinite, so he might as well have accepted a free drink … but then the bar would have been taking a small but measurable loss. Now, it got a share of his cultural capital. It was easy to forget, even after such a short time on Earth, that there were still a multitude of places where the owners would proudly say we had a Burning Knight drinking in here once. Would be saying it years after the fact.
The bartender nodded, delivered his syrupy amber liquor, and swept away to another part of the bar.
“You want a straw with that?”
Greyblade turned to acknowledge the human he’d already noted moving into the clear space to his right and taking a seat next to him.
“No thanks,” he said. “And I think I’m all set for company right now, too.”
“Yes you are,” the human smiled. He was young, Greyblade judged, and his vapour profile read as mildly intoxicated. “How about a guide? You need a guide?”
“No,” Greyblade said again, picking up his glass and inhaling the scent through his visor, “thank you. I know the way from this bar to the spaceport.”
“How about the lost Godfangs?” the man asked. “Do you know the way from the spaceport to them?”
“What?”
“Because no offence, but I can actually see the spaceport from the window,” the man smiled again. “So if you need a guide there…”
Greyblade put down his glass and turned more fully to face the grinning human. “Who are you?” he asked, already running the features through local recognition databases and finding a selection of nondescript hits, mostly bar-adjacent.
“Oh, didn’t I say? My name’s Çrom. Çrom Skelliglyph.”
“Oh,” Greyblade turned and picked up his glass again. “Like the comic?”
“Sort of,” Çrom said easily, “except an actual guy sitting at a bar next to you.”
“Your parents must have had a sense of humour.”
“We can’t all be named after the first thing we successfully wrap our hands around,” Çrom said. “Although you wouldn’t know it, the number of times people call me–”
“Who sent you, Çrom?” Greyblade asked wearily. “And who told you about the lost Godfangs?”
“You didn’t let me finish,” Çrom complained. “I was going to say ‘Lollipop’.”
“Who.”
“My brother,” Çrom replied with a sigh, “to both of your questions, actually. He told me you’re trying to save the world and you’re going to have a whole lot of trouble without my help. I swore I wouldn’t bother again, but it just sounded so interesting–”
“Your brother,” Greyblade said. Çrom nodded. “Forgive me, I don’t remember Sorry Çrom Skelliglyph having a brother.”
“Didn’t he tell you to expect me? He didn’t want to call me in, so I guess it’s understandable. Short hairy guy, answers to Gabriel. Or Turkeyman,
depending who you ask,” he leaned over. “It’s those bloody great wings of his,” he confided, “on account of he’s an Archangel,” he straightened in his seat and plucked the glass out of Greyblade’s fingers while he sat staring. “Is any of this sounding familiar?”
PART TWO: ROSEDIAN’S DAUGHTERS
- - - Heist - - -
- - - The long march - - -
- - - Worlds without zaz - - -
SORRY ÇROM SKELLIGLYPH
It was said that humans made better immortals than other species, like it was some sort of Ghåålus-given gift. Something that their furious boiling brains took to and swam with, like they were striving to return to a state that they knew, on some instinctive level, was their own.
And there were a few famous – or infamous, or legendary – human immortals. Immortals like Patroclus DeColt, and Gus Llumdren, and yes, Çrom Skelliglyph. There were innumerable breeds of human-based undead, even if they weren’t true immortals. The Angels, the Vampires, the Imago, the Demons, the Werefolk, and the more esoteric members of the widespread family.
It was said that humans weren’t just shaped like Gods, but that they were trying to get there, to become Gods, filling a space inside their own heads. The Ithborn sect of the Áea-folk – the so-called High Elves that were now all but extinct on Barnalk Low – even called them paliar a’carña, the little Gods of meat.
But it wasn’t really the case. There were plenty of immortals of various types, of all species, rattling around the urverse waiting for it all to be over. Humans just seemed to be louder about it. And admittedly they were also nosy, curious, interfering, and prone to kleptomania, with a penchant for poking things and looking behind things and opening boxes of things, all of which were characteristics that tended to leave you more statistically likely to fall afoul of immortality. Mythologically speaking.
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