Chapter 24:

Chaos Rising

It took him a few moments to realize that his eyes were open, that he was conscious. Alive. No Raetmus, no spear. The sky was all he saw, transitioning from twilight to dark. Barely any time had passed — time and shadows of memory fleeing like dreams, though some were instead branded into his psyche forever.

His head spun as his eyes tried to look everywhere at once and fight through lingering disorientation. He sat up, with some effort, his hand immediately checking his chest for a wound. No stabbing, no blood, just numbness, nausea in his gut, and the ebb of pain beginning in his general torso.

He was atop a sandstone slab in a strange oval, but every direction otherwise stretched a flat, sandy plain. There was an unusual smell, like blood and exposed flesh. When his eyes discovered the source laying in the sand nearby, it was something he didn’t fully process at first glance, except that it was gruesome and disturbing enough to make bile rise in his throat and cause him to half-scramble away from it in alarm.

It was as if someone had taken flesh and enõìve carapace bits, turned it inside out, then ground it and mashed it together — bone, muscle, and all. Then he saw one vague curled shape sticking out and realized it was a finger. Some sound burst from him unbidden at this, half hysterical and half sheer horror.

Raetmus’s hand. Caught in radius. A calm, deductive thought amidst the confusion of too many stresses, stimuli, and questions crashing together in his mind. More was added as his eyes flashed to another bundle, like a twisted branch with a queer disk flattened at the end like a plate, but made half of wood and half of metal, the two substances impossibly swirled and merged like paint.

He pushed himself away half a body length before he forced himself to stop. Stare. Calm himself and contemplate.

A sphere of space, trading places, a spear and a hand — a threat — I didn’t want. They came anyway… even rejected…

His mind finally seized on what he had done. No, what instinct and desperation had done, all in a too-compressed and tangled mess of a moment. The lenseye. Chaos and prime. The instant he thought about it, he felt for it, there at the center of him. It was wholly different than he remembered… a clasp over it was tenuous rather than some supreme knot, enclosed by him intuitively, as if in fear of the danger. He quickly realized he had no clue how to manipulate it — it held no familiarity. It didn’t feel like sensory amplifications waiting, like little squeezed lines of energy. It was a waiting river of unknown waters, dammed up with paper walls.

It’s bloody leaking!

He tried to enclose it more, but it was useless. It soaked through the meager membranes… what he identified as the ebb of chaos flowing into the world, casting out wide, fleeing at energetic speeds. The idea of it passing through his brain and body constantly made his skin crawl and a dread weight sink into his stomach.

This is beyond me, this is my death — I’m a dead man walking. Laying.

He lowered his head back to the ground, laying out, squeezing his eyes shut. No. He rejected such fatalism. He had not pulled off what he did just to perish after. He could’ve done that already, but he was a survivor, and he had a purpose to see realized. So he began to compose himself, fighting down the panic and reanalyzing.

The lenseye was not quite to his permanently-etched memory of the moment of Awakening, when it had been an utterly naked doorway of energy needing to go somewhere. He’d altered it by his restraint even as he utilized it, forming the membrane around it, out of it, to filter, like water crystallized into a lens. It was not enough, nor were the shutters wrapped around that, like muscles being held limp to hide power they could not deny by their very existence. They were not really there to enclose but to focus and direct. He’d twisted them up in a knot long ago somehow… one he’d never re-tie.

To protect myself… to protect everyone else. From this. It was all in line with what Eklásia had related. He’d assimilated her information all too naturally. It had stunk of the truth, but one thing she’d gotten wrong was that it was a permanent disabling. Could he do what she could, then?

Shivering at the thought, he forced himself to sit up. Then forced himself to rise. Disorientation and pain answered the effort. Residual effects of what he’d done, and then the massive boot into his torso. He’d have a nasty bruise for a while. Manageable, though.

Without even thinking about it, he’d turned in the direction of the beacon. He couldn’t even sense it directly, but he still knew exactly where it was, simply from the echoes of those senses still etched in his memory, as deep as knowing where Bloodbound Bluff was from anywhere in Miracle Springs.

What can I do now? Dare I even try? That device… artifact… showed me what to do. Information, calculation, a sense of location I can’t even describe, much less fathom. All I needed was the power to trace the lines. Stitch it together. Never mind that it was a desperate, last-ditch moment like bloody Elserel…

Whether he had the power still, it didn’t matter right then, because he’d completely exhausted himself. That at least was familiar. The last of his strength was clenched around the lenseye: to have any chance of using it again with some control he’d need rest. But even the smallest things were questionable to try.

He held up his wretched wrist bonds, fantasizing about shredding them in one razor-sharp flick of his mind. Absurd, yet it seemed trivial compared to what he’d accomplished.

Then he glanced at the vile contortion of flesh down on the ground, and he barely kept from puking, turning his eyes away from it quickly as his stomach clenched.

Sure, let’s toss the dice on my gods-damned hands! Turn them into aloga paste! No. No, no, no. No matter what it is, we can’t just do things. We learn them. We’re shown them.

Still, he found himself suddenly chuckling darkly in his chest and throat. He’d chopped off Raetmus’s hand. How about that one, you high and mighty asshole? Might be worth it to experiment on what it takes to turn your foul face inside out if I ever see it again.

But the thought stilled his humor and did not help his lingering disgust. He cast it out of his mind. There had to be less gruesome means of killing a man with makar’osa. Prime. Chaos. Whatever it was after he’d changed. And he knew that he had changed — there was no going back. Only forward.

I can save her, still. One last thing, at the least. I’d always pay any price for her. All I need is to survive long enough to pay it. I don’t aim to die. But if I can’t master this…

Deliberately not completing the thought, Deros walked over to where the remains of the spear lay in the sand, trying his best to ignore the too-near flesh mass. The wood-and-metal piece was free of so much as a splatter of the other thing, discreetly separated. He picked it up and inspected it.

The shaft was mostly wood and twisted like a wandering tree root, vaguely reminiscent of a giant corkscrew without a sharp point. At the other end was a smooth, flat plate of combined metal and wood the size of a buckler. He tested it and found it quite sturdy. It had one edge that was mostly metal, and though not sharp, was surely a useful tool and weapon. Bizarre, but useful. And his.

Kind of you to return it to me, Raetmus.

Pointedly without looking at it, Deros considered the flesh-mass. It could draw carrion-eaters. Considering he had to rest somehow through the cold, he could return to it in the morning to see, if he didn’t go far. But lingering around it was not something he was going to do.

He cast his gaze out each direction, looking for any sign of rocks or a break from the flatness. Possibly something to the south, so he began that direction, while slowly donning nighttime gear. Unfurling the fur cloak that was like an old friend. Scarves. Gloves… they butted up against the bonds at his wrists and were a feat of teeth-assisting dexterity to don, but it worked well enough. He checked his waterskin, took a sip. Water would be a problem. One of dozens.

He spied a trio of sorry bushes along the way — utilizing chops of his new tool as well as the fished-out boot-knife, he cut them free then dragged the wiry branches along with him, tied to the cording at his waist.

The feature he approached was nothing more than a few jutting rock features, fairly shallow above the semi-loose sandy plain. Taking a moment to ensure the right spot, he chose one opposite to the typical northwest wind, something fairly obvious by the weathering patterns of the rocky features. He began digging into the sandy soil at the base with his new tool, to form a dip or cup that he could curl himself down in to sleep through the cold while shielded from wind. His cloak would be his greatest salvation, however. Curled underneath it, he’d retain enough body heat to survive, even with the ground inevitably sapping it over the night.

The bushes he tore and cut up to make some semblance of bedding at the bottom of the dip. He wandered around a bit, looking for more things to utilize for the same purpose. A small featherbrush plant was hiding between rocks nearby, so he cut it and tossed its leaves down. Every little bit helped. Hypothetically, anyway.

He found another clutch of graybrush in his search as well. Extracting them and cutting them up for use as bedding took the majority of the time he had left. He did notice a prominent damp spot near the bushes. He’d likely dig it up to check for water in the morning, as he had no clue when or where he’d find such again while also trying to travel. One had to be opportunistic to survive in the desert.

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Back at his sleep-hole, he settled down into it, though not yet ready to shut his eyes. Just as he did, he saw a little green sprout visible, curled up from under the rock face, one he’d missed in his general activities. Something about it amused him.

I suppose I’ll spare you, little bud. Your chances seem slim enough as it is. I can relate.

With his cloak over his lap, he utilized his boot-knife to begin working awkwardly at the bonds at his wrists, cutting down the little groove he’d made days ago in the thick, tough material. He succeeded in making a slightly bigger groove before his hands began wearing prohibitively toward the effort. Sighing, he finally gave up on it for the night. It would be a long-term effort to grind at. At least the damn knife was serving a purpose.

Bundling himself up as best he could with his free hands, he then undid the ties around the blue nightcoat and pulled it over himself, sleeves dangling. He’d need the core warmth it provided as the cold began sapping Hamellion. With that, he wriggled the rest of the way under his fur cloak and tried to rest.

His mind was uncooperative, still racing about the wild, difficult-to-process events of the day. His body was no help either, bruised and battered. And every time his thoughts turned to the lenseye, he felt that seepage and the ensuing panic to do something about it. But there was nothing.

I’m on a clock ticking down, with this. But how long? Do I have enough time to cross this distance on foot while needing to forage off a wasteland along the way?

As disturbing as it was to think about, he knew almost exactly how far it was — at least, from the point he’d arrived at. From his initial point, 634 kilometers and 853 meters to the reference point of the artifact, if a straight line from where he started. He’d… traveled… 300 kilometers of distance in as much of a straight alignment to the goal as possible, while being above the surface of the planet. He had roughly 335 more kilometers to go. He might travel 15 to 30 kilometers a day, depending on the luck of water and food found.

Ten to twenty days. They’ll get there before me. Get there and utilize the device by its… proper means and travel to Cajhor. Can I do what I did again, instead? Travel the rest of the way? His recollections of the method were spotty, some things vibrant and other things smudged, out-of-focus. A subconscious part of him, driven by daug’makar and the farsense, had taken over, to save his skin at the height of adrenaline. Even reaching so far with the farsense seemed ridiculous. But that was due to the operation of the artifact being so powerful. It had been a firestorm on the horizon.

It screamed out everything it did, all that it was, facilitated me like a helping hand… fed instruction like it was begging for the capability. Or whoever created it had. It was certainly not intended to be a secret. So very unlike our founding gods. Someone was using it, too. It must be frequent unless I was just lucky. Hopefully, I’ll glean more tomorrow, if my strength is returned…

Tossing and turning as his mind kept spinning through such things and his body ached and throbbed in pain, he nonetheless finally reached enough of an exhausted state to slip under. His dreams were wild, vivid, dark…

He flattened the spear Raetmus thrust at him with the palm of his hand. He laughed and decapitated the giant with one swipe of his hand, feeling the warm spray of blood from his neck drench him before the body fell away.

Then he stalked to the swarming camp of Ironbloods. They wanted to capture him. Of course they did. But their globs of entanglement incinerated before they even reached Deros the Avenger. And their bullets did too, as he began making their bodies explode as if gunpowder filled them. They screamed and unleashed volleys, even from their cannons, and it did them no good. He slaughtered them all, running and screaming.

Bonds suddenly wrapped him as he was blindsided, dropped to the ground, squeezed in agony, and he couldn’t break the steely red-black cage grown around him. His eyes cast about for the source, and there she was: Eklásia, clad all in black armor but for the beauty of her face, hair cascading behind her as she simply floated in the air, smiling wickedly at him.

“A child playing with his new toys. But you are mine. The Head of Many Snakes, the Ordení, owns you!”

The entangling cage pulled at his neck and limbs, choking and agonizing him, and all he could think and despair for was that he had to get away, he had to break-

He flung himself up out from under the cloak into the shock of the morning cold, disoriented yet again and casting his eyes about for his enemies while he panicked with the constriction of the coat around him. Eklásia! Where?! But there was only the dark rock and sandy soil to greet him, vaguely lit by the pre-dawn. He wasn’t entangled in her powers. It was the coat — just a coat.

Then he felt something strange about his hands underneath. Quickly, he pulled himself out of the coat despite the freezing temperature, to reveal the bonds around his wrists totally severed free. The thick material was split as if torn in two roughly, and the cording wrapped around had all been stretched and snapped. Even the coat seemed damaged, stretched thinner at one point, though it was just shy of being ripped.

Chaos. He’d done all of it — he felt it and knew with flagrant certainty. The lenseye was enshrouded as before, though the outer membrane was no longer straining to enclose. But he could feel the aura and echo of it, the residue of action, like a stain of sheer wrongness all around him, still discordantly vibrating in the air and soil and all else. Saturating him, too… a distortion concentrated and emanating heaviest from his hands. He’d ripped the bonds open while caught in the hysteria of a vivid nightmare. And it was not makar’osa. It was not prime.

It’s oozing out effects from me without me even trying!

As his eyes flitted about, they seized on where there was another slight concentration or echo of distortion. The little green, budding plant. Only it wasn’t — it was blackened, wilted. Dead. In horror, he lifted himself entirely out of the hole he dug, looking down at his bed of newly-stripped plant matter. Or was: all the leaves were wilted and oozing, sticky as if laying around decaying for many days. Some of it was stuck to his back.

I caused it all to rot! What is it doing to me? What would it do to others? I have to stop it — I have to quarantine it again!

Closing his eyes, he cast within his mind desperately for some measure to contain the leaking of the aperture. He had to knot it! He tried over and over again, but succeeded in nothing more than bleeding out more as he temporarily opened angles up… slinging it out randomly. It did not have a strong effect, seeming to flow in and out of reality in a flash, but it always seemed to leave a remainder, a taint and residue lingering behind.

Intent — without intent, it just emanates. But it ruins like that, doesn’t it? It’s… entropic…

So he grasped and pushed at the flow with intent. Harnessing it, then back on itself, to contain it, quarantine it, isolate it. Back!

And he felt something — a turning, a shunting, a twisting at a queer angle. As soon as he did it, the bleed of chaos stopped flowing out into the world. He captured it and forced it to flow elsewhere. ‘Back,’ perhaps. It was no stopper, but another drain, and he constantly had to be doing it.

He sighed in relief. Better than nothing. Perhaps good enough to survive for a time, if I don’t keel over from what I’ve already done.

Slowly, he calmed himself, attempting meditational practices to regain his composure as he otherwise focused on what he was doing in his head. It was simple enough to conduct continuously. He needed to train his mind to do it subconsciously, though, or he’d fear sleeping.

Shivering from the cold, he brushed the gunk off of the coat and put it on, then wrapped his cloak around him. Wiped off the lenses of his goggles. His eyes still came to rest on the shredded wrist bonds, and thinking about what did it made his skin prickle and his pulse race in alarm.

Blood and bloody bâvâ, it can do what Esteron or Eklásia can. To some degree. What else? And what can it do without wilting me in the process? How do I control it, how do I make it into something other than a damned cancer!?

He shook his head of the thought, because he couldn’t know, and there was probably no way at all. Any that were cursed with such occurrences died in the usage. He simply hadn’t… yet. But there wasn’t some order like the Slowseers to teach him out there. It was a laughable thought. An order of madmen? Doomed fools?

Needing to keep himself occupied, he stomped off to do the first thing he’d been intending: dig a hole for the water. The damp spot still looked that way when he came to it again, near the area he’d dug up the scrub plants. As soon as he began digging with his strange tool, the signs were clear in evidence of significant storage of moisture. More dampness and tiny glints of water crystals. He dug a hole in the sand, enough that a small pool could form, then left it for a while. Time and Azrom would have to do a little work before he could extract anything.

Deciding how best he could use his time, he briefly considered the flesh glob he’d left at his origin point, but he blew it off. He couldn’t see himself eating anything that fed on Raetmus’s flesh, even for a moment. And he had some dried meat in a pouch he’d stowed during his captivity. He ate a couple of pieces of the salty morsels, wanting more but restraining himself. He was likely going to need it as a backup.

Grabbing the leftover cording from his bonds, he made a rock-sling with a small x-cross pocket to seat the rocks in. He untied and tied it again a few times to get it right while testing it with a few throws each time. Serviceable. It reminded him of Ryza, who’d taught him to do it a dozen times at least. Testing him, more like. He could do it just from the memory of his early Azakan days. He’d wanted to impress her, feel her ruffle his hair with that grin of hers splitting her face… the shining white contrast to her dark red skin.

I guess I’ll never see her again. The thought was a merciless stab of melancholy, and he pushed it away with derision for himself. Idiot. Of course he would. He’d save Palamera and deliver her safe and sound back to Miracle Springs. He’d see Ryza one last time before he wandered off to go die somewhere, to keep the chaos away from everyone else.

Ah yes, that thought helps, too. Inspirational.

He looked around for a few rocks, as Azrom was well underway rising and dishing out temporarily-beloved heat and energy. When Deros returned to the hole he dug, he found a satisfying little puddle of water. He drank from his existing waterskin, then soaked up the puddle with a hand towel and carefully squeezed it to replace what he’d drained. Not even all the way full and it was gone. Water on the first day was a good start, in any case.

Ensuring he had not left anything, he secured his gear to his person and headed out. East again, toward the memory of an echo reaching out through Hamellion itself. An artifact, a transporter made to guide and instruct one through the process of cheating distance. Space. Somehow, it could do what he did, but across the length of a galaxy. It was the only explanation. It didn’t seem right based on what he sensed, still. The operation it had been in the process of seemed closer. Perhaps it was modular.

Ten to twenty days. It would be too long, by far. How was he going to improve it? Chance into the caravan along the way? Their route being the same as his seemed unlikely. Something to keep an eye out for, but not likely, he felt.

He knew what he needed to try. At least to try sensing it again. But he put it off. A little while longer. Down the road, to think on it, to puzzle over it as he got his feet under him. More than anything, he wanted to know how to ensure he didn’t vomit chaos everywhere when he opened and focused that lenseye again.

Whether he could was not clear. He had to see it again, he suspected. Feared. It was too complex to draw from memory. His ‘hands’ needed the guidance to trace the form, and that was only if he still had the capacity at all.

Emulation. He made it whatever he needed it to be, while being a cheap copy. A cheating pretender. It seemed to fit on many levels. Perhaps that’s all he ever was. Dark thoughts, but he couldn’t get them out; no more than he could get the real darkness out, there in the center. On some level, he didn’t want to. It was a part of him and always had been, hidden. If he could harness its power, if he could extract some measure of salvation through it for those he loved, he would.