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Glasslands: A Griot's Tale (Earth-F67X Chronicle)

As the laminated cardboard door creaked wide, Ndakala Blayhi glanced up from the plywood slab and plastic crates that composed his desk. With a gesture, he lifted cheap horn-rimmed glasses off the bridge of his nose; not prescription, but adequate to read words on a page. Expressions were another matter. Still on his desk, atop a stack of papers, was his new identification card. On it was printed and embossed his third name, same as his first and inherited from his grandfather, an Efé village shaman. He was proud to reclaim it, but likewise ashamed the journey took so long. While his former and second name, Joshua, availed him security and opportunity, he now recognized it came at the cost of identity. ‘Joshua’ was a symbolic rejection of his past—an ingratiation to those in power over his world. This was something he could not comprehend as a young boy, but now, much later in life, recognized the subtext.

Fortunately, he outlived the west's cultural war. They lost. Not to his people, who were too disorganized and fraught with internal strife to ever stand up to the west; rather, unable to cope with the fallout of the Val’Gara attack, the west abandoned him, his kinsmen, his country, and the whole African continent. In their place reigned chaos and an alien business—Xanathan Enterprises. Still, the quarantine was the direct cause that yielded a new era of violent cultural revitalization, even as new powers sought to impose their will on the cradle of humankind.

‘Joshua’ was now a liability. Were it not for that, apathy would have hewn it on his tombstone.

“How may I help you, Digbo?” he asked.

The stock clerk’s attention drifted to the single personal item in the makeshift office tucked behind pallets of melons, paper towels, and water. It was his first day on the job, but Ndakala thought he would do well as a member of the Aldi famiy.

“Ah,” Ndakala carefully lifted the bibelot and looked at it the way he always did, as though it was his first time. “My grandfather, my mother, and myself. One of few photos taken of the Efé village in the Ituri. Yes, yes, that young man was me. Now I am old and my hair—I use to have some, as you can see—what little is left is white.”

He laughed and carefully set it back down on his desk.

“But what interest does a young man with his life in front of him have in an old man? No doubt you are anxious to leave and celebrate life.”

Digbo, a dark rhino of a youth from Kraaifontein district, just shrugged his heavy round shoulders and vaguely smiled. A former rugby player and, at six foot five inches, over two feet taller than Ndakala, Digbo wasn’t much of a talker. Most of those who worked in the back were quiet. The cashiers were the ones who loved to socialize.

Ndakala stood up, went back to the safe, keyed in the combination, and found the company checkbook. He removed just one check, secured the safe, turned around, sat down at his desk, and filled it out. Done, he stood up, handed it to Digbo, and shook his hand.

“What better way to celebrate than with your first paycheck, yes?”

That got a much larger smile. Toothy white, a handsome contrast.

Ndakala nodded and smiled back, “Good, good. Be well. I hope to see you still here after I return in a few days.”

“Yes, sir, Mister Blahyi. You will.”

Digbo turned and left, leaving Ndakala once more alone. Not a nosy one, that, he thought as he brushed a fly off a patch of melanoma-poisoned skin on his bald head. No doubt he was more interested in checking in on his friends or a special someone than the sojourns of an old man. Still, Digbo appeared trustworthy, strong, and showed consideration for his fellow Aldi employs. Eventually, Ndakala might recruit him to a broader humanitarian interest.

Eventually, everyone was gone and he, as manager, was left to turn off the lights and lock up the store. His assistant manager would unlock it in the morning. Aldi—indeed, most of Cape Town—didn’t operate on the 24/7 immediate gratification work cycle of the west. He was glad of that.

No God's Sky

Within her darkened alcove, Ezkshi poured over the yottabytes of diagnostics the Zara vi-Pol gleaned from the nascent echoes of her fleet’s first salvo. Beyond, her premonition alluded to the Bahá-cizr’s even grander reprisals. With so little effort, constellation-scale destruction of myriad provenances reverberated with relentless fury on the intransigent invader. Thus was the culmination of eons of gathered might. All Nenegin’s vessels—hers for the while—followed suit and contributed to the battle in the manner in which they were best equipped. Ever so slightly, she inclined her mind in recognition of Deimobos’ newfound and final purpose as a munition in their counter-offensive and, briefly, extended her empathic bond in approval to the orchestrator of that deed.

Note to admiralty log—recommend Zuril Nu-báshíra, commandant of the specialist ship Nool Al-Pas, for title; tentatively, Comminutor of Deimobos, the Apostate Sphere.

As she watched, massive wounds, more numerous with each moment, ruptured the Cradle of Life’s hide. Vast voids, some grander than main sequence stars, accompanied lacerations light years long struck with such precision they seemed inflicted by cosmic scalpels. Along the smoldering margins, radiation from spent phase rockets sizzled vividly betwixt cinders of burning carapace. Destruction nigh immeasurable riddled the grand, yet grotesque, frame, and the toll for its audacity inexorably mounted.

As the fog of radiation temporarily dimmed, she encountered more satisfactory news.

>> Kilamara, Chandoo nodes pinging grid.
>> Grid offline.
>> Kilamara, Chandoo nodes pinging grid.
>> Kilamara node reports reacquisition of local nodular cluster.
>> Chandoo node reports reacquisition of local nodular cluster.
>> Grid online.

The unified forces of energy and entropy brought about the celestial entity’s inevitable disarticulation, but she wasn’t satisfied. She wanted to slay the beast. Immediately, Ezkshi encoded a message into the grid. “To Cizran High Command. This is the Zara vi-Pol, commanded by Ezkshi, admiral pro-tempore of Admiral Nenegin’s away fleet. Priority Θ. Requesting immediate authorization for konul transmundane-ablation.”

. . .

Even before Nenegin, with his honor guard, prowled aboard the Vespis Dol to, in an act well beneath his station, investigate the cause of its superluminal failure, two facts glinted golden against his left iris from the data router embedded within his mask.

Of very little importance, the first notification informed him that the responsibility transfer protocol finalized, which indicated that Kirri, Lysander, and the tome—as it was, to his most recent recollection, manifested—no longer added their weight to the burden of his authority. The three items of property, along with whatever other chattel associated with the Dira var-sha’s haloportal confinement chambers, were now warded by Gereza.

However, the second item interested him greatly. War was imminent and his away fleet possessed the assumption of authority to deploy konuls in battle. A momentous occasion, as no threat in recent history rose to an occasion that required anything beyond mere conventional weaponry. He regretted his absence, but at the same time saw it as an opportunity for his protégés and wondered whether they would be bold or demure.

Those items pushed to the back of his mind, he concentrated on his inspection of the freighter. As soon as he expanded his empathic consciousness, a terrible wrongness loomed like a specter in the sankul chamber. A taint seeped from containers, designed to be perfect prisons of the ultramundane, that cloyed with his senses and infected him with disgust.

Appalled, he paused his stride.

Something in him hinted that this vessel must never reach the holy planet; moreso, whatever put it in such a state.

To his honor guard, Nenegin commanded, “Escort the passengers and crew, if any there be, to this anteroom for interrogation.”

. . .

On the massive wrap-around screen that dominated the fore of the Zara vi-Pol’s bridge, and likewise on the bridge screens of the allegiant Cizran military vessels in the sector, a message displayed:

>> KTmA authorization granted: Perallis 3-5, Chandoo 1.
>> – – The Liars.

The bold text brought unexpected stillness to what was an already quiet, albeit active, environ. For a moment, Ezkshi broke from her combat data analysis to fully absorb its meaning. Of importance was the designation of the high command department who responded and the role they played in military messaging. Strictly speaking, it meant formal approval of her request was not yet granted; however, given exigent circumstances and a quorum of influential backers, she possessed now the authority to act on the assumption that it was. It also meant she assumed responsibility for any consequences should the political atmosphere change.

Absently, she heard, “Who are the ‘Liars’?” whispered on her bridge.

The mechanical voice of her executive officer explained, “Predictive military introspective intelligence. During times of war, they make educated guesses as to what central command will ultimately decide.”

“So we’re at war?”

“No official declaration has been made,” Ezkshi interrupted.

She let insinuation hang in the silence. If KTmA authorization was unofficially given and under formal consideration, that meant the Liars were confident a declaration of war was imminent. Until then, the responsibility for them being wrong belonged solely to her as the ultimate decision maker. Not merely was it her reputation at risk, but that of every Cizran in the chain of command in this present theater; all three, given Nenegin’s absence.

Four konuls named, two of which were on the battleship Zara vi-Pol, another on the specialist ship Nool Al-Pas, and a third on the cruiser Kazra-dei. Only one KTmA was anticipated, which, given the liberal response from high command, indicated a considerable severity of situation and anxiety in the holy city. Yet, as she perused the combat report, although she still considered that much power overkill, it seemed an increasingly warranted response.

No God's Sky

Undeniable

While Plango fled, Ec-shavar rose—not to glory, but, unbeknownst to himself, through the interstice of fate that led to ignominy.

Motes of rage confused the former clarity within the labyrinthine complexity of his empathic organ, in which Ec-shavar felt what his mind refused to countenance. Fueling it was a vicious truth that lingered and mocked his futile denials, tore at the ligaments of his psyche, and scorned the raison d’etre of not merely himself but his entire species. It was a fact intolerable to the extent it was unthinkable—that an unworthy wa’ali prognosticated such an auspicious occasion while he, the epitome of billions of cycles of evolution, stood impotent and irrelevant before that which he beheld. Worse, it became apparent that more unworthies than Xo’pil were availed prescience to the calamity, for even the Quish were safely sealed within the catacombs beneath Zold’nach and likewise the wildlife within their burrows.

It hardly matters now, he bitterly abnegated.

Invisible, the psychic tendrils of his mind wound round the planet’s electromagnetic shield, constricted in an upward wave of paroxysms, and brought him through and above the city’s forcefield and into the stratosphere. There, his senses unimpeded, he observed clearly. Greatly altered, Q’ab barely resembled his recollection from mere days prior. It hummed with a frequency that threatened the fragile molecular bonds of life. Beneath him, clouds and the seas assumed strangely repetitious patterns reflected inward until the mind became frustrated by its impulse for closure. The shalam glowed eerily, its radiation piercing soil, stone, and flora in an earthy aurora that cast the continents, for a moment, in a mantle of scintillating green. Inexplicably, the terrain muted in reaction to the exquisite dissonance and ultimately sharpened until it, like the oceans, blazed the purest blue; even the variegated hues of Q’ab’s vegetation were reordered and inevitably capitulated to the sapphire regime.

Futilely, his mind sought for a shred of historical precedence, yet, in spite of the long Cizran occupation of Q’ab, no similar event revealed itself.

I fear no unknown, Ec-shavar blustered. Fear and rage were distractions. Focus was required. It was his moment. He would be transformed. He would be reforged and reborn as a god.

Brazenly, he bore himself to the power that surged from Ajana to Q’ab and willed it to acknowledge him—recreate him. In reckless abandon, he burned in the halation of its majesty. Even that proved to be beyond his strength to reconcile, for it rent his armor and introduced disorder into his carefully devised genetic blueprint. Senses successively blunted and his will perverted, his hold on Ganaxavori’s kukull’s faltered and the world below whorled into an indecipherable muqarnas of lapis lazuli.

Then it—Ua—passed by Ec-shavar without notice.

Crestfallen and the tatters of his attention unable to follow the cosmic aberration, Ec-shavar returned his mind to Ajuna, the molested and unstable star. With effort, his mind pierced its volatile plasma eruptions, coronal mass ejections rife with heavy elements, and contorted magnetic bands. It was violent and dangerous. All of Q’ab was in imperiled by unbridled blaze. Then he sensed yet another presence. From behind the star emerged a peculiarly familiar malevolence nearly identical to what was carved in stone in his office by the ancients of Q’ab. Its likeness likewise appeared in temples and tapestries all over Cizra Su-lahn. A black blemish of absolute evil, revealed in the other being’s wake, bled darkness over the canopy of starlight and awoke in him nightmares of the calamitous era before he splintered from the whole.

At last Ec-shavar comprehended that the forces that confronted him were beyond his ken. The gods he longed to join were manifestations that succored on on the effluence of stars and supernovae. In comparison, what was he who subsisted on mere vanity? Less than nothing and, soon, mere dust lost in a maelstrom of power. All he beheld overwhelmed him, as it would any lone Cizran.

In earnest, he cast aside the barriers erected around his connection to his brethren—he flung wide the floodgates of his soul. For the first time in a millennia, he basked in the kinesthesia of long severed relationships. He felt the vitality that burned in Plango, Domnik, Silexies, and more; moreover, they felt him. A beacon that burned brightly throughout the empathic galaxy of his people, he conveyed in an instant a threat—not to himself, but to his people—via the instrumentation of their unique, unbroken, and inimitable bond.

Ajuna scorched Q’ab.

The bond evanesced.

A great deluge soothed.

Obliterated, first was he, last of his breed, Ec-shavar, never to eternal dwell in the Cloud of Ghot.

. . .

Inescapable

Kirri never was aboard the Dira var-sha.

Cizran were wise and cunning. They defended against the unknown, allowed for the unexpected, and permitted no exposure of unnecessary risk. Prisoners were secured in neither ship nor structure, but confined where they could do no harm—self-harm included. Rifts emergent from dimensional vortices at the bottom of a black hole designed by Silexies were where the unwanted were sent, access to which was facilitated by ad-hoc generation of wormholes that bridged encrypted spacial coordinates. If one escaped, decamp to a region of insignificance and solitude occurred. As Eel Sermonde and Eti Naris both could have attested, they never felt the crude embrace of manacles; instead, space, sensation, and impulse were constrained. Against such, brute force was utterly impotent.

On par with Cizran intellect was their perception, so keen as to avert deception. Schemes unfolded only as pretext warranted, as was true with Eti Naris’ charade. To Ec-shavar, the synthe’s prohibited mods and conspiracy with Potan Mul were known, the intended occupant of the Vepsis Dol’s sankul foreseen, and Plango’s role as his replacement comprehended. Venial deeds such were so long as relief from exile remained within reach; thus, rather than punish, he isolated, controlled, and exploited the affectation of innocence to his advantage.

Kirri lacked these especially Cizran qualities.

He and his ilk were mentally deficient, evidenced by the haste with which he, exemplar of his species, succumbed to phrenic distress after mere translocation into standard haloportal confinement. His visions were not prophetic, but pathetic byproducts of hopes and fears distilled in synaptic discord. For him, there was no door open, no bar to bend, no chain to break, no shackle to unbind—those were mere chimeras extrapolated from his cultural bias. Any analogs to such archaic contrivances were obsolesced by the Cizran Empire millennia prior.

There was no spiritual journey; no bold rescue by his hero, Aredemos; no repudiation of Nenegin, who never would have permitted an unknown quantity aboard his spacecraft; no menagerie of queer aliens with origins outside of known space—only Kirri’s mind projected against the interior of a fold in space.

Millions of light years physically separated Kirri and the Dira var-sha.

Aredemos was not on his way to both.

. . .

Destruction

Desert, jungle, and valley defined Kilamara, a once-planet in the Su-laria galaxy’s edge once protected by the Cizran Empire. An expanse of sand sharpened by translucent red spires divided its sole continent as well as the sexes of its most conspicuous inhabitants, the Kilamarans. A place of contrived norms, its opposites were ultimately mirrors where jungles abutted oceans, rivers careened down gorges, valleys accentuated mountain ranges, and a cyclic abundance of primal urgency and consumption were ever and conspicuously manifest.

Once

From atop Mount Initãra, Aredemos scorned the fractious symmetry of his homeworld. Still visible in the distance blazed a symbol of Cizran might, an orb of frenzied light and excited particles. It would have been his funeral pyre were it not for translocation to his present vista. The residue of the orbital bombardment involved a rod smaller and lighter than the tumescent form Aredemos assumed in his wrath and, accelerated to a percentage of light speed, contained enough kinetic energy to eradicate the Hellseed incursion, engulf a spherical kilometer of terrain in plasma, and unleash a wave of destruction across a vast, but uninhabited, expanse.

This, indirectly, was why Mount Initãra was on what was Kilamara.

Was.

If Aredemos’ unfamiliarity with an ancient Kilamaran shrine hinted at lack of kinship with his people and ignorance of his own history, the haste with which he obliterated his own planet bellowed volumes about his recklessness. A scientifically illiterate boob, repeatedly he displayed a prejudice towards brute force as the solution to his problems. It never occurred to him the kinetic energy present in the orbital bombardment was orders of magnitude less than the equal and opposite force necessary to reach Kirri or, as he imagined, chase down a superluminal spacecraft. The instant he kicked down and accelerated to multiples of light speed, he atomized Mount Initãra, splintered the planetary crust over its entire surface, agitated the mantle into an unstable brume thrice its natural volume, and pulverized the core. Momentarily unbound by gravitational pressure or an external shell, the superheated interior expanded to a gaseous nebula that incinerated and sterilized all life that clung to the debris field once known as Kilamara.

In future Cizran science classes, this would be an example of why kinetic energy was never to be used to achieve great speeds in short time frames while near anything of value, although such was within their power; it was inherently pointless and self-destructive. Instead, they elected a harder path that preserved and maximized the resources available in the worlds they controlled.

With Kilamara gone, the delicate gravitational balance of its star system was disrupted and an asteroid field stretched along the path the planet once circumnavigated. On Deimobos, mountain-size impactors of burnt rock and semi-solid magma weighing exatons rained in torrents and would do so for millennia. In the fallout, the moon’s surface was battered, subterranean lairs ruptured, history eradicated, and all but the hardiest macro-level life annihilated. As the debris field spread, it wrought havoc on all worlds, from the primordial to the domains of the Aptosites, adrift within the belly of the galactic beast known as The Cradle of Life.

. . .

En Route To

Aboard the Dira var-sha, calm prevailed. The bridge was, as usual, minimally staffed. Anything more was unnecessary while under faster-than-light conditions, where threats assumed a disposition different and diminished from the ordinary. Even in situations where a full complement was required, the presence of crew was ceremonial—a holdover from a bygone era kept in place by bureaucratic inertia. For modern vessels, like the Dira var-sha, all importance systems were fully automated, from defense, to propulsion, to life support.

Gazing through the viewport at the gray miasma that superluminal travel presented was the first officer, Lieutenant Commander Qigar, a Zanifeen slave with a velvety trunk for a nose. Despite his title, he had no real authority and served as a reminder to the crew of Nenegin’s conquests. Instead, like most denizens of the Cizran Empire, his role was relegated to relaying information between parties. After all, it would be absurd for the ensign manning the communication network, a low-caste synth, to address the admiral directly.

Thus far, the distress signal from the Vepsis Dol went ignored; even the volume of the alert was reduced to the absolute levels permitted by protocol. While the proper reports acknowledging its receipt were filed, the standing order—or lack thereof by the requisite authority—was that it was a matter that could wait, preferably for someone else to address.

At any rate, they would be in orbit around Cizra Su-lahn within the hour.

Suddenly, a second alarm blared and shocked the occupants of the bridge out of their reverie. Its tone and color indicated it was of a much greater priority than the first. Qigar gazed with irritation at the synthe as he waited for the information to be relayed. A second later, the synthe practically jumped out of her station and the atmosphere on the bridge transformed from one of quiet professionalism to excited chatter. Not an excitement born of dread of fear, but of astonishment.

“Lieutenant Commander Qigar,” the synthe exclaimed, her words rushed as as she plucked herself up off the floor and took her seat, “Kilamara is .. it is gone!”

Agitated by the news, the hairs along his snout puffing out, as if electrified, in a ridiculous and off-putting fashion. This would not be received well by Nenegin, but it was best to pull the admiral in as quickly as possible. Before he would do that, Qigar wanted a bit more explanatory data to work pass along up the chain of command.

“Synthe xb-83-r, compose yourself! Now, what do you mean by gone?” demanded the first officer.

The synthe paused and pressed her fingers to her temples for a moment, took another glance of the data feed, and, her voice trembling with excitement, elaborated, “Sir, it appears a several xenna joule kinetic impactor, centered around Mount Initãra, blew off the crust, lanced through the core, and effectively surrounded the planet in a fiery gas cloud.”

“Aredemos, that imbecile,” muttered Qigar, “kicked the planet so hard it ruptured. Why?”

“Sir?” the synthe articulated, unsure of what to do next.

Qigar paused and concluded speculation on that matter was above his rank. Instead, he demanded, although he could have easily guessed at the answers, “Information delay? Casualty rate?”

“1.3 seconds before the alarm—the time it took for our communication network to process the data. As for casualties, everyone. Our satellite detects no life forms in the wreckage. A likely outcome, as the impact vaporized the planet’s molten core, which would have sterilized surrounding masses. Uh … on the subject of Aredemos ...”

The synthe paused.

“Well?” Qigar practically snarled through his flared proboscis.

The synthe pressed her palm against the side of her head as if trying to concentrate. In a way, the image was accurate—she was exchanging a great deal of information with the communication network in that moment and all her cognition circuits were active.

“Sir, we’ve isolated the aberrant being’s course. He is heading toward sector c-xv-209-r7, the gravity well at the bottom of an artificial black hole.”

Qigar rolled six of his nine eyes.

“He thinks he is going to rescue Kirri, as in that twisted space lie many of the sub-dimensional vortices where prisoners of war and other undesirables are isolated. Kirri’s imprisonment codex, when activated, opens to a rift to a dimension therein. A fool’s errand, as the tidal forces of that space, both physical and spiritual, will stringify Aredemos both body and soul. If he survives that, he will be trapped in a rift and, if he is anything like Kirri, subjected to fantasies of his mind’s own making. A better fate than the fratricidal brute deserves, if you ask me.”

“Enough speculation,” Nenegin appeared and silenced the chatter on the bridge. Normally, a Cizran of his rank and experience would have an apprentice instead of a wa’ali. His, however, was recently promoted to commander and reassigned to her own ship. Instead, he, the only Cizran aboard the Dira var-sha, suffered a fool for the sake of his vanity. Qigar’s musings were of a top secret nature and not something meant to be prattled about on the bridge where anyone could hear it. That matter would be dealt with appropriately. In the meantime, everyone stilled. The only noises were the two alarms and muffled breathing. The only changes in scenery were the intermittent flashes of alert lights. His gaze swept the chamber and settled on Qigar who awkwardly shrank back in fear beneath the admiral’s inspection. “I’m aware of the situation. We’re changing course. Acknowledge intent to render aid and set a course for the Vepsis Dol’s distress signal.”

“Yes, Admiral,” Qigar stammered.

“Also, relay all prisoner confinement codexes to Gereza, priority one off maximum. We may need the space for some new detainees and Silexes will be able to observe more actively than we. Once that is complete, resequence to free confinement zones. I’ll prepare a memo for the warden to accompany the request”

Horrified, the first officer blurted out, “Resequencing without physical hand-off and authorization at Gereza Proper will mean abundantly more paperwork! Plus there is the matter that our codexes lead to military and espionage zones, not standard penal zones!”

“A little paperwork never hurt anyone,” Nenegin threatened, turned, and left. He had his own paperwork to file.

Even so, in Nenegin’s mind, he knew he would rather do anything else. Likewise, he would rather attend more important matters than assisting a stranded vessel, but he was desperate to put off standing before the Si’ab reporting on how he let a submoronic insect on steroids destroy a planet under his protection that was cultivated and veritably ripe for konul harvest and mineral extraction. It was a waste of resources that put him at risk for demotion or worse.

Well, at least the konel deployment was partially implemented, thought Nenegin with an inaudible inward sigh.

Back in his quarters, he felt the ship briefly drop out of faster-than-light to undergo the course adjustment. The walk allowed him to gather his thoughts, although all decisions were already made. It was simply a matter of execution at this point. Satisfied, in the hyperbolic sense of the word, Nenegin articulated the indicated message and passed it along to the bridge.

“To the acting warden at Gereza Prison Compound,

Greetings from Admiral Nenegin zar-Taliļ.

Due to unusual and unprecedented circumstances, I have elected a remote codex transfer to relay access and responsibility of our detainees to the authorities at Gereza. I apologize in advance for the additional processes and protocols this will necessitate and have included an addendum on the various forms and procedures that must be adhered to. Additionally, please be aware that the codexes for the Dira var-sha’s confinement zones are designed for military and espionage operations and therefore differ from those of which I am aware operate in Gereza and as such there is a high likelihood of the need to transfer the contents to a secondary zone following processing. I’ve attached as much information as we’ve gathered regarding the detainees, but ...”

Despite its great detail and length, the full text of the memo largely reiterated the summary.

A lot of words for something so simple.

Such was the Cizran way.

. . .

The Aptosites

“That’s quite enough, thank you,” spoke a dim presence.

Compliant, the sumptuously vivid portrayal of Nenegin zar-Taliļ condensed to an acidic fog. Too heavy to remain aloft, its constituent droplets struck the deck mere meters from Karzar and Snil. Venomous hissing poisoned the aghast silence as the corrosive substance splashed, sizzled, and sated itself on all it pooled upon. Discrete, the miasma inevitably thinned and revealed a hovering black orb with a single point of white light in its midst. Once, twice it blinked. Then it exploded sharply—darkly.

Queued for destruction, the mock manifestations of Aredemos and Kirri likewise persued the pattern of deliquescence, revelation, and eruption.

Distant, invisible, but likewise trapped in the so-called Cradle of Life lurked the Zara vi-Pol, a vessel, one of many, left to patrol the sector recently vacated by the Dira var-sha. Largest remaining, it, a battleship, readied itself for combat under the direction of Ezkshi, the fleet’s admiral pro tempore. Not one for honorifics or grandiosity, she prepared her retaliation in the soft, thoughtful, orchestral manner that typified her fame.

Deliberately, she shifted her thoughts away from her enemy’s repulsive display of arrogance. Eagerly divulged by the Aptosite leadership to a simulacrum, enough was now known of their intentions. Now she concentrated on the preservation of her fleet and the exquisite destruction she would mete out upon her adversaries.

“Bodhi languors on complacency’s shore,” she acknowledged, a terse refrain that highlighted the peril of security wrongly presupposed and an understatement of her present circumstances. None of their predictive models hinted at the possibility Aredemos would be so absurdly idiotic. Yet there it was, a matter of historical record, and here she was, adrift with a dozen other cloaked vessels secreted in the debris field of the demi-god’s former home planet.

The shock of that audacious act, she concluded, was what blinded her to the cosmic imprisonment that enveloped the chaos of which they were a part.

That given, opportunism made herself an ally to all who saw her value and the counterintelligence arm of the Cizran Empire was inordinately robust. Amongst a multitude of other Aptosite machinations, the scheme to kidnap Nenegin was known to Ezkshi, so she improvised. An unusual endeavor, to be sure. Even so, the enemy’s expectation of guests culminated in covert access to their facility by three of her drones and marked the dawning of her riposte. Armed with intercepts from the unnecessarily lengthily observation of Zeptir’s failed spy-craft, she was confident that …

“Engage phasic battery—target areas dense in population,” Ezkshi ordered, the time for speculation concluded. It wasn’t relayed to the other vessels in the fleet nor conveyed via her empathic organ. They were on an absolute silence protocol, all bands, and widely dispersed. Still, the commanders of the other vessels were wise enough to observe her havoc and follow suite. Cizran destruction was, after all, rather distinctive. “Have we isolated the metalogical choke-points of this thing that swallowed us? Excellent. Unleash a volley of slipstream decomposition pulses through the virtual arteries of the quantum foam. Don’t give the parasites anything they can analyze until we open up a communication channel to the grid and receive authorization to unload some real magic.”

. . .

Their Intrigues Foiled

Within her usual place on the steps of the Ja’Regia, the Watcher sat. Chaos adequately described the vast chamber on any given day, but the recent rumors of war transformed it into absolute bedlam. A cacophony of words and a whiteout of papers made it unlikely any but the most astute observer heard or saw anything of substance. The shouting, stomping, flinging of vellum, and further accentuations to the absolutely unnecessary din were hardly where the insanity ended nor the possibility of war its direct cause. Many, the more ambitious and younger parties of the assembly, relished the idea of open conflict after centuries of stagnation. Even more desired and conspired to seize the moment of confusion to advance their political agendas. At present, they argued about whether a hold should be placed on peace legislation; whether a battle council should form and, if so, who should be seated; and whether they were even at war or should be concerned by recent events. Most accepted the need for a council, but then bickered over the details of its theoretical size, roles, oversight, and limitations. It hardly mattered where Nirak focused her mind, for everywhere alliances were forged, broken, and reforged; massive guardian kukulls were deployed to prevent or dissolve the numerous fights fomented by the most vociferous parties; cold proxy battles ensued, rife with blackmail, intrigue, and armies deployed to the borders of their respective holdings.

If she tried hard enough, she could pierce through to the center of the Ja’Regia’s torrent of manuscripts. There, a cerulean projection of Su-laria, the galaxy in which their holy planet resided, slowly rotated in multidimensional splendor. Two anomalies were highlighted in neon orange. The first, on the edge of a galactic arm, was an incursion that, already, snuffed out the Kilamara and Chandoo systems. Its manifestation was incomplete, for it was only partly within the galaxy and only partly observed by their satellite network. Nevertheless, they reasonably estimated the length of its cross section on the order of several light years. The second was harder to describe. Initially manifesting in the Ganax’ab system, it was a being that defied classification, one moment organic, the next metaphysical, and the next mechanical.

For the most ancient amongst them, memories long forgotten stirred. Buried emotions and lore that went as far back as the Kr’Nalus.

Nightmares and rumors aside, there were fragments one could piece together. Take, for example, the spy Zeptir. Unlike any other Cizran alive, this being, who alleged to be of their species, lacked both his empathic bond and family name. Nobody knew him, which was not only unheard of for a Cizran—it was impossible. Every member of their species, no matter how unimportant or obscure, did not exist without the requisite paperwork! There was also the matter of how bad at spying he was—the threads he left behind were highly reflective and detected by surveillance as soon as they were put into place. Moreover, her connections in the Noema and Av’sti assured her of his fraudulence. She further became aware of their counter-intelligence operation, where they fed him lies, provided fake organs for his experiments, and otherwise manipulated him to their advantage. They learned, by intercepting his communications, that he belonged to a space-faring species from a galaxy beyond the Cizran Empire. Things known as the Aptosites. Given his communication frequency, they eventually managed to crack the encryption and even the alien language. Really, it didn’t take long for a civilization with quantum computers thousands of years old and 10^7,000,000,000 FLOPs of processing power.

. . .

A Rescue Impeded

The dreadnought fell out of superluminal velocity and slid into position next to the stranded Vepsis Dol. Constructed in the renown shipyards of Zo and amongst the largest craft of the Cizran armada, it appeared as little more than a mote of diminished silver light that hovered nigh-indiscernible and minuscule when set alongside the massive black hull of the transport. Yet, in spite of its relatively small size, it contained the power necessary to vanquish whole civilizations and hold steady against cosmic anathema.

A knock sounded on Nenegin’s chamber door. It was, as he anticipated, Qigar, his first officer. With a mere glance, the ornate metal door dematerialized in a shimmer of blue and permitted the lieutenant commander’s entry. Punishment for the Zanifeen’s gregariousness already dolled out, he entered meekly, prostrate himself before Nenegin, and waited until the cabin was secure before speaking.

“Sir,” he began in a pained, gravelly tone. It was clear that every utterance was agony. Still, he continued, “Aredemos is—”

“Not here, no longer a threat, and of little consequence,” Nenegin mused.

“Alive,” Qigar, tersely as manageable, completed his thought. “Imprisoned.”

“As expected,” acknowledged Nenegin. Prior Qigar’s summons, he requested and reviewed the situation report. Given the projection splayed out in the haloportal in which Aredemos ensnared himself in his ultimately futile attempt to free Kirri, the demigod imagined a great victory. The fool actually thought he could force his way onto the Dira var-sha. The idiot actually thought Cizran technology so antiquated as to use manacles and chains—to lock detainees up within close proximity of expensive infrastructure, as if that wasn’t a lesson learned and a problem solved well before even the Kr’Nalus. Arrogant, myopic, primitive, and uneducated competed in Nenegin’s mind as appropriate descriptors of the would-be god, but ultimately he settled on nuisance. He pitied his subordinates who would have to deal with all the paperwork involved in the fiasco. Still, there were now other, more present, matters to focus his efforts on.

“Now, concerning the transport,” Nenegin segued, “Prepare a boarding party in the event we have to take on guests. See if we can figure out why its propulsion systems were compromised. I’m sure you can—”

Suddenly, a third alert sounded—it was of the highest priority. The entire interior of the ship was bathed in an eerie red light. Relentless, it flickered in with an asynchronous oscillation pattern that focused the mind as much as it disquieted the soul. Horrific, unseen for a hundred years or more, it indicated the inconceivable. It meant war, although such would only be made official in the Ja’Regia.

Qigar, ordinarily a rich brown in color, even after his chastisement, struck Nenegin as rather ashen. No doubt there was some error or a surprise drill from high command. If not, what else could it be? Who or what might be capable of escalating a conflict to the level this alert indicated wasn’t at all clear to Nenegin. Unless … no, he didn’t want to imagine the old stories were true. Whatever the case, he intended to discover the facts of the matter as expediently as possible.

Without waiting for his first officer to recover from his terrified stupor, Nenegin opened a channel to the bridge and demanded, “Verify with central command whether this is or is not a training exercise,” then, to the entire ship, “As of this moment, we are at war. As of yet, we do not know the disposition of our enemy, but all personnel are to immediately head to their posts and ready their stations. Until we receive further orders or information, our priority is to get the freighter operational and escort it to safety.”

While in the process of that, he split his attention to the communication network to directly glean information. This was too urgent for formalities. His access credentials applied, he perused the highest levels of information available. Incrementally and inevitably, his mood soured.

>> Galactic system diagnostic reporting failures in Kilamara, Chandoo, and Ganax’ab.
>> Triangulating unresponsive nodes.
>> Kilamara, Chandoo nodes missing.
>> Perallis node reporting incursion of mega-spacial anomaly—existential risk imminent.
>> Perallis node reporting distress signal from sector fleet.
>> Perallis node reporting sector fleet missing.
>> Network-wide combat systems online.
>> Ganax’ab node unresponsive.
>> Initiating override reboot sequence on node: Ganax’ab.
>> Ganax’ab online.
>> ...

Even for Nenegin, the quantity and content of the information was alarming.

Assuming it was a mere system malfunction that he could briefly peruse, he decided to review the Ganax’ab report first.

Very quickly, he realized just how terribly wrong he was in his assumptions.

Tampered with by Ec-shavar, it was soon abundantly clear why it was, of late, so laconic. Both its combat and surveillance subsystems were locked down by the governor’s authorization codes and only now, overridden by the reboot sequence from high command, did the information collected by the node flow freely throughout the network. It came like a torrent. Much of it Nenegin cared nothing for, such as the assassination attempt and subsequent schemes amongst Ec-shavar, Potan Mul, and Plango.

What concerned him greatly, however, was the wave of metaphysical energy that erupted from the Ganax’ab star like a torrent. The halographic projection of the event showed a massive beast emerging from behind the star, orbiting it with a sinister grace that sent a chill down Nenegin’s spine. He watched the horror feed on Ajana, the local name for their system’s luminous body. It swelled, a bloated terror of a composition he could not even begin to comprehend. Machine, flesh, aether—it hardly mattered as the apparition perversely and ambivalently cascaded through a multitude of physiognomies and self-representations while its voracious consumption caused it to dwarf the burning body it so eagerly consumed.

Quickly, it became clear to him why the Vepsis Dol floated helplessly alongside his vessel.

. . .

So Begins the End

Formed by multiple galaxies, the Cizran Empire sprawled a million light years in diameter. Billions of worlds, habitable and inhabited, orbited in its expanse while trillions more spheres, once barren, were retrofitted as outposts or colonies. More numerous were their ships, manufactured in a cavalcade both ceaseless and efficient at the mineral-hungry shipyards of Zo. Vaster yet in number and reach were the nodes of the grid, each constituent member of its nodular clusters seldom more than an astronomical unit apart.

Whatever fate culminated thus was no accident.

Instead, it was deliberate, evidenced by the undeniable order, efficiency, and communication preserved across the mind-boggling expanse. In the tens of thousands of years of their expansion, they dauntlessly stared down a endless stream of existential threats from within and without, subjugated worlds stronger in magic than Kilamara and more technologically mature than the Aptosites.

Against grim odds and by a deliberate progression of evolutionary cycles, the Cizran Empire prevailed. While still yet broken, they resurged from the cusp of extinction in an alien harvest recollected in the annals of the Kr’Nalus, a tome named for the galactic empire’s collapse first and only. In spite of their splintered collective and the sudden limitations imposed on their magical acumen, they achieved even greater conquests than before. While flawed, decadent, and bogged in bureaucracy, they were equally wise, earnest, introspective, and pragmatic. Experience made them even more adroit. Battle-hardened, they reconquered every lost colony, every civilization and alliance that rose up against them in their moment of weakness; they broke down every barrier and expanded beyond the borders of their galaxy of origin to worlds beyond the void.

One factor in their success was the grid.

While not a formal name, the grid nevertheless elevated Cizran control over their empire to a degree once attributed to only gods. Within the empire’s subjugated galaxies, it was omnipresent, with each world invisibly accompanied by a nodule cluster; likewise, it was omniscient, for it observed all within its territory and proliferated critical information onward to Cizra Su-lahn; and, lastly, omnipotent, for it was augmented with an array of highly lethal instruments designed to counteract all manner of incursions and uprisings, no matter the size, disposition, or spectrum.

Lesser civilizations simply referred to it as Bahá-cizr—the all-seeing, all-knowing, all-powerful Cizran god.

Within nanoseconds of the enemy encroachment, artificial intelligence activated the grid’s combat coordination contingencies. All around the Cradle of Life, the grid’s offensive capabilities were on full display. Even the two nodes within—Kilamara and Chandoo—sought to penetrate the apotheosis’ innards and restore contact with their counterparts. In constant communication, they instantaneously, via quantum interlinks, informed Cizra Su-lahn of every detail.

High energy gamma pulses interspersed with radio bursts destabilized and vaporized the arachnid web throughout the empire—as a result, the Cipher never received the order from Karzar. Simultaneously, along multiple frequencies, from the astral, to the psionic, to the energetic, to the ultramundane and beyond, they probed for and exploited weaknesses in the incoming anomaly’s armor. Within minutes, the nodes estimated an optimal disassembly pattern, self-arranged for geometric efficiency, activated their beams, and diced the Cradle of Life into enormous cubes. Statis fields were projected all along its surface, locking the mind-boggling amount of damage in place so that it couldn’t heal. It was like a dog thrown into a wood chipper, a cat stuffed into a meat grinder, a babe reduced to hunks of gore by the downward press of a razor wire fence—it was astronomically larger.

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The Sorceress' Nemesis

{ BGM : Kosmogonia, Wit }

Reference: Stone Wind Cleaver

On the world of Glaceria, a midnight wind crashes against an empty beach next to a frozen seabed. Instead, what defines the features of the planet are the shapes left over by its water freezing over millions of years. Small ice pebbles smash into increasingly larger stones. Massive stones, motionless on the glacier, serve as anvils. Silt inundates their gaps, along with ancient seaweed, shells, shards of glass, and scraps of metal.

Changed until they are unrecognizable.

This one probably won’t last that long.

Force mounts. Within seconds, the minuscule ice-rocks shatter under the power slamming them into oblivion. A minute goes by, and the larger rocks rip apart. Grinding, crushing, destroying, until little is left. Just tiny shards, as sharp as any arcane relic, and glaciers as smooth as talon-stung ice. Yet, even more powerful is the hand that wields them. Grasping with invisible claws, the wind lifts the shards skyward. At first only a few, but the ranks swell by millions. The world darkens. Stars and moons vanish behind the lethal mantle. Plants and strange sculptures built of snow shred to ribbons, mix into a massacre, and add to the wrathful creation.

What resembles a massive black sword sweeps the countryside. Flakes encrust one end like a handle. Ice pillars burst from the ground to join in the indecipherable mass. The blade is a violent blur of motion and sharp violence. Thick, broad, and unbreakable, like a cleaver. Perfect for slicing through limbs and bone, walls and stone, shield and home. One swung by a great invisible arm from the beach, through a forest, and across a meadow.

A small hive of Val’Gara sits quietly in its path.

It nears, and drones burst out of the few bioforce foundries that gird the collection of buildings. Rats scurry out of the gutters. Somehow, animals know that death is coming. Even insects do. There isn’t really any difference between one and the other. They burrow into the dirt like there is no tomorrow, hoping they’ll escape the coming devastation. They won’t be fast enough to escape, though. At least they are aware. The sentient ones, however, require extra incentive. Especially ones who are dreaming.

Moments before death descends on that small hive, a shadow enters in the minds of those unsuspecting unfortunates. A blinking blue eye, cold as winter and ominous as a frozen grave, opens into their nightmares. As it pulsates, horrific scenes play out behind it: a meteor shower breaking apart a planet, their creator being dispersed across the multiverse, fire devouring their gargantuan children, and shadows swallowing a ray of light. All throughout, there is silence. Even their own screams are silent in their mouths. Squelching everything else is a single unavoidable thought.

“I am destruction. Your lives are fuel for my rage.”

. . .

Morning comes. Bright, grisly, and drowning in snow and ice. What was relatively spring is now absolute winter. The storm is gone, but the hive is a wreck. Buildings are in tatters, not that they were so great to begin with. Mostly, the ice and snow cover them. What didn’t collapse in the storm. Corpses lie in their beds, debris on their chest like makeshift gravestones. Froze, all of them. Froze and torn to bits. Blue hair, missing eyes and limbs, missing souls if they ever had any.

Only one survives, not that he is really alive.

Rising up out of a dune of snow is a man in rags, ice encrusting its chitinous flesh, and one eye haunting blue. Ice and shards of stone decorates his skin. Ineffectually, it tries to hide inside itself. It can’t stop shivering or stumbling forward as he makes his way toward the city.

At intervals in its strange tongue it yells across its psi-link, “WOE, WOE! DEATH AND WOE!”

. . .

From one chamber of her scale-hewn palace to the next, Kor slipped like a ghost beneath the pallor of mana-infused torches. Soon, she crossed the threshold of her atheneum. It was a library replete with sacred vellum, arcane manuscripts, and divine artifacts, all set on variegated crystal slabs that extended eternally onward, for the flesh and bone of Midgarðsormr inexplicably encompassed more than what the natural order permitted. In numbers that could not be reckoned, tomes bound in dragonflesh with words arranged from the rent veins of so-called gods decorated the shelves. Granted, far more books were mundane in both subject and composition, written in gold, or silver, or ordinary ink, but a scarce few were treasures of indescribable worth that lacked even a physical manifestation for mortals to comprehend.

In a single step, the arch of the doorway diminished to a pinprick of distant light. Again, the train of her diaphanous gray robe rippled like disturbed water of a mercurial lake. In that moment, she demonstrated what a trifle the expansiveness of the chamber was to a sorceress of her caliber. Kor’s strides superseded the banality of space such that she almost instantly achieved her destination.

Before her it rested atop a pillar of fused minotaur skulls.

More chilling than frost-blood, her gaze reflected back at her from the innumerable skeins of the scrying stone. Therein the orrery, the moon Glaceria floated as a pale blue dot; a mote seemingly all but too small to trifle over. Nearby brooded Gathix, another moon, the molten antithesis of his sister. Greater still, Colossus, a living world waxed furious at her untimely intrusion, but was unfortunately preoccupied with its own trials. Last, and vaster than all, shone Sal’Chazzar, star of the Val’Garan home-system. Only the first enticed Kor, and she mentally urged Glaceria into focus within the crystal ball’s translucent midst. Light years drifted by as meaningless moments, black flecks of the Collective—each celestial dreadnaught a force to warily reckon with—faded into an orbital fog, and the ice world swelled until every peak and valley glistened in perfect detail.

A tempestuous black herald ravaged the moon’s pristine beauty, leveled sturdy buildings and shattered lofty spires. A calling card—her calling card. So many souls across the verse recalled it, regretted it, and despised it, for it symbolized hopelessness and devastation. Not, however, necessary death. Bitterly, innumerable fools cursed whatever name they gave to her and her pet without realizing their life was hers to take, but, even so, she spared them. Most of them, that was. At best, they were barriers, just like these Val’Gara were barriers. Once swept away, Glaceria would be forever changed and hers eternally.

As her mouth twisted in satisfaction, Kor drew her naked arm, laced with silver wires from shoulder to wrist, and brushed her fingertips against the violent blotch that gyred along the cool surface. Instantly, a chill writhed up her pale limb and numbed it from white to blue. The cold emanated throughout her body, until she flung her head back in ecstasy. Her eyes fluttered and a sigh rolled over her bloodless lips. She felt the energy of the world as it pulsed and tasted its very potential. Moreover, in that moment, she realized her will on the moon went uncontested—her storms were meaningless, save the speed with which the runes they carved allowed her and her companion to make landfall.

The episode quelled, she pulled herself away from the distant vision and thought. It was to be so easy. An army was not needed. Still, she peered about. In the shadows, she took in the rest of her library’s contents. There rose into darkness the scale columns of anhkolox legs, lurked enraged gargoyles formed of living ice, and threatened glass drakes who breathed streams of plasma.

It was time.

With her eyes, she traced a symbol on the bone floor beneath her. It represented the runes which were carved likewise on Glaceria. Her hand lifted, and out of the perimeter of the runes rose the landscape of the world she was to conquer. She placed her foot down into the midst of the projection, and the verse trembled. Even here, in such a timeless place, she felt the tremble of the mighty beast as her Midgarðsormr it made landfall.

Without hesitation, she turned and left to look upon this strange new world with her own two eyes.

. . .

Ice spears frame the inward-yawning gate set in Midgarðsormr’s helm, its doors flung inward into a darkness vaguely disturbed by the crude geometry of arcana-blasted steps. From that gullet of oblivion emerge thin tendrils of mist. Creeping forward, they gather into a melancholy whole to mount the stairs and silently pour out onto the balcony. The dark gray architecture patched in blue hoarfrost blurs into an ethereal landscape where, without a word, Kor appears, as white and tenuous an apparition as the pale milieu gathered around her feet.

Her hand descends to caress the rail before she takes a deep breath and opens her eyes.

Even from the lofty vantage of her castle in its crown, above and behind her looms the world serpent’s bulk, an imposing ridge of kilometer-thick scales careening over the horizon and a thousand leagues beyond. In the shadow of such greatness, she takes in her new and uncontested domain. Glaceria’s wild moonscape fades through a gentle whorl of snowflakes to a scintillating pale blue. On the world’s star-ward side, Sha’Chazzar’s light infinitely winks, ensnared by minute crystals suspended in the moon’s atmosphere that combine to form millions of ice rainbows. Few were so fortunate as her to know the grandeur that prevailed on these worlds of ice and snow.

With a single step, as though the verse were shifting around her, she passes from the loftiness of her balcony to the titan-darkened and wind-battered snow of the surface so far below. In her hand is the evercoil, a whip as lucent as quicksilver in the moonlight and more transfixing than a billion stars commingling in a galactic core. Such an armament is unnecessary in a place such as this, now bereft of life. Still, she feels no remorse for the wholesale destruction of the monstrous inhabits who formerly polluted this place.

Now, it is pure.

Now, it is hers.

Slowly, she strides onward, a silent laugh lilting from her throat, visible by the deposition of her breath in the cold air. Truly, she is queen of a graveyard. However, as she stops before a smooth surface of pristine ice, and beholds her stately form, she recalls that it is better to be alone. Alone, there are no fools to declare her a charlatan—to say she is no beautiful sorceress at all but a weak animal. No, in that image before her, though others would, she cannot see the small tailed figure cloaked in white fur with whiskers protruding from its pointed pink nose.

Instead of an ermine, some ridiculous vermin, she knows herself and sees herself truly:

A mighty sorceress and beautiful queen.

KOR REFLECTS

“Dark seductress, broken night, endless dost thou bend my light,” Kor mused, her thoughts turned back on her journey hence.

Light years, it seemed, stretched between her and the moment she saw the anomaly. Its telltale wink and the weird passage of alien life within and without belied a mystery to the black hole that aroused in her a curiosity that would not be slaked and, inevitably, drew her inward. It prevailed in spite of the natural forces insistent on its annihilation. It inexplicably existed. Just to penetrate its singularity demanded she weave an abstruse tapestry of spellcraft, yet through it she endured. Within the strangely folded space, she found a world more bizarre than any other she hitherto encountered. It was a plane where planets were psychotic monsters and a star revered as a god.

Unseen, she drifted to the dark side of Glaceria, an ice moon she thought abandoned. Unnaturally massive, it circled, with its fiery brother, Gathix, a living planet. There, hidden from a star’s light that threatened to rule her soul, she observed the system’s tumult. Accurately, she guessed at the reason as to why, on the largest world, the conflict intensified. They were without a clear leader. For that cause, alpha beings rent land and sky in defense of their selfish and futile claims to that role. Wonder soon gave way to doom, for, she realized, her presence went unmolested not due to the subtlety of her craft; rather, the internal strife of the system’s inhabitants made for a potent distraction. She was even certain one of the beings, Disciple, noticed and dismissed her presence. Why, she could not say. Perhaps his focus was on Colossus, mother of these worlds, and his role as general on her vast battleground.

Flight, while prudent, was nevertheless an untenable option.

Midgarðsormr was not due to awaken from his slumber for centuries, whereon the world serpent again would glut on Glaceria’s mountains of ice and seas of snow. What manner of chaos such a future would yield, Kor was uncertain, but for a great while her occupation of the moon was one of grim isolation. Too much, reminisced Kor, although within those hours she worked to refine her arcana and studied in detail the mysteries of the icy sphere she now considered home. Soon she found it was inhabited, but with lesser beings whose encroachment she swiftly whelmed.

Meanwhile, on Colossus, the blare of war suddenly and auspiciously reverberated with fresh intensity. The cadence piqued her interest and she found herself mesmerized by the conflict. Soon crystallized the notion that the frenzied monsters struggled toward what they incompetently assumed benefited the whole. All because they did not listen; nor could they, enslaved as they were to an absent master. Psionic blasts magnified by Colossus’ many Behemoths insisted on capitulation, only to be opposed by the notion of individuality; Leviathans inundated the defectors with massive beams laced with a cocktail of subjugation; orbs of psychic energy sped throughout the fray; and billions of creatures were coerced into proxy battles. Ultimately, they fought for the rank of leader even as their nature required servitude. They recognized that weakness in another, but their inward gaze was blinded and refused to bend the knee, even against the might of Colossus’ syncopated directives.

For that reason, all—Azeroth, Hellion, Disciple, and more—failed.

Finally the battle, Kor thought, reached its conclusion.

It should have all been over.

Only later did Kor realize time on Colossus was, for all intents and purposes, at a standstill; yet, part of the planet remained earnest, even as decay seeped into its roots, in its compulsion for self-perpetuation and preservation of the species.

Beneath Colossus’ massive shadow, Glaceria was almost always dark and cold, only occasionally illuminated by Sal’Chazzar’s warped light. During those times, as Kor peered upward, the star’s radiant green bioforce both warmed her cheeks and sent a shiver of inexplicable horror throughout her spine. It was no mere vessel of matter fused to light. She understood why they revered it. Yet, more than the star, which unsettled her to profound depths, she was perturbed by the antumbras that drifted before it in a steady departure from Colossus’ nebulous influence.

“Sons of Idea and their mother,” she sneered, “that repellent creature, whatever it may be. That such a progenitor of repugnance exists is intolerable.”

The second of the many escalations that ultimately tore the system apart was planet fall.

Out of the pinpoint of nothingness at the system’s horizon burst a torrent of matter, thick and ocher. At the edge of the event horizon, it manifested as a torrent mud forced through a crack in a cave wall. Whimsically, it tumbled and coalesced; rivers of dirt and water lashed their way inward; clots of filth rained down on Glaceria while Gathix erupted with rage at the mountains of gravel and mire that cascaded into its molten streams; and incrementally the invader swelled to the mass of a mid-sized terrestrial planet. Just as it achieved wholeness, it struck Colossus. Although it was, in comparison, a small sphere, the forces involved were tremendous. Shockwaves rippled along the recently recovered fog that covered Colossus’ expanse and bowed the behemoth spires that pierced the cold of space.

Ostensibly dauntless, the greater of the worlds soon recovered. Ruddy oceans cascaded into ravines and eventually Colossus swallowed the remnants of Mire. Then from the very core of Colossus’ bled an indecipherable stain of crimson and rust. Bubbles burst incessantly just beneath the flow’s tenebrous film while giant blades obscenely pierced its viscous membrane and heaved it upward through its mother’s bowels. Outward it surged, through caliginous crevasses and contorted shafts—an intertwined labyrinth of vicious geometries that scorned sane comprehension. These were its native halls, through which it careened onward unabated, its consciousness bound to the myriad assimilators that lined the world’s interior. Only a brief time passed from when its journey began until it tore through, as a fetid deluge, the murky atmosphere and coalesced in space.

With grotesque majesty, Tsathoskr drifted into the midst of its brethren. Mighty Son of Idea, its psi-link resonated with the nearby leviathans and dreadnaughts, monsters not unlike itself, and the millions of lesser beings asleep in their holds. Still, theirs were forms that, while hideous, did not adamantly defy nature’s very order. That distinction belonged to Tsathoskr, neither Herald nor Son of Idea, but an amalgam of both, just as it was a crazed and sordid union of every unremembered nightmare and fiend born of creation’s wiles.

Unbound by chitinous rock and unaffected by the Midnight Fog, its body flattened and a plumage of blades maligned into serrated pinions, spikes, and spears that likened to the crest and claws of a wild hoatzin. Amidst these, talons extended to reveal lidless eyes, only for them to be blinded by the storm of black particles that ever ensorcelled its contorted frame. To the fore, the plane of its body split dorsally, the fresh hollow lined with innumerable rows of gargantuan teeth while in its midst of it maw a sickly cyan aether buzzed aglow.

<< Return to us our feast, >> boomed a psionic voice throughout the system. It brought Kor to her knees, yet its intended recipient hovered in adamant calm. She recovered her senses fast enough to behold Tsathoskr’s reply, which came not with words but a low rumble that expanded in force until it flooded the Val’Gara psi-link as with the relentless and continuous crash of an avalanche. Even as it freed a multitude of its brethren from the stasis of the Midnight Fog and evoked in them the same deep impulse the quasi-herald felt, an intense and insatiable hunger, it paralyzed all others embroiled on the field of battle and wiped clean the slates of their minds of its presence.

None who lingered on Colossus after its passage would recall the moment of its birth, its form, its being, its name. All—Disciple and his minions, Azeroth and his confederates, Singar and his erstwhile mechanizations—were deprived of that honor.

Within its maw brightened large globs of crimson, an aetheric model of the constellation the flotilla presently inhabited. Soon that diminished, joined by many more luminous motes, more constellations, then a nebula. Faster, the lights, now barely visible glints in its massive pseudo-mouth, swirled and receded. Nebulae became small blurs, a galactic arm seemed to manifest, but that all too quickly grew dim. Whole galaxies were apparent, although faint at so fine a scale. Finally, in two of the minuscule blurs, what were two invisible specs suddenly shone with a radiance that overwhelmed all displayed, the model rotated, and with it so too did the universe.

It felt like a lifetime, but only seconds fell through the mythic Phanes’ fingers as Kor detected a third of the present armada churn into formation. The others were motionless, frozen in time and space. She thought the spell to awaken her own monster, but did not invoke it for there remained the possibility that this act did not concern her. Another moment where she was ignored by such a host, at least until her pet was roused, was her hope, and, breath held, it was granted—not in the form of a stay, but of irrelevance.

The assembled host vanished in its entirety.

She took a step back in shock and glanced over her shoulder, a meaningless instinctual gesture. No, it wasn’t there. Even with far more potent senses and a spell hastily woven to accomplish the purpose, she detected not their presence, and even they were unable to mask that from her. Indeed, she sensed no magic or dimensional manipulation at all, neither nearby nor in the void wherein their astra once shimmered; not even the tell-tale signs of warped space. She sensed nothing except cruelty of intention that extended away from her far off into the distance.

The remaining escalations, suddenly roused, came in abrupt cadence—blurs of internecine strife to which she assigned monikers that fell utterly short of the gravity of their egregious transgressions; continental upheaval, planet shatter, star fade, and system abort. They were merely bookmarks in her mind to events that defied description. In awe, she watched the strife unfold from the false security of her observatory located behind and magnified by one of Midgarðsormr’s great lidless eyes. Although camouflaged by magic and ice, she knew her defense was false. Still, she forced herself to linger, to watch, and to understand.

Singar enveloped the globe in his vile fog, but managed only to make the combat more viciously and strenuously waged. The demon did not stop there, but, before he left, flung his scabbards, with their blades yet secured within, to every world in the system so they might suffer under his corruptive influence. At some point, his plans came to fruition, and he absconded with Sal’Chazzar’s light. With that fait accompli, Val’Gara space diminished to something unremarkable. Instead of a mote of darkness, impenetrable to all but the mightiest and keen-sighted, the entire system was exposed to any amateur astronomer.

Ruin upon ruin came, yet, inexplicably, op rumbled the drums of war. They struck their baleful rhythm until Colossus, already rent, was strewn across the expanse and her satellites thrown into disorder. Megalodon dove into and further maimed the pit formed by Tsathoskr’s egress, even as it struggled to mend, violently burrowed through the planet’s core to the other side, and engaged Thane in a pointless duel that tore their mother asunder. Amphiprioninae and Disciple waged a psychic battle, although the latter’s will was crushed by his recent defeat, and in their intermingled distress planted the seed for an even greater menace. For that errant germ, Colossus exploded. Glaceria and Cathix whirled into space like tenuously linked bolas. Meanwhile, the once great planet, mother of the Val’Gara, was reduced to a strand of dust littered with flesh and frozen gore. An accusatory finger pointed toward Caorthannach’s recreant departure, for the newly born being’s gravity pulled behind it a train of her deceased mother’s debris.

Infamous and mercurial, the eons old first dominion of the Val’Gara was no more. Totems to a bygone age, Gathix and Glaceria stayed near another, guarded by the Collective who, all the while, stayed inexplicably dormant. Without direction, the lesser children soon strayed.

Finally, Kor was alone.

Truly alone.

. . .

A great while passed, perfect in darkness, silence, and solitude; time for Kor time to reflect and train.

Her first act was the construction of a barrier around Glaceria, for she sensed an eventual return of the ferocious darkness. Weak, at first, due to its size, steadily she poured her will into its invisible folds, gnarled light into pathways of magic, and imbued it with the strength and complexity only attainable through fastidious effort. It became her magnum opus, a work refined all but continuously and polished until it flourished as a mastercraft beyond any she hitherto had known—even in rumor and unrivaled by even the most demented thaumaturges.

Were all her time spent thus, she would have gone mad.

To abate that fate, she explored other occult matters. Repeatedly, she tried and failed to awaken the Collective. They loomed silent, either dead or expectant of an incantation known only by the Val’Garan god. Still, she was careful, for she understood that to provoke their wrath would be lethal to her and lead to the final annihilation of this splintered realm.

Frustrated and eager to alleviate boredom, she pursued yet more endeavors. She explored the frozen world she gradually related to as her home and, in time, discovered a secret base deep within Glaceria’s bowels. Although hardened against the cold, the drones there were no match for the algid bonds in which she ensnared them nor the astra with which she shattered their forms. There, in that weirdly organic laboratory, she learned Val’Gara were more than mere depraved ravagers, but an intelligent race who honed their craft even as they premeditated the overthrow of, to them, alien worlds. Ages waned, but eventually their science exposed itself before her mind’s eye. She learned of the Vesuvian Virus, the Unity Effect, and more.

Were she to survive, she concluded, if she failed to abandon this place in time, she needed to improve on their bestial work. With that in mind, she unleashed her augmented product of these mysteries on the eartech pools of Gathix. Soon, they heeded her command. Not yet content with their limitations, she bred new mutations, unfettered the manacles of their corporeality, and transformed them into parasitic vapors that swam through aether as readily as air. They became an invisible fog of mental coercion that bowed, for the while, to her will.

Early in her sojourns, she encountered the envaginated blades flung by the demon Singar. The first on Glaceria soon led her, by way of its unique aura, to the latter on Gathix. Both reeked of powerful and corruptive magic. Repulsed by them and the thought of their creator, she found purpose anew in her research. A spell swiftly woven, for she dared not touch them, she contained them in spheres of air and brought them to her atheneum. Likewise, she secured samples of the Midnight Fog that lingered near Colossus’ detritus. There, she possessed artifacts and knowledge sufficient to safeguard herself from any foul influence even as she dissected and manipulated their perilous properties. Ages passed until, surrounded by stacks of vellum and sacks of scrolls, she unraveled in full their secrets. From the design of the swords, she deduced their provenance; with that knowledge secure, she discovered the name of their owner. Notes of his mephitic magic, Hellish origins, the fog, and the variety and mode of his manipulations were compiled and filed within the library for reference. Were she ever to encounter the vile crafter of those tools, she was fully prepared.

With her newfound knowledge in hand, the twin moons were cured of Singar’s blight; fully explored, her exploitation of Val’Garan biology was as complete as conscious allowed; her masterwork perfected; and the Collective stoic to her advances. With nothing left to do, she turned inward, for the time of Midgarðsormr’s awakening was nigh.

She passed the remaining time in her atheneum, an infinite library with infinite knowledge. Manifold and insightful, she never grew tired of its teachings. Yet, still, there were moments where she caught herself in a discussion with herself, where she realized her mind had wandered, and where she wildly pined for a fresh rendezvous with the magister she met during her subjugation of Fortis so long ago—so much so that her mild infatuation burgeoned into a passionate obsession.

Eventually, as she awaited the awakening of her pet, lassitude overtook her.

TSATHOSKR RETURNS

Inexorably, it returned. A thousand-fold lives spent in preparation and still Kor was caught unawares. Yet there it lurked, a black smudge that sought to blot out the stars. It did not hide, but its stillness cast into Kor’s soul a trepidation no invective could have framed. Flecks of cyan splashed from a multitude of maws that diminished and recrudesced as readily as pustules on the crest of a wave. Glutted on the spoils of its conquest, it was no longer a newborn, but far vaster than before—indeed, it rivaled in proportion the very moon on which Kor dwelt. The anxiety that lanced her soul is how she recognized it; that terrible and disabling familiarity. She knew, fully and with no doubt, what hovered before her was the being that so long ago afflicted her with incapacitating fear.

<< Tsathoskr. >>

In spite of the protective magic she spent ages weaving, its name spilled into her mind as a deluge of raw evil, effortless and colder than any cryomancy conjured throughout her long practice. Behind it, she sensed a multitude of other presences; worse, something awakened. Somehow, she sensed it was the Collective—finally, it responded to this being’s presence.

“You can not harm me,” she insisted, but her shout echoed in her mind like a wail of despair.

Forcefully, she shut her eyes and cleared her thoughts. This vile creation was not her better. She was older, wiser, and more powerful. It was also time, she realized; Midgardsormr’s slumber was sufficient, near its end, and she desired its strength.

“Vakna, ormur eilífs vetrar!” she screamed.

Beneath her, Midgardsormr’s roared to life. Eyes opened again, and much higher, she beheld from a vantage of alarming propinquity an ebon strand uncoil from the primary mass of her foe. A tendril of cruel darkness, it probed her barrier, pressed, scratched, and scraped the surface as if curious as to its properties.

Then it crashed through as though it, her mastercraft of an age of effort, was mere glass.

Her barrier breached, a torrent of stygian hatred rushed through the fractured aperture. Frantically, she fled, shade-stepping and teleporting out of the way the matte bIack spears that assailed her from every angle. Into her fortress hewn into Midgardsormr’s skull, she retreated. Yet the malevolence poured into her steed’s mouth, even as it awoke and rose to confront the threat. Drowned, it flailed impotently in a black sea of insanity, each gasp a choked gargle; beneath its weight, Glaceria was nearly halved. Inside, the river of night crept through the small places, violated wards, perverted ramparts, and inundated her citadel with a tide of malice. Relentless, it pursued her. Finally, she sprinted down the corridor to her atheneum. Behind her she felt the roar of a million screams, pinions of death struck her back, and strands of doom grasped at her limbs. Terrified and moments from obliteration, she slammed behind her to the door to the one place it could not follow—a door secured by a thousand magisters and a million years of craft greater than she, alone, could ever attain.

She hid within her atheneum.

Prostrate, exhausted, and forlorn, she hyperventilated rapidly. With a hand that trembled, she wiped, to little avail, the tears that cascaded down her cheeks. She was safe, finally. Not even a god could breach this chamber.

Somehow, its voice again ripped into her mind.

<< What have you done? >>

“Nothing! Go away!”

<< I shall feast upon your flesh. >>

“No! Please, what … what do I do?”

<< You have nothing to offer. >>

“I have knowledge! I can tell you who did this to your home, to your mother! If it means not having you as my enemy, I will tell you everything you need to destroy them all!”

The Sorceress' Nemesis

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