Vec
Timemaster
She hadn't given her pawn much in the way of emotion. Fear was useful enough, for something so fragile. Curiousity was necessary for any creative being. Joy, anger, pity, exhilaration, sorrow... Heartworm had none of these.
Despair was what it knew its über-mind would be experiencing, was her perception still linked to its own. That, and rage. Jvan was steeped in rage. She could afford to be. Could afford to waste time and power obliterating all that bore a slight against her. Behind her was the full weight of godhood.
For the one who knew only a shadow of such luxury, it was finally time to turn back. Despite everything, it had come too late. Vestec had danced his way in without a care, and made off with the prize of a brother scientist. The ruby throne of the Adversary stood empty.
Heartworm's vessel turned on its two legs, a headless gaze drinking deep of the Submaterial architecture. Incense still smouldered, its carnal aroma faded into steam. Vermin no longer seethed over the seat of Mammon. Empty darkness hung behind stained glass. The graven pillars were silent as ever. A memory hung in the air, a voice now still.
"The future is bright; an unopened book; my pen in hand ready for the energy to move it.”
Long ago, an angel had been sent to hear those words, and when that angel died, it was replaced. Heartworm was the new angel, the real envoy. Here it was at last, standing in the hall it had been made to grace. Too late.
After a moment, a tentacle extended from the avatar's torso, looped around the pewter chain of one of the still-burning censers. Heartworm lifted it and took the ornate vessel with it. Its footsteps echoed long in the hall of the King in Red.
Death does not darken your future, my friend downstairs. A new page turns.
* * * * *
Final system checks. From within and without Heartworm tried and tested every seam of its vessel, ensuring that the exterior was sturdy, the joints supple, and the cockpit secure. Small and thin as it may be, the avatar was ruthlessly capable of improvising to survive what time and misfortune threw at it. But risk is better avoided, and even low orbit is harsh.
Once nestled in the fluid-insulated pilot's chamber, Heartworm integrated its tongues with the creature's organ systems and felt it pulse with life. The nameless vehicle stood tall on two double-jointed digitigrade legs, each equipped with both hoof and dextrous bladed claw. Neither arms nor heads marked the smoky transparent dome of the torso from which Heartworm gazed, though compound eyes studded its perimeter. An exoskeletal plate clamped shut over the entrance. To the rear, the sleek cockpit ended in two propellant vents, and fourteen ports in which long black tentacles hid, sealed in by panels of carapace. The body gleamed in opaque white shell, dark translucent grey, and iridescent metallic tubes.
Without warning the vessel bent its slender legs to the water and leapt for the sky, disappearing faster than eyes could track. Heartworm left the thick fog and unseen gnawing things of the Caliginous Mangrove behind and burst through its dark, featureless canopy. The Emaciator's old levitating trick carried its momentum onwards, and a concussive blast of black smoke from its vents sent it hurtling up into the thin atmosphere.
Soon the air resistance disappears. Heartworm breathes safe in its vehicle, calmly aware of fluid mechanics ticking around it in perfect order. Unhindered by gravity, it gains speed quickly, curving in orbit. Its hooves touch down lightly on the surface of Mirus. Just in time.
Aeons had passed since the Scribe had crafted this moon, and yet where the outlines of the Fractal Sea had been marred by the natural forces, this intricate, frozen maze of a world remained perfectly preserved. The love Vulamera had poured into the endeavor was plain to see. One needed no third eye to see how bittersweet a gift it had been. All for nothing.
Jvan had a world of her own, and no care for the boundaries of ownership. Ceding the masterpiece back to its maker did nothing to stall her descent into stagnation. Now Vulamera was dead. Jvan wouldn't celebrate. That rivalry had never had a chance to bloom. Vulamera had evaporated into shapeless nothing yet again, just as she had in the before-world. A scientist of vision had died with her. Maybe it would have been different, if Jvan had accepted the gift. Maybe.
Maybe not.
Now only the moon remained, cold and forgotten. The solitary memorial to the artist that might have been. It waited to change hands, once again, to the engineer who was now its only heir.
Seconds after landing, the stone of Mirus shook, and Heartworm felt the grey surface below its hooves liquefy and warp, becoming reflective. It raised a many-coloured scythe of a claw and hacked open the organometallic creep while it was soft, and noted with satisfaction the gas that rushed out through the gap. Within moments Heartworm had lowered itself into the chamber as it sealed itself behind and solidified.
The cavity was a tunnel, and no small one either. Echoes of teeth boring into rock and metal clamour as it expanded into shape washed down the ridged tube in a constant current from both sides. Heartworm could identify at least eight sources, and many more in the distance. Most were drowned out by the closest, the only noise coming from the east.
It didn't take long to follow the new pipe to the wyrm that was manufacturing it.
Heartworm balanced on one long leg, simulating gravity to ground itself, and kicked the modified demon worm sharply with a hoof. The impact that could have killed a human only dented the gleaming skin of the enormous creature and caused it to contract with a low groan. Alive, active and responsive. A successful model.
Beneath the exterior, living tar and filth still flowed with morbid life. Our Lord Mutilation knows it well, for it has adopted the Wyrms of Mirus, and, as a father to a son, the little worm had clothed these helpless relics in a new skin.
The wyrm was left to its work. The avatar stalked down the tunnel, alone, the only conscious soul in the whole world. It inspected the labyrinth silently, attentive but not curious. These lonely pipes, too, were of its own design.
Savouring the subtleties of suggestively organic curves contrasting a complete lack of colour and light, the motif of the laboratory architecture was an energetic, almost erotic grotesque. Vertebrae arched over the roof like a bent human back, and where there was illumination, it glowed baleful from staring sockets. Mechanisms were hidden in bulges all too smooth, all too round.
Onwards walked old skin-stitch through its house of metal flesh, never for a moment lost in the maze. The atmosphere within its laboratory was stagnant, cold, clammy enough to form drops of condensation on the surfaces and puddles on the ground, and wholly survivable. The methodical wander continued.
In a pipe distant from the epicentre, Heartworm found a breath of drier air, and followed it. A thin coat of ash began to dust the floor, and dripping puddles were replaced with stains of long clotted blood. Little by little, the sculpted organometallic walls gave way to stone caked with brown. An odour other than raw metal prevailed, and the distant noises changed from clangs into an unsteady, viscous slurp. Deliberate as ever, the Emaciator walked on.
Slimy water, first in puddles, then deepening as the tunnel edged downwards and became flooded. The splash of footsteps became a constant. 'Down' became less relative as natural gravity around the vehicle intensified. It extended hidden fins from its shins and swam.
Roots. Light.
Knowing better than to try and climb the slick walls of the submerged blood well, Heartworm bested the faint current tugging it back and emerged, once more, into fog. Something moved in the black water. Disappeared behind a veil of Mangrove roots. This is Galbar.
Project successful.
* * * * *
In the absence of power, formerly subservient agents seethe into the vacuum.
A hundred years. Not long. Long enough. Heartworm cared nothing for whether or not Fate existed, as Jvan found herself so critically unable to determine. Her avatar simply noted with interest the behaviour of the Primordials. Only consequences are real. Zephyrion's actions had been met with dire consequences indeed, and his banishment in turn shook Galbar with its ramifications.
The very presence of such a cataclysmically powerful deity on the planet had been a keystone holding other forces at bay. In Zephyrion's absence Jvan was blessed with the perfect window of opportunity. Before the hundred years were up the Arks would descend, carrying with them a ravenous Sorority. A storm was coming, and the Djinni would have no Father Gale to intervene on their behalf.
Heartworm had no intention of participating. War destroys. War begets politics. Let Jvan advocate her own cause. With the Lord of Change gone, her avatar had its own agenda.
Vetros is quiet at night if you wait long enough. Heartworm knew exactly where and when to teleport in, cutting a hole into space rather than risk even a few seconds outside of its vehicle. The palace reeked of condensed energy. The King's Law cast a divine shadow over the entire city. That the sceptre's potency lacked subtlety, left the High Priest reliant on his own eyes and ears and wit, was a small comfort indeed. Everything had been planned and rehearsed. The Emaciator gave itself less than an hour for its task.
A Mahd fisherman, asleep behind walls of mud-brick. Vetruvian houses are built with a flat roof, for use as an upper floor, and though the man had the wisdom to bolt the hatch with a sturdy stick, the wooden latch was like wax beneath Heartworm's claw. It let itself in silently.
Plates of white shell opened like a mouth. Old skin-stitch extended its tools and began working, starting with a sedative. It slit open the man's hands and tuned his fingers, slit his throat and fanned it into gills. Hardly breathing, the man's slumber held as Heartworm opened the back of his neck and slid a dozen razor-edged tendrils into his brain.
Premeditation had only optimised the speed of the operation, sacrificing finesse. The visuo-spacial capacities and constant hallucinations Heartworm added to the fisher came at the cost of his identity, his memories, and his life. It estimated that he had a hundred and thirteen days to live until he finally succumbed to the epilepsy that follows cerebral trauma. Long enough.
It sutured his wounds and left him to begin his visions alone. No longer able to differentiate sleep from waking, the man's ruined brain began acting out his dream, mumbling in his rest.
"Four cross-spans to the rib... On both sides reinforcement to the deck from the keel. Three sides to each sail, curved on the hypotenuse and parallel to the mast- Four cross-spans to the rib, and..."
Another four targets should be enough. The people of Vetros may be enraged, may curse the demon that came in the night, but they would listen to the voice of the mad shipwrights and they would build what satisfied their inspections, rising to the challenge. Fine ships indeed Heartworm had designed for them. Worthy of kings.
All but the last of the fishers and craftsmen Heartworm modified lived alone. This was planned. Only the final victim shared his bed with a woman that may awaken at the commotion. If nothing else, the man would never have to mourn; He would never again have the mental ability to remember his wife, or be able to feel that much emotion. Small mercies. I am not trying to endear myself to anyone.
Heartworm wrapped the sedated human in its' vehicle's slender tentacles and carried it swiftly to the grand square, where the Vetruvians danced after the harvest feast, where soldiers saluted their Priest and God one last time before battle, where King Akthanos himself addressed his people. This step was the most fraught. With all systems running fast, Heartworm slit the woman's jugular vein and began to paint.
Quickly. Quickly.
Not quick enough.
The patrolman watched with wide eyes the scene in the moonlight, but did not move in from the street. He hung back, both hands forming fists on his spear. When he could watch no more, he stepped back slowly, as silently as possible. Unwilling to challenge a threat he did not know. The entire garrison was to be roused. The wisest move.
Heartworm tore out his vocal cords by his mouth and impaled him on his own spear in a single, elegant movement.
I was running out of blood anyway.
Its hooves had made a sound as it leapt for him, but the work was nearly complete. Setting the gasping man down close by, it continued the mural. The weapon had cleverly shattered his spinal cord, rendering him lame from the waist down without puncturing major arteries, and the weapon was left where it was to staunch most of the wound. He would last two days, at least. Maybe even survive.
Another few seconds and the design was complete. Fidgeting anxiously, its tentacles pushed the soldier onto his side and propped his head on his arm as Heartworm wrenched another wound in space. That way he might remain conscious until the wound clotted. He was, after all, only collateral.
Eventually, dawn broke upon an all-but-empty square, marked now by a pictographic design painted in drying blood. The exterior symbols were identical, though some were larger than others. Simple arrows, pointing inwards to the center. Arranged haphazardly, a keen eye would notice that each one led from a temple, a market, an amphitheatre in Vetros, and their size denoted their significance. The largest pointed directly from the palace.
The symbol in the center was the arched roots and sparse canopy of a mangrove. Its message was simple.
Come.
* * * * *
It seemed fairly likely that Jvan would sign. If anything, she may have signed already. Heartworm had no intention of coming close enough to find out. That was how things were, now. Always avoiding attention. Always cowering in the shadow of its maker.
There was a certain ambiguity in the words of the broadcast, but the terms of the pact itself, in characteristically Tounic fashion, were so inescapable, so explicitly stark. No killing. Maiming and desecration were clearly permissible, then. For Jvan, that made her side of the pact an empty formality. She had already given her word for peace in the New Chronos, albeit not binding. Murder wasn't even her style. What had transpired in Old Chronos was... An abnormality. A glitch, that continued still. Something still brewed inside the All-Beauty. Whether that was the fault of the Timeless One was yet to be seen.
Vowzra's final clash had depleted tremendous stores of energy, and now Jvan languished, exhausted. It would be some time before she repaired herself. The conflict itself stirred no excitement in Heartworm. A threat to its existence had been removed, at the cost of future samples that threat may have produced. A reasonable exchange. Young gods replaced old ones.
And now, provided it didn't stray too close, Heartworm had virtually free reign.
The millings of other deities may have been enough to keep the avatar well away from the Oath of Stilldeath, but nothing stopped it from following the rest of Toun's scent. Spurred by curiousity, Heartworm decided to take its chances on Cogitare. A hidden exit offered escape from the sprawling Submaterium of Mirus, and soon enough its vehicle was just an infinitely small speck moving imperceptibly through soundless space.
Charcoal sphere against a midnight backdrop. From a distance, Vulamera's favourite moon resembled its maker.
A mystery presented itself. Crisscrossed by four different tails of magic, the site of the grave was otherwise an entirely forgettable patch of dust. It revealed nothing. But not quite the nothing that Heartworm had been expecting.
There was a fifth scent, besides its own. It was fresh. Its source stood by, watching the avatar.
"Jvan? Is that you?"
A heterochromic male human. A curly-haired boy. A boy who stood and watched the thing that towered over him, heedless of air or fear.
"Part of it." A limp answer, but Heartworm's mind was elsewhere. It stared without listening.
For aeons Vakarlon had been hidden on this moon. It showed. The shapeshifter's tricks kept his body whole and untarnished, but for the discerning eye...
There was something brittle about Vakarlon. A faint crack in his voice, a flicker in his gaze. Beneath the skin, the avatar knew that there lay scorched flesh. Another illusion. Or, perhaps, something more subtle.
"Why are you sick?"
Vakarlon stopped halfway through whatever formality he was giving, and frowned, crossed his arms. "That is really no matter for you to intrude on. Especially in my hour of grief. What do you believe gives you the right to inquire about my private affairs?" The stare continued, and he went on. "But since you are evidently so astute and I doubt I have much to gain in secrecy I will tell you this much." The words came out a little too soon, too smoothly. Something was overriding his caution, and Heartworm suspected it was desperation.
"I have to say that I do not know how it is with you, Jvan, but when I came into being in the Before, I was not an entirely new entity. I had memories that were older than this world and its deities. Initially I struggled to identify them, but with Vulamera's assistance I succeeded in understanding their source." Beat.
"What I discerned within my psyche was that my godhood is a consequence of events in a previous universe. I had a previous existence in a mortal guise. By the hand of Fate, that human form was appointed to play a part in vanquishing a god of that world. That god was a destroyer by nature. Serandor. His rampage slew thousands."
"Long story short I overcame Serandor in single combat. His followers, however, lived on. They tried to use me as a vessel for his rebirth. Instead they only elevated me to his level. But Serandor is not entirely dead. He lives within me to this day. I hold him back."
The spiel was winding down; Heartworm hadn't twitched.
"Vulamera is- Was- Responsible for playing a role in that. On two occasions she explored my mind, and on the latter she partitioned him from me. Now I fear I am again alone in restraining him."
"With questionable success."
Vakarlon was quiet, as if expecting Heartworm to talk on. It did not, and he did not relax. "I do not mean to intrude, Jvan, or whatever aspect of her you might represent, but what purpose do you have in asking me this? Surely you did not simply seek me out to hear me talk? No one else has."
"Your weakness is exploitable." Flat. Honest.
"What!?" Those words had an immediate effect. Jolted back, Vakarlon's mismatched eyes instantly blackened. Heat shimmers flickered at the chinks of Heartworm's vision. "Do you mean to play some kind of sick game with me? Perish the thought. I am not weak and I am most certainly not exploitable. I divulge my secrets to you out of generosity alone, and this is how I am repaid? Do I indeed require aid from another god to hold back the Destroyer? Very well! But I have no need to come crawling in order to beg to you."
"I have held him back for millions of years and I will preserve his prison for a million more. Maybe I will find some honest god to assist me. Teknall, maybe, or even Niciel. As for you... Begone!"
And, to his surprise, the Emaciator looked like it was about to do exactly that. It turned, and stepped away silently, cloven hooves kicking black dust into the Cogitare microgravity. It was still in range of his divine hearing when it answered.
"Then there will be a second death on Cogitare. You can't even jump to Galbar anymore. No wonder it forgot you."
A brilliant conflagration ignited around Vakarlon, stretching a wavering shadow from Heartworm, and he spoke in a voice of thunder.
"You would mock me in this way? Do not mistake my silence for weakness, fool. I am Vakarlon! Balancer of Scales! Protector of Rottenbone Slough! With my own hands I created the Tundran Wastes that sprawl over Galbar in the north and in the south. I alone am responsible for preventing the rebirth of Serandor. I am the only friend of the Transcendent Mother, and at this very moment our daughter walks Galbar, bringing divine reckoning on the heads of the-"
"Where is she?"
The second interruption stalled Vakarlon into a sharp silence. Now Heartworm faced him. "Slough is dead. North waste destroyed. South emptied in genocide. Strong slaughtered weak."
When Vakarlon failed to speak and his flame began to darken, Heartworm waited. The stakes had changed. It had time.
"I do not answer to you or anyone else, Jvan. Even if what you say to me is true, I am under no obligation to tolerate your 'help'. Maybe this illness is but a sign that I am on my way to annihilating Serandor." A particularly empty lie. Vakarlon paused, as if listening to something, or at least weathering its laughter. "Besides, there is nothing you have to offer me that more trustworthy deities could not. Vulamera was unique. Serandor is trapped within my mind. That was her domain... And I trusted her. She was my friend."
The pause was hollow. The boy had no more words to shelter behind. He looked so small.
Seeing no reason to let him suffer in the quiet, Heartworm took over.
"Mortal minds are projections of their subservient flesh. Divine mind controls its power and body utterly, but echoes a deity's identity. Its nature. Thought is a form of expression."
"Serandor abuses the Vakarlon that manifests as it does now. Heartworm is the sculptor of manifestation. To change your medium of expression would preserve your nature while your expressed mind disappears. Without a conscious host psyche, Serandor is neutralised. The essence of Vakarlon survives."
"Sentience is no prerequisite to godhood. With my facilitation, you will live on as the Shadowed Mind, Balancer of Scales. Capable of what you were designed for. In this, a compromise exists."
It was the longest string of words Heartworm had ever spoken. A moment passed.
"What you are saying is in short that my consciousness can be destroyed, and the threat posed by Serandor with it, while the true Vakarlon lives on in another form."
"Correct."
Vakarlon opened his mouth, then closed it again, looked aside. The weight of opposing factors working in his decision was clearly visible. One the one hand, imminent death after a life of impotency, and the potential release of Serandor. An alternative demanded his conscious life in sacrifice, and faith in an amoral god.
"...But how? How exactly could my nature manifest in any form other than the one I have used since before this universe began? What possible shape deprives me of thought itself and still allows me to achieve my potential?"
"Deus ex machina," answered Heartworm simply. "The ghost in the machine."
