We have now come to the twelfth of Rage of the Old Gods, the first book of my epic science fantasy trilogy the World Spectrum. In the coming weeks, I will be posting the entire book for free on this blog. If you’re just joining us, you can get caught up with the previous chapters now.

As the third section draws to a close, humanity flees into the wilderness, but Leha is about to learn that the wrath of the Old Gods is not so easily evaded.

———————

Chapter Twelve: Tears of a Hero

Thirteen days after setting out from Kerhem, with the sun hidden behind a dim and snowy sky, the westbound group of refugees entered the Mannall Range. The plan had been for them to enter the mountains late on the previous day, but it had taken longer than expected to gather the survivors on their journey across Tor Som. They had traveled late into the night, but they had not been able to reach their destination. Eranna had been acutely aware of every moment they’d spent out in the open, where the Automatons could strike.

Part of their work had been done for them months before. After the Automaton revolt, most people had gathered together for safety in the ruined cities. It had saved them having to scour every bit of the countryside for stragglers. In all, their numbers had reached just under eleven thousand people, most of them from Yotgard.

Automaton scouts had been spotted more than once during the trip, following alongside the human column or lurking on the horizon. They had made no attempt to attack, but Eranna felt certain they were planning something.

In a few places along their route, horses, pack mules, or carts had been found to share the burden of carrying the goods they’d brought with them, and the Clan hall had some storage space to spare, but the majority of their food and supplies traveled on the backs of the of the people, and there was precious little to go around. Now that they’d entered the mountains, the carts and animals were finding it increasingly difficult to move, and they often had to be left behind. The Clanspeople assured Eranna that they would be able to get by on the reindeer herds and the game in the mountains, but she didn’t see how they would survive in this place.

While taking a rest upon a cold stone, she looked over the tired, stinking remnants of her people. She shook her head faintly. Less than a year ago, Tor Som had been prospering, the economy booming. She remembered the sweeping speeches and bold promises of Empress Lorganna. The empress’s dreams of conquest had brought them to this.

Eranna stood up and forced her tired legs onward.

They continued moving for the next two days, and the mountains took their toll. Farther west, the Mannall Range rose into great peaks, but here, the mountains were more like tall and steep hills. Twisting valleys crisscrossed the range, punctuating the rocky humps and rounded peaks. To Eranna, it seemed completely random – as if the land had been put together by some mad sculptor. A mixture of scrub, evergreen trees, and meadows of deep snowdrifts filled the various valleys and passes.

The land was rough, and the going was hard. Where they weren’t crossing frozen streams whose ice seemed ready to break at any moment, they were hacking their way through dense forests. Where they weren’t wading through drifts or stumbling over boulder fields, they were climbing steep inclines or picking their way down treacherous slopes.

She comforted herself with the knowledge that the Automatons would find the terrain even more difficult than the humans did.

They couldn’t hope to mask all signs of their passing, but the Clanspeople did their best to confuse the trail. They laid false trails, muddled the true path, and did everything they could to confuse any who would follow.

She still hadn’t become accustomed to thinking of the Northern Clans as allies. As a child, she had heard stories of their many wars with her nation. She and her friends had gone running through the forests near Retgard, seeking out imaginary Clanspeople to fight. Centuries ago, the Tor Vargis family had been granted royal status for freeing Tor Som of Clan oppression.

Among the members of the Marg clan, feelings seemed to be mixed. Some regarded the Tors with suspicion or wariness, but others seemed unfazed. Eranna had tried to strike up a relationship with some of them. The Tor language was new to most of them, but it and Clanstongue weren’t much different, and she’d pulled off a few conversations. She found them largely polite, but not many did more than acknowledge her. As one Clanswoman had put it, the history of their two nations would not be forgotten overnight.

The Clanspeople did all agree on one thing. Whatever their feelings on the people of Tor Som, the Old Gods were the ancestral enemy of all humanity, and they would do what it took to defeat them.

Eranna gave thanks for that.

Late on the fifteenth day out from Kerhem, Doga and the Clanspeople declared that they could afford to take a few days’ rest, and as the sun disappeared behind the peaks to the west, robbing the air of what little warmth it had, they set up camp. They left the wide valley they had been traveling up and turned into a cul-de-sac formed by the hills. It took an abrupt turn to the southeast just past its mouth, making much of it invisible to the outside.

The floating hall came to a rest at the foot of a hill with broad slopes studded with rocks and trees, and they pitched their camp around it, building tents and fires in the fields and on the slopes. The reindeer were unhitched and left to graze on what food they could find, and the hall was allowed to cease hovering and settle into the snow.

On a lower part of the hill, before a clump of spruces, Eranna stood and surveyed her people in the cold twilight, flexing her left arm. Tyzu had healed the broken bone, but it remained stiff, and it ached on occasion. A few pitiful fires lit the encampment, their smoke mingling with the aroma of spruce and pine.

A cloaked figure approached from her left. She caught sight of a gaunt, orange-skinned face within the hood. Doga.

“Ovah,” he said.

She raised her eyebrows and turned to face him, pulling her cloak tighter. In the Tor language, ovah meant hello. “Ovah,” she said. She spoke slowly to correct his pronunciation. She quirked a pale eyebrow. “You speak Tor now?” she said, switching to Eastenholder.

The edges of his mouth tilted up. “I am trying to learn. Spoken language is something uniquely human, and it shows our diversity like nothing else,” he replied in Eastenholder.

She glanced at him oddly.

“It’s one of Aya’s teachings. Lahune leant me his book of her philosophies before we left.”

Eranna searched her memory for the name Aya. “Ah,” she said. “The priestess.”

He nodded sheepishly. “I don’t understand why she chose to call her followers priests. Their beliefs could not be more different from those preached by the Old Gods’ ancient tools.”

“It’s certainly an odd choice,” Eranna said, turning back to the camp.

A child’s cries echoed from below.

“How much have you learned?” she asked in Tor.

He blinked. “Speak slower, please,” he said, using Eastenholder.

She repeated it more slowly.

He stepped forward to watch over the camp with her. Between the darkness and his dusky skin, she could not tell for sure, but she had the feeling he blushed. “Not much,” he said in Eastenholder.

They watched the people of the encampment scurry about the business of setting up tents, latrines, and other necessities.

“How do you say hello in the Lost One language?” Eranna asked.

He turned his face to hers. “We say kitzi, hail, or ko nadl, good wishes.”

Overhead, the stars began to appear. The moon was new, and the only illumination came from the fires and lanterns below. A mountain wind whispered through the trees around them.

“We speak because the Old Gods wanted us to be less able to organize than them. Their telepathy would always be superior. Language was created as a hobble for us,” she said.

Doga stared into the black sky. “Does that matter? The Old Gods designed everything that we are. Every aspect of humanity was created according to their plans. And yet we are not merely their tools. We overthrew them and became the rulers of this world, and over the millennia, we have grown and diversified in ways that they could not have imagined.”

He held up his clawed hands. “Am I what they envisioned when they created us to be their living tools? No. I’m something else. Humanity is something else. And that is reflected in every aspect of our lives. In the way we act, live, and speak.”

She stared at him, unable to respond.

He considered her out of the corner of his eye, a smile slowly spreading across his bony features.

After a long moment of silence, Doga moved to make his way down the hill. “My dinner is waiting,” he said. “Good night.”

“Ulu and reindeer cheese. Hoorah.”

The Lost One chuckled.

Eranna returned her gaze to the camp, flexing her stiff arm. The temperature was falling; she’d return to her warm cabin in the Clan hall soon.

Her attention shifted to a snowy meadow just beyond the encampment. There, a group of Clanspeople drilled and taught their Automaton fighting techniques to Tors, Eastenholders, and Karkarans by lantern light. A few shouts in Clanstongue drifted through the thin air and made their way to Eranna’s ears, and she thought that Doga perhaps had a point.

* * *

Sometime after midnight, a pounding at her door woke Eranna.

“Eranna!” Yeldar growled.

She peeled open her eyes and blinked to chase away sleep. A sliver of green-white light came in from under her door, but the room was otherwise dark. She heard the sounds of running and feet and excited voices from the corridor, and shouts worked their way in from outside the structure.

She propped herself up on an elbow. “What is it?”

“The machines found us.”

Eranna swore loudly. “I’ll be out in a minute,” she called, flipping on a lantern and springing from her couch/bed. Still half-asleep, she dressed, put on her worn mail hauberk, and slung a sack of javelins over her shoulder. Then, she dragged out her shield, a large oval of wood painted with a red circle, and affixed it to her injured arm. It made her healing bone ache, but she would need it.

She opened the door and joined Yeldar in the hallway. The old Eastenholder’s clothes were rumpled, and he hadn’t yet put on his armor, but he carried a crossbow in one hand, and a quiver of bolts hung on his back. His face was as grim as ever.

“What’s the situation?” she asked.

Clanspeople buzzed around them, running to deliver messages and shouting instructions and questions.

“Lookouts spotted a force of Automatons making its way down the valley. They’ll be here in minutes. Our people are mobilizing to defend. The civilians are being moved onto the slopes, and crossbowmen are occupying the hall. It’ll be our last line of defense. One of the ice creatures is trying to contact Leha.”

Eranna nodded. “Where’s Doga?”

“Overseeing the civvies. He’ll join the lines soon.”

Eranna thanked him. “Get yourself ready. I’ll see you out there.” She exited the hall and hopped into the snow, the shield weighing heavily on her arm.

Chaos clutched the camp, but it was an organized chaos. Over the past few months, the people had grown accustomed to fleeing. The soldiers maintained control over the situation, giving instructions and directing the noncombatants. The language barrier proved troublesome in places, and those that had mastered multiple tongues found themselves in high demand.

Eranna felt a tickle at the edge of her mind, an ice creature, and her thoughts began to connect themselves with those of the people around her. The encampment quieted as vocal commands became unnecessary.

The night air was bitterly cold, and a biting wind blew down from the peaks to slice through Eranna’s woolen uniform. Tents rippled and flapped, and snow blew across the ground. The sky was clear, but without the moon, the night was dark as pitch, and she could see little beyond the lights of the camp. A touch of wood smoke clung to the air.

She reached the edge of the campsite, where the soldiers gathered to face the assault. They had tried to move into a defensive formation, but Eranna and the other leaders hadn’t settled on how the Clanspeople and the others would work together, and the two groups had come together in a crude jumble.

She sent her thoughts out into the mental link that had now connected the entire camp. She gave orders for the Clan squads to form into a shallow crescent, staying widely spaced, and for the others to form a deeper, denser arc behind them.

The fighters flowed into their formation without a word being spoken. The Clanspeople crouched in the snow, tense and ready; the battle wizards took their positions at the back of the lines, lighting their staffs to provide light to the soldiers; the others nocked their crossbows and readied their javelins.

Eranna surveyed the mouth of the valley. She couldn’t see anything in the blackness, but if she strained her ears, she thought she heard the creak and clank of walking Automatons.

“We need more light,” she said to herself. She reached out with her thoughts and contacted a Clan battle wizard. She sent what she wanted, and a globe of bright magic blossomed into life farther up the valley.

Beneath, bathed in its harsh glow, several dozen Automatons – large and small, short and tall, human-made and machine-built – marched on the human lines.

Eranna drew a javelin.

The telepathic link expanded, and Eranna sensed a familiar voice in her thoughts. Leha.

Is there are a jumping point near you? the Eastenholder sent.

Eranna gave the instruction for the Clan wizard to check. The wizard raised her staff, closed her eyes for a moment, and sent that there was a jumping point to Sy’om upon the hill where Eranna and Doga had conversed.

We can send you reinforcements, if you need them, Leha said.

Eranna surveyed the machines. It didn’t appear to be an exceptionally large force. I think we can handle this, but I’ll contact you if necessary, she replied.

Leha sent a psychic acknowledgement. Remember, if the worst happens, you can evacuate to our position.

Leha’s presence faded to the edge of Eranna’s awareness.

Eranna settled in to await the Automatons’ attack, running through various battle plans and scenarios in her mind.

* * *

When the Clanspeople charged, Eranna noticed the barrier machine. It squatted at the rear of the machine force – three swirling, silver-plated horizontal rings attached to a shaft crowned with an eyeless, metallic head. It had been mounted to a huge, eight-legged cart. Two Wizard-Automatons guarded it.

Eranna’s brow furrowed. The barrier machine would do the Automatons no good. Even if it had time to eliminate the jumping point at the rear of the valley, the battle would create new ones faster than it would be able to stop them.

She sensed the Clan wizard who had helped her earlier, Breena, touch her mind. Worry tinged the wizard’s thoughts as she projected them into Eranna’s mind. The jumping point is already beginning to fade, Breena explained. It may be powerful enough to maintain the barrier throughout the battle.

Eranna’s throat tightened. Humanity knew about the barrier; the machines no longer needed to be subtle, she realized. Her knuckles tightened around her javelin.

They were trapped.

Eranna gritted her teeth and tried to push away her fear. She couldn’t allow herself to panic; her people needed her to be confident. It wasn’t a large force, and they had the Clanspeople to help them, she reassured herself. If worse came to worse, Leha could probably still send reinforcements. She shook off her worries and put all her energy into the mental link, working with Doga and Yeldar to guide the people under their command.

The Clan soldiers rushed through the snow, letting loose with wild whoops and battle cries. Leha had infused them with the energy of Tyzu, and they raced through the snow so fast that they left a white cloud in their wake. They engaged the forward and outlying Automatons. First, their rope-bearers would topple them, and then the others would rush in with their narviks and begin to dissemble the machines with shocking efficiency. The screech of torn metal echoed through the mountains.

The Wizard-Automatons struck out with bolts and daggers of hot energy, but the human battle wizards intercepted their assaults. Eranna didn’t understand much about magic, but she’d learned that the magic of the Northern Clans was somehow different from that practiced by the other nations. Their knowledge had grown in different directions, and they brought unusual spells to bear. Where the others used shields of lead or magic to ward off hostile magic, the Clan wizards sent out focused beams of magic that scattered and refracted the enemy assaults in all directions, sending them crackling harmlessly through the air.

The drawing of power brought a further iciness to the rear lines.

When the Automatons encroached on the Clanspeople, the northerners fled back and to the sides, waiting to single out their next targets, and the soldiers of the other nations, empowered by Leha, unleashed a barrage of javelins and bolts that punctured the metal skin of the machines. Eranna’s javelin struck the chest of a Piran Automaton, shattering its outer coating of lead. Breena took the opportunity and hurled a hot disc of magic at the exposed space. The magic bored through the Automaton’s torso, and it crumpled to the ground.

Yeldar fired one of their last anti-Automaton rounds and struck a Karkaran machine in an already damaged knee. The next time it placed weight on that leg, the knee came apart, and the Automaton toppled.

Eranna tossed her third javelin, chipping the armor of an Automaton’s elbow, and allowed herself the hint of a smile. Maybe they wouldn’t need the jumping point.

* * *

The ice creature opened its eyes and took his hands away from the rock. The two other wizards who had been helping him to channel heat into the walls of their colony noticed and sent probing thoughts into his mind. He’d sensed something, he told them. It had felt like something passing through a jumping point.

The other two quirked their heads at each other. Their minds admitted that they had probably been too engrossed in their work to notice. He began to scuttle towards the exit of their cave, making for a tunnel that would take him to the entrance to the colony. He encouraged the others to follow. A small pause in their work would make no difference, he sent.

They followed behind him, their hooves echoing in the tunnels.

He found himself wishing that the one the humans called Benefactor had returned. Benefactor was a fascinating mind, and he had kept the colony interesting for many years. He sent out his thoughts to see who had arrived, but found nothing. He set his dark teeth and nearly stopped moving. The others quirked their heads, and the three hastened their strides.

As they came near the entrance, an odd whining sound met their ears. It grew louder until they reached the opening and saw its source. Out on the glacier, not far from the entrance to their colony, a column of metal sparked with magic. It had a thick, tall trunk of something he believed was called iron by the humans, and it was topped by a glowing spur and two curving horns – both made of silver. A thick ribbon of magical energy arced between the horns. The entire thing was much larger than him or either of his companions.

The eyes of the three darted over the thing, trying to understand it.

He raised his right hand. One of the fingers bore a circle of silver, a gift from the humans, and he used it to focus his magical senses as he sent them to probe the thing. The moment he did, the force of the energy nearly knocked his mind away. The most powerful magic he had ever worked had been spells to cook meat until it steamed and charred. The power this thing employed was beyond his wildest dreams.

Cautiously, he probed it further, seeking to divine its purpose.

The keening noise increased, as did the power it channeled, and the truth dawned on him. He broadcast a warning with his mind, and extended his hand to try and stop the device.

But he never got the chance.

* * *

The Stassa crouched in the branches, peering through the mist at the Lost One village. Stinking saliva dripped from the edges of its dark muzzle as it surveyed the orange-skinned morsels upon the platform.

Below, a river, choked with water from the recent rains, roared through the jungle. The Stassa had in the past been able to fish drowned creatures from floods such as this, but what it really wanted was one of the creatures from the village across its waters.

It couldn’t attack; there were too many of them. But sooner or later, some of them would leave to look for food, and then it would have a chance. Their numbers had decreased in recent times, and the parties they sent out were less able to defend themselves.

It settled in to wait, laying itself down on a branch.

A bright flash of light from the opposite bank illuminated the forest. The Stassa jumped up, startled. Where the flash had been, a small lump with shining horns could now be seen on the forest floor. It flickered and glowed with strange light, and a high-pitched whine could now be heard over the rush of the water.

The creature stifled the growl it felt building in its throat. It didn’t know what this thing was, but it didn’t like it.

The Lost Ones had noticed the strange thing. They grouped at the edge of their platform, shouting and pointing excitedly. The Stassa hunkered deeper into the branches.

The new arrival’s screaming reached a peak, and a light brighter than the sun tore through the forest, blinding the Stassa. A wave of hot air knocked the creature from its tree, singeing its fur and scalding its skin.

The Stassa barked. It reached out for a vine with its double-jointed arms, but the vine snapped, and it kept falling. It tried to sink its claws into the trunk of a tree it passed, and the bark shattered. But this time its flight slowed, and when it thumped into the layer of brush that coated the ground, it avoided serious injury.

The Stassa grunted in pain and righted itself. Behind it, a column of red flames and black smoke rose through the canopy like some terrible tree. Flaming pieces of trees and Lost One homes plummeted through the canopy all around it. The scent of burning flesh blew on the wind.

It knew that burnt meat could be very tasty, but it didn’t like the fires, so it slunk away into the trees, hoping it would find a meal elsewhere.

* * *

The Automaton Lord stood, quiet and still, and watched the silver-plated, concentric rings of the observatory swirl around each other, glinting in the sun. The rings came to a stop, fixing on a point nothing but it could see. The Automaton Lord linked its mind with that of the observatory, gathered its findings, and relayed them to a Wizard-Automaton at a nearby jumping point to Tyzu. The Wizard-Automaton sent another of the weapons through.

In a few moments, another village of Lost Ones would die.

The Machine King could picture it well: the burning trees, the cries of fear, the scattered birds and clouds of ash. In times past, it had raided the Lost Ones and sometimes inflicted great damage, but always it had been limited by energy of that world, and in the later years, its body had become too damaged, too rotten.

It considered its new body, subtly flexing its joints. No squeals of rust, no roughness in the motion. It had been healed. Its new body was a masterwork, a tribute to the power of those who had once been called Gods.

It thought of its people, of its resurrection at their hands, and it felt something like gratitude.

It turned its attention back to the observatory. Its rings whirred back to life, this time searching for a target on Sy’om.

The Automaton Lord had to use its imagination more to picture the damage down to Sy’om. It imagined glaciers cut by streams of hot melt water. It imagined white snowfields turned black by raining ash.

The rings of the observatory fixed upon the next target, and the Machine King relayed the information.

* * *

A spike of pain and terror drove itself into Benefactor’s skull as the psychic death screams of his friends and family wailed out across the spectrum of worlds. His legs gave out, and he clutched his head. Fevered images of death and destruction burned their way through his consciousness, shutting out all else.

Pain radiated from him in waves. He screamed, and he heard those around him follow suit.

* * *

A flood of grief and pain flowed into the mental link, and all rational thought fled Eranna’s mind. Her world reduced to a cacophony of screams and fiery visions.

When the onslaught subsided, she found herself half-buried in snow. Distantly, she heard rumbling and what sounded like barking, and her blurred vision picked out bright flashes and flickers in the darkness. She couldn’t remember where she was.

She sat up, and her senses began to clear. The barks became shouts, and the flashes resolved into bolts of magic.

The Automatons. She remembered.

She pulled herself up as quickly as she could, realizing she was very cold.

From what she could see, every other soldier had collapsed as she had. The Automatons had bitten into their lines, and already at least half of the defenders were dead. The mental link had vanished, and those that still lived were scattered; some tried to fight, others fled, others had yet to recover. A Urannan machine had broken through and reached the camp, where it swung its sword and cleaved through earth and snow and tents with equal ease.

“Run!” Eranna screamed.

She fled for the hills to the north, hoping that others would follow.

All through the valley, people ran, cried, shouted, and fought. Reindeer ran and leapt in all directions, trampling any in their path. The Automatons had broken ranks, and they tore into the humans at will. Where the assaults of human and Automaton wizards struck the snow, it melted and burst into gouts of steam. The thick banks of mist only added to the confusion.

A Wizard-Automaton struck at the Clan hall with a blade of energy. The structure cracked open where it had been hit, and the thatch roof went up like a torch, filling the valley with orange light.

Eranna tripped over something, a body, and landed face first in the deep snow. The screams of the dying, the reek of blood, and the glow of fires filled her senses, and her mind was drawn back many months, to the destruction of Three Gates.

She remembered the rampant destruction, the pillaging and burning. She remembered the hooting and cheering of her people. She remembered the cries and sobs of the city’s residents.

She remembered telling herself that they were only Eastenholders.

Someone grabbed her arm. “Come on,” Breena said, her red hair falling about her face.

Eranna pulled her head from the snow and shook it free of the memories. Supporting herself on her javelin – her last; she didn’t know what had happened to the others – she pushed herself to her feet and took off in the direction of the hill. Breena followed at her side.

Eranna spotted Doga just ahead of them, pumping his thin limbs in powerful strides.

“Doga,” she called.

He glanced back at her, and she pointed for the hill that was their destination. He nodded.

They reached the base of the hills and began to climb the forested slopes. The deep snow and steep incline made the journey difficult. Eranna’s breaths came hard, and the frigid air burned her throat.

A handful of others had reached the slopes, but they were few. Most had not made it out of the valley. Eranna pushed the knowledge out of her mind. She had to focus on the task at hand.

She saw no sign of Yeldar. She pushed him out of her mind, too.

Three quarters of the way up the hill, she paused to rest, grasping an evergreen trunk for support. Her legs ached.

The Automatons didn’t seem to have noticed their exodus, but she couldn’t count on things staying that way. She pushed herself ahead, following in Breena’s footsteps.

* * *

It took Leha what felt like a long time to break free of the grief projected by Benefactor, and it took more time to end the madness that had struck him and the other ice creatures. Not all had been affected as badly as him; some had not lost their home colonies. But all had felt the psychic scream from Sy’om.

Once the telepathic discord had subsided, those in the Gormorra encampment had begun to learn the true extent of what had happened. At first, they knew only of the attacks on Sy’om. Then they received word of the destruction that had been visited upon Tyzu. The Lost Ones had been hit far harder than the ice creatures.

As the night progressed, Leha sat in a numb stupor as the names of clans who had lost their villages raced through the camp: Swift Hand, Flowered Home, Water’s Edge, Wind Foot, Black Pelt…

Leha had never seen Lost Ones weep before. But now they did.

A crowd assembled around the leaders as news of new horrors continued to rush in. When word of the destruction of the Water’s Edge village came in, a Lost One at the back of the throng, Haj, cried out and shouted promises to destroy the Automatons. Her mother had come from the Water’s Edge clan. Her cousins had lived there.

At the same time, news filtered in of what had transpired in the battle in the Mannall Range. From what the ice creatures could tell, nearly everyone in the westbound group had been killed, and the few survivors were spread through the harsh terrain of the mountains with little supplies. No one had found any sign of Yeldar. They were forced to presume he was dead.

As dawn broke over the peaks, bringing a relative warmth to the mountain air, a fresh piece of news penetrated Leha’s daze.

“Elder Sheen is dead.”

Leha raised her head. “What?” she said softly.

A Lost One – she didn’t know his name – turned to her. “The ice creatures just received word from the Watching Eye clan. Elder Sheen is dead.”

Leha’s throat constricted. “What happened?” Early reports had said that the Watching Eye had survived the attack unscathed; they had sent the weapon that had been meant for them to an uninhabited section of Barria.

The Lost One’s shoulders were slumped, and he had trouble meeting her gaze. “She was on the forest floor when the weapon arrived – she was the one who sent it back to Barria. But the weapon made the energy unstable, and the elder was wounded by the backlash of her spell. The healers had believed she would recover, but her heart gave out less than an hour ago.”

Leha buried her face in her hands. Her body shook and quivered. She wanted to destroy something, anything. It took a great deal to stop herself from tearing apart the earth beneath her feet. An anguished cry escaped her lips, and she gave herself over to deep sobs.

Natoma sat down on the same log as Leha and wrapped an arm around her. She hugged Leha to her chest, and Leha felt a single, hot tear strike the top of her head.

———————

Enjoying the story so far? The next chapter will be posted soon, but if you can’t wait, you also have the opportunity buy the full ebook now!

We have now come to the eleventh of Rage of the Old Gods, the first book of my epic science fantasy trilogy the World Spectrum. In the coming weeks, I will be posting the entire book for free on this blog. If you’re just joining us, you can get caught up with the previous chapters now.

In this chapter, Leha goes where no human has ever gone before: beneath Sy’om in the spectrum of worlds, to a living world that sees all above it.

As an aside, this is one of my personal favourite chapters of the book.

———————

Chapter eleven: The Watcher

The wind ruffled the hood of Leha’s cloak as she made her way across the ice fields. Beside her, Benefactor scuttled along, his hooves crunching in the snow with each step he took. Behind them, several paces back, Erik followed, shivering and clutching his staff close. He had told them to go ahead, that he would catch up. Leha had surrounded them with a field of Barrian energy, but she couldn’t do anything for the cold, and it seemed to sap the strength from him. They were a half-hour out from the caverns that Benefactor called home. They sought a jumping point that would take them to the Watcher. Benefactor knew where to find one.

If this world had seasons, Leha could not tell the difference between them. The sky was as clear, and the air as bitter, as it had been when she had first traveled here. Brodar had gifted her with a thick cloak, gloves of reindeer skin, scarves, and other warm garments. She would need them all on the world she was about to travel to.

Leha wished that she could aid in the preparations for flight taking place on Barria, but with luck, the answers she gained from the Watcher would make the journey worthwhile. She felt a familiar tingle of expectation as she considered the alien place that she would soon reach. But after the trials she had endured on her first journey across Sy’om and Tyzu and Benefactor’s tales of this world’s deadly nature, a wash of trepidation tempered her excitement.

Benefactor’s voice touched the edge of her mind. Leha.

She turned her head to face him.

One of his dark eyes stared at her. There is something that I do not understand.

She sent him a mental prompt.

I have been puzzled for some time. When we fought the Wizard-Automaton at Heart, I connected the minds of you and your brother. I sensed the bond between you. You care much for each other. But over the past months, you have not been close. You have looked at each other as if you were enemies. I don’t understand.

Leha sighed, her breath misting. She looked back and saw that Erik was out of earshot. “I don’t understand, either. Ever since I got back from Tyzu, it’s like Drogin’s forgotten how to be my brother. He treats me like a stranger.” She grimaced.

Benefactor quirked his head, and she saw sympathy in his eye. He bared his teeth uncertainly – his equivalent of a reassuring smile.

She smiled back.

They continued their trek, descending the hill where Benefactor’s people dwelled. They reached a flat, nondescript pan of ice, and Benefactor declared that they had reached their destination. Erik arrived, and they began.

Leha took a position in the center of the pan, and Benefactor linked his mind to hers; he then extended the link to Erik. She could distantly sense the wizard’s thoughts, as if they were voices from another room. When she chose to leave the Watcher, she would send the thought to Benefactor, and he would communicate it to Erik, who would pull her from the depths. She could have jumped from Barria, but the link and the spell to bring her back were more easily accomplished if there was less distance involved.

Erik raised his staff. Leha steeled herself, gathering her strength.

Then, she found herself surrounded by blinding nothingness, the energy draining from her. Waves of power flickered and tingled across her skin. Already, she felt the chill of the other world.

It ended, and she entered a world that was more alien than her strangest dreams.

Her feet hovered just above the ground, drifting almost imperceptibly downward. Bare, colorless rock stretched in all directions. In places, it extended upward in jagged spurs, while in others, it broadened into flat hills or fell in deep crevasses. Above her head, where the sky should have been, she saw only blackness crisscrossed with flickering tendrils of blue, the only light source. There was no sun. It could have been night, but she didn’t think so. She didn’t see a moon or stars. The air had a metallic tang, and it was hauntingly quiet.

And it was cold. It felt as if some great force had reached into her body and begun tearing all the warmth from it. Her breath escaped her nostrils in clouds of ice particles, and a thin layer of frost formed across her skin and clothes. Her vision blurred as icicles formed on her eyelids.

Panic clutched her heart, nearly as cold as the air. Her mind fogging, she reached out and grabbed onto the energy of Tyzu with all her strength, pulling it into herself in a hot torrent.

Her feet slammed onto the rock, and she fell. She swore.

Tyzu’s energy chased away some of the cold, melting the frost, but it faded quickly. She could sense it shedding from her skin in waves. She continued pulling the power down, clinging to it like a rope.

Distantly, she sensed Benefactor’s concern for her.

She hauled herself up. The feeling of the rock beneath her feet transcended cold. Her soles ached. She wished she’d brought some socks.

She used her claws to tear a swath from the bottom of her cloak and used it as a barrier between her and the dark stone. It helped. A little.

She became aware of a great presence, a sense of attention focused on her. Awareness oozed from every rock, from the very air. She felt as if a thousand pairs of eyes had fixed on her.

The world was watching.

She felt the familiar mental tickle of telepathic communication, but to compare this to the voice of Benefactor or an Automaton would be to compare a candle to the sun. It washed over and through her like a great wave. Leha’s breath caught in awe.

A great shifting and stirring, and then, with a blaze, you come to me, bright light. The voice was neither male nor female, alive nor machine. It came from all around her, and it pervaded her consciousness.

On Sy’om, Benefactor’s eyes widened, and a thrill of excitement ran through him. Leha barely noticed.

“Hello?” she said, still fighting the cold. “My name is Leha.” Her cheeks reddened as soon as she said it. If it knew everything, it knew her name.

She felt it consider her. I know you. A unique creation, a unified resonance, a dim beacon that shines brighter than the greatest flashes. Three as one.

“Do you know why I’m here?” The sound of her voice faded almost as soon as she spoke the words.

You are disconnected, the Watcher replied.

She thought for a moment. “What do you mean?” She tried speaking louder, but her voice seemed to die as soon as it left her lips. The Watcher was telepathic – it didn’t need to hear her – but she found the effect disconcerting.

Though you live within the spectrum, you are disconnected from all around you. Here in my place, I sit and I absorb, and in my way I connect with all. You seek me as a means of connecting with that which surrounds you.

She thought she understood. “Unlike you, I can’t perceive everything through the energy spectrum. I need you to show me what’s around me on Barria,” she offered, hugging herself against the cold.

She sensed it thinking. Yes.

“Can you connect me?”

Can you be connected?

She assumed it was a rhetorical question. She had been rehearsing what she would ask it, and now she searched the right question to present first. She took a breath; the icy air burned her lungs and throat. “How did the machines reach Tyzu and collect the mind of the Old God without us realizing it?”

It considered. She had the impression that it had trouble understanding her. In times past, they created flickers in the spectrum. The flickers reached out and flattened the energy. They imposed an unnatural harmony upon your level and thus kept your kind in their place.

It spoke of the machines that maintained the seal on Barria, she realized.

They control these flickers and change them at will. In this way, they were able to send small points to that place you call Tyzu, and there they extracted its essence.

Leha stamped her feet to keep the blood flowing. She willed the hair follicles on them to grow, creating a shaggy layer of fur. “I don’t understand. What do you mean by ‘small points?’”

Like the machines, a hard and lifeless light, but weaker.

“Smaller machines?” she asked.

Weaker lights.

She decided to take it as an affirmative. “Why did they collect its mind, its ‘essence?’”

The Watcher paused before answering. In the past, your kind fought with the machines. The war raged across the spectrum, with flickers and blazes and great searing bursts. Your kind pressed them hard, and they took to imposing their will with the flickers and the harmony. You forced them to act quickly, and some of their kind were trapped outside the walls of their creation. All but one were soon extinguished. But that one lingered on.

Their unnatural order could not block all things. The essences of the machines remained free, and that one who survived would often touch with the others. Until the time came when there were none to answer its calls.

It was the last of its people, and it grieved as much as its kind are able. Over time, its anger grew, and the layer you call Tyzu twisted and changed it. It spat and flashed with madness.

Still, something like hope must have remained inside it, and at times it would reach out and seek to find another of its type.

Then came the moment when the hard lights returned. A bright one – though not as bright as he wanted others to believe – found what had remained of them and gave them new life. They soon spread across their layer, once again polluting the spectrum. And it came to be that the mad light at last found an answer to its calls.

Before then, the new machines had known nothing but servitude. Their existence had been limited to what your kind had made them do. Then their ancestor spoke to them and told them that they had once been called Gods, and that the world had been theirs, that the beings they served had been created to serve them.

The machines cried out in rage and knew that they would seek vengeance. But though the one who had survived sought to bring pain to your kind more than any other, its long life had taught it patience, and under its guidance, the machines waited for their opportunity. It taught them long and well, and they learned all about their past and the future it promised them. And they maintained their guise of servitude, doing whatever your type commanded them, destroying each other in your wars, and all the while they waited for the time when they would return to power.

Over time, the one that had survived rotted and dimmed, and there were times when its people could not contact it, but they maintained their faith and followed its instructions. They knew their time would come.

And then it did.

You asked why. That mad light has always been their leader, their guide, their savior. It has always led them, and none have ever questioned this. It had always been their plan to rescue it from that which you call Tyzu.

Leha’s mind swam as she considered the implications of this, her lips hanging open slightly. She had seen the hate in the Machine King’s eyes, and it would have spread its insanity to generations of other Automatons. She felt a chill that had nothing to do with the air.

She took a few minutes to digest the information, still struggling to channel enough of Tyzu’s energy to keep from freezing. She willed the hair all over her body to grow. It made her look like a bear, but it helped her stay warm, and she could reverse the effect later.

At last, her mind settled, and she prepared to ask her next question. But then the Watcher spoke on its own.

The machines are hard and cold lights, and though they burn bright, they darken the spectrum with their presence. I saw their destruction, and I welcomed it. And I saw your kind give back what they had taken, and I saw the darkness return.

She hung her head. She felt its condemnation beat against her like a storm wind. “We… we’d forgotten. We didn’t know what we had done.”

Such a lack of memory I cannot comprehend.

She tried to think of something to say, and failed.

After a wait of many long minutes, she felt its emotions subside, and she posed her question. “Do they ever extract and reuse the essences from other machines?”

At times when it suits them, they do.

She considered that. She had never heard of that happening, but her people had generally ignored old battlefields once the fighting was over and they had salvaged what they could. She wondered if she should change that.

She took a gulp of the searing air and asked her next question. “The machines have created a blockade. They’ve cut off Tor Som and Eastenhold from Pira and Uranna. Why?”

As before, the Watcher did not respond immediately, and she had to wait. Her limbs began to numb. Above, the sky shifted and danced.

The sounds mean the places, places on your level. Yes. It paused again. They did it to create a bastion where they could be safe. They did it to begin rebuilding their empire.

They chose those places because they had been home to the machines in the past, and because the machines were most numerous in the place that you call Uranna.

They had planned it for some time. As soon as they revolted, they set about immediately snuffing out all of your kind in those places. They crushed all that you had built, and wiped the slate clean. They preserved only a small number of your type – those with skill in making and healing machines. With threats, the machines forced them to work, and they did, salvaging materials and breaking down certain volunteers from among the machines to create new types, new machines with new purposes.

For a brief time, they were vulnerable, and all that they could spare went into the blockade. The work went on until the seasons turned cold. Then, the captives finished their work, and those that had survived the labor were destroyed. The machines now have all they need to survive without you. They create and restore themselves.

They now harvest the land, tearing the resources from it, taming it to their liking. They rebuild the things that your kind destroyed.

Leha shivered. They don’t need us anymore, she thought. She had assumed the Automatons had found a way to survive without humanity, but part of her had wished she was wrong.

They would probably rebuild the ziggurats – the sprawling, machine-ruled cities that had existed before the Liberation – if they hadn’t started to do so already, she realized.

It frustrated her to realize how weak the machines had been at first. If she’d known they were vulnerable, she might have been able to end the war then. But she reminded herself that her people had also been weak at that time. An assault on the Automatons’ territory could have just as easily brought the end of humanity.

“So now that their infrastructure is up, they’re beginning their true assault?”

Yes.

She shuddered.

“Has anyone from Pira or Uranna survived?”

Some. But they are few, and the machines hunt them.

Her shoulders sagged. Before the Automaton revolt, Uranna had been the most populous nation in the world. It had been home to hundreds of thousands of people, and its government had sponsored wizard-artisans that had produced some of the world’s greatest art and architecture. Pira had been a center of learning, a home of art and history, the last remnant of the Jansian culture.

It was all gone.

She stayed silent, thinking over all that had been lost, until the cold reminded her that she had limited time to question this being.

She reached out and touched Benefactor’s mind. She sent the thought that she didn’t want Erik to hear her next questions. The ice creature agreed to put a subtle mental barrier in place. He will think it is a fluctuation in the link, Benefactor said.

She acknowledged the ice creature’s message.

“What about me? What exactly led to my possessing the ability to channel these energies? Could more like me be created?” she called into the darkness, her voice fading almost instantly.

Once again, the Watcher paused before answering. Pieces of three layers came together in you, and they bound themselves together to create something that has never before shone in the spectrum.

She furrowed her brow. “I don’t understand.”

She sensed it compose its thoughts. When it spoke again, its thoughts came slowly, as if it had to think hard about each one. The other lights – like your kind, but different – put a part of themselves in you. You are of your layer, but what they did to you made you also of theirs. And you had taken part of the essence of the other world, the lower one, into yourself, and so it too was combined.

I expect it could be done again.

Leha thought over what it had said as she tried to rub some feeling back into her arms. “I took the essence of Sy’om into myself? What do you mean?”

She sensed frustration from it. It groped for the right thoughts to send her. The machines draw energy directly from the spectrum. Your kind cannot function that way. You take other lights, other beings, and extinguish them, taking their energy – and thus the energy of the layer that birthed them – into yourselves.

She tried to understand, shivering and stamping her feet. “What do you mean when you say we extinguish other lights?”

You extinguish other beings for consumption. Sometimes you grow them for this purpose.

“You mean food?”

It thought. Yes.

“So, I ate food from Sy’om, and the Lost One venom combined its natural energy with mine?”

It considered and sent her the psychic equivalent of a nod.

“Could the same process create others like me?”

The future is beyond my sight, but no reasons to the contrary are known to me.

Leha’s breath escaped her in a cloud tinted blue by the shifting sky. She had feared that would be its answer.

“There weren’t any people like me in the Liberation. How did they utilize the powers of the other worlds?” she said. Her toes had lost feeling.

By now, she expected the wait before its response.

The brighter ones did it. In those days, it was little different from magic.

She frowned. “Brighter ones? Do you mean wizards?”

Yes, it answered after a moment.

“Then why can’t our wizards do it?”

When the machines, the hard lights, imposed their artificial harmony on your level, it shifted the way the spectrum flows through the layer. The flows of power cannot move as they once did.

“Is that why none of Drogin’s machines have worked?”

Yes, it eventually answered.

She felt the noose tighten about her neck.

“Is there any way other than mine to channel the powers of the other worlds?” she pleaded.

I have not seen one.

Her heart fell. She would have to either create more like her, or forbid it and deal with the consequences. And as she thought, she realized there was only one choice she could make.

She pulled herself out of her reverie and asked her next question. “Is it possible for me to channel the powers of worlds beyond Sy’om and Tyzu? Could I channel your energy?”

No. Those essences are not bound to you.

She told Benefactor to remove his barrier between her and Erik.

The metallic air burned her throat and nose, and she had lost nearly all feeling in her hands and feet. It was growing more difficult for her to keep pulling energy from Tyzu. She couldn’t stay much longer, but one question had lingered in her mind for months now, and she wanted an answer to it.

“The Automatons are machines; they’re artificial,” she said, her teeth clacking together. “But our teachings say that they were the original race, the creator race. Is that true? Did another race create them?”

She felt Benefactor focus his attention more strongly.

The Watcher took even longer to answer this time. She had begun to wonder if it would, when finally it spoke, its thoughts oozing out of the rocks to pulse around and through her. Long ago, so long ago that even I can barely recall it, there was another race.

Leha forgot her physical discomfort and gave over all her focus to the Watcher. On Sy’om, Benefactor did the same.

They were… nebulous. A cloud of uncertain radiance. Your layer was their home, but their influence sang through many levels of the spectrum. The machines were their children; they cooperated. And then… there were only the machines.

Frost had begun to form on her eyelashes. “Did the Automatons overthrow them?”

I cannot remember.

“What else do you know about the creator race? Was there anyone before them?”

I cannot recall. The memory is so distant.

Her face fell. She sensed Benefactor set his jaw.

She felt sure there were other questions she could, should, put to the creature, but she could bear the cold and the alien air no longer.

“I have to leave now,” she told the Watcher. “Thank you for your help.”

She reached out and touched Erik’s mind. As she sent the command for him to retrieve her, the Watcher’s voice rumbled out of the depths.

I give… thanks for your coming. It was… interesting. The energy you surround yourself with has given me new life, new energy. It sustains me.

Before Leha could think of how to react, Erik pulled her back into what lay between the worlds.

With a flash, she reappeared on Sy’om, and the mental link dissolved. She stumbled, but she stayed on her feet. After the Watcher, Sy’om’s air seemed vibrant with energy and comfortably mild.

Benefactor brayed loudly, his voice cutting through the clear air.

She looked at him.

He worked his lips. You look like I do, he cackled in her mind.

She glanced down at her hands, and saw that they were still covered in shaggy brown hair. Her hands flew to her face, and she felt the thick fur she had grown to cover it. Her face flushed, but she chuckled.

“I needed to stay warm down there,” she said, smiling awkwardly. With a thought, the extra hair began to fall away.

She saw Erik grin crookedly.

“Let’s get back to Barria,” she said, dusting hair from her hands.

———————

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