“Are you certain, Tvorh?” Rosabella asked. But Tvorh wasn’t listening. He was concentrating on something deep inside him, something he was sure had been left within, if only he could find it.

When they’d jumped from Jormungandr, Senrii had taken his hand, pierced his skin, and formed a neural connection. That was all thanks to some STIGMOS or another. They’d been internally linked. He’d gotten some of her on him. And what he wanted— no, needed— at this very moment was that same STIGMOS.

It was possible, of course, that his SOPHIOS had already recycled any xenokaryotic cells containing that STIGMOS. He didn’t really know. He didn’t really want to think about it. There was only one possibility now. He had to save his mother.

Is it in here?

Meeeeeee.

No. Us. Tell me. Is it here? Have you felt it?

The rider in his mind hissed and writhed against the question.

Have you felt it?

Bodies merging, mind to mind, nerve to nerve; sight where there was no sight, thought where there was no thought.

He sought and found the STIGMOS lurking within his system, a single xenokaryote hiding among his own cells. The SOPHIOS lashed out and absorbed its genetic code.

He spared one final glance for his mother, then activated a series of STIGMOS. A tiny forgebone pole shot from his hand and pierced both the cyst and his mother’s belly; his nerves wormed their way through the center of the hollow pipe.

Then he touched her.

Mother.

Tvorh?

A wave of pain washed through his gut. Was that residue from his mother, or the genophage?

Mother, I’m here.

Tvorh. I thought I would never see you again.

You can see me all the time, Mother. But we have to hurry.

Hurry?

Tvorh convulsed as a spasm wrippled through his arms and legs. He felt his other connection, the Symbiont riding inside him, become alert.

You’re infected, Mother.

Infected?

With the genophage. But there’s a cure. It— Tvorh’s skin was on fire; he was in a silver desert, and two suns beat on him mercilessly. He pushed the pain away. It’s in your mind. All I need is to find it.

I have it.

Yes. You do. Let me seek.

Something gave way, and Tvorh pushed forward, probing her memories. There was so much more here than he had expected; something massive lived on the other side of her nerves.

I am the auxiliary unit.

That’s right. There’s a whole Tool here.

So much. Help me—

They both shuddered in pain. Tvorh could feel his body transforming even as he probed; whether it was the Symbiont overriding his will or the genophage transforming him, he didn’t know. Nor did he care.

Let’s find it.

Their minds raced through whole archives of information. The external Tool, ancient though it was, still functioned to translate the data. There were screens thinner than membrane, powered by current, and there were whole geologic surveys; there were sleep-casks and weapon designs, even for the massive cannon up above; there were entire histories of Gentes with names Tvorh had never heard and could never pronounce.

His Symbiont squealed as his body shook with the force of transformation.

There were astronomical records and hierarchies of animals long extinct. There were gengineering protocols and designs for guns that used chemical propellants. There were blueprints for vessels designed to shove themselves into orbit around Tellus by consuming noxious fuels and breathing terrible fire.

Technology, tools, and Tools that he had never before imagined and could never have analyzed.

Another wave of pain shot through the link.

Tvorh. She sounded so far away.

Hang on, Mother. I’m almost there.

I love you, Tvorh.

Don’t go! Not now! We have to do this!

I’m sorry. I love you.

No!

There was an aerosol from the Recombinant Pandemics research line.

Tvorh released it into the air in Cell 102-145.

***

Aoife watched as the gray-purple cloud spewed from the Nxtlu Generosus and enveloped her father.

As if it were a shadow-play, she watched the dark outlines of tendrils lashing from Ferghall’s form as they heaved, seized, and fell still.

She felt heat, saw fire smoke like a napthgel-bomb burst, illuminating the vile fog for a moment, backlighting the shadow of her father before Ferghall fell like a shadow-puppet to the ground and vanished in the noxious mist.

“Daddy!” Aoife screamed. She raised the rifle to her shoulder and fired again and again into the billowing gas as it drew closer.

She stepped forward, fired again. Forgebone bullets vanished into the mist. And it still approached her.

A burning sensation filled her lungs, and she couldn’t breathe. She barely noticed when a pair of skeletal hands rabbit-punched her across the floor. “Little bitch,” Ilhicamina said from within the cloud. “You winged me.”

The cloud dissipated, and Ilhicamina was left in the middle of the charred, rubble-filled circle. Bodies — some of them retching and rolling, others horribly still; some of them in Nethress colors, some in Nxtlu — littered the ground where the gas had concentrated, some of them in piles three or four deep.

Daddy wasn’t moving. He was scorched almost beyond recognition.

Ilhicamina raised his hands above his head. “Is this all you have to offer?” Ilhicamina cried, gesturing toward Piotr, who was still struggling on the floor. “A lapdog, unworthy to fight a god?” He pointed to Dorsin, whose blade lay broken on the ground. “An aging Dux from a dying clan?” He turned to Aoife. “The tiny Sodality girl is the only one who even manages to draw blood from me! You are pathetic, Gens Nethress. You cannot stand against me.”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Wanna bet?”

Senrii strode into the empty circle, sweeping her sword in tiny circles. Ilhicamina smiled. “Ah. Sending your daughters to do your dirty work. The Gens Nethress way. Tell me, little girl, would you strike an unarmed man?”

“Sure.” She leapt toward him, slashing from side to side.

Ilhicamina ducked the blows. “Ah! Honorless, as well!”

“Poison my family,” Senrii spat, thrusting for his head. He spun out of the way. “Don’t talk to me about honor.” She swung again.

Ilhicamina caught the blade in two hands and her wrists in the others. “Very well.” He twisted the weapon from her grip and threw it across the room. “Now, little girl, why do we not finish what I started?” Lungburner gas seeped again from his pores, turning the air around him gray-purple. “Now you die, as you ought to have in the Chasm not so long ago.”

Senrii didn’t retch. Nictating membranes slid across her eyes. Slick gray skin plugged her nostrils and her mouth. She smiled as Ilhicamina’s grin faded.

And smashed her forgebone-reinforced head against his own as hard as she could. Ilhicamina tumbled to the floor. Senrii went down after him, reaching through her skinsuit to a concealed pocket as she did so. She drew out a syringe and plunged the needle through the cracks in Ilhicamina’s forgebone-enhanced flesh.

His eyes grew wide. “What have you—” he hissed. And then he looked up past her toward the open sky.

A shadow fell on the circle of the rendering pool, growing wider by the second. Senrii rolled one way and Ilhicamina the other as the enormous chimera crashed onto the floor and let out an enormous roar.

***

“They’re healing,” Rosabella said. “Look at them. You were right all along, my love.”

“Do not call me that,” Eztli said. But love or not, Rosabella was right; in the middle of the dance of white particles, the aerosol that Tvorh had desperately released, Tvorh’s pincers were transforming back into hands, the nose on the back of his head was melting back into his flesh, and the bruises on his mother’s face were disappearing. Before their eyes, she was becoming healthier; the sick pallor was disappearing and giving way to lovely pale skin.

The forgebone conduit retreated into Tvorh’s flesh, and he grunted and fell backward. Rosabella caught him and went to her knees over him.

“We do it?” he murmured.

“You did it.”

“Auxiliary Processing Unit,” Eztli said, “can you hear me?”

“I can hear you, Era,” Tvorh’s mother replied.

“Show me what is happening in the main hallway.”

The screens on the walls flickered, and the situation in the main concourse met their eyes.

Eztli studied the screen. “Activate the Libraratory turrets.”

***

The chimera roared as guns began shooting. It ignored the bullets as it had ignored all the ones before. Senrii watched as it flung its head this way and that. It didn’t matter what anybody said; it was a monster, but it was a magnificent one.

Senrii was so intent on looking at it that when its gaze fell on her, she met its eyes. It screamed and stomped toward her.

Senrii crawled backward, but there was nowhere to go. There was the edge of the crowd, and there was a flash of motion out of the corner of her eyes, and there was—

—A howl, as the Chimera fell through the floor. A mighty splash of rendering fluid erupted from below, and then there was silence. Senrii glanced up, and Hrega, palm still on the rendering circle’s control console, smiled beatifically down at her.

***

“The Chimera threat is neutralized,” Tvorh’s mother said. “Shall I deactivate the turrets?”

“No,” Eztli replied.

“Eztli.” Rosabella said. “There’s no need for more bloodshed.”

But Eztli did not respond.

***

“Girl!” Ilhicamina staggered to his feet. Blood poured down his forehead, and his hands gripped at something beneath him. The forgebone armor plates were fading from his skin, forming uneven lumps as they disintegrated, and his extra arms withered into his body even as Senrii watched. “Girl, you will pay for what you have done.”

He dragged Oralie to her feet.

Senrii leapt up, but Ilhicamina shoved a pistol against Oralie’s temple. “Ah, ah! You! And you!” He glanced at Dorsin, who was finally up, prowling around the edge of the circle. Dorsin froze. Ilhicamina gestured with his free hands. “Weapons down. All of them. In fact, why don’t you give the command to your men to lay down their arms, as well?”

“I will not—” Dorsin began.

Ilhicamina pressed the gun harder against Oralie’s head.

Senrii watched and prayed to gods that she didn’t believe in.

***

“You don’t have to do this, Eztli,” Rosabella pleaded as Eztli surveyed the positioning of all of the turrets and all of the troops in the Libraratory. “Let them go. Please!”

***

“Do you want your wife to die?” Ilhicamina screamed.

***

“I will be your slave! I will abase myself before you! Let them go, please, and abuse me to the end of my days! Only do not kill them!” Rosabella begged.

***

“You already killed her,” Dorsin said.

***

“Auxiliary unit, target—”

“—Eztli, I beg you—”

***

Ilhicamina grinned. “Yes. I suppose I did.”

***

“—the four-armed man.”

“Yes, Era,” Tvorh’s mother replied.

***

Ilhicamina’s finger fell on the trigger.

***

“Weapons free.”

***

A single shot rang out through the hallway.

Ilhicamina crumpled to the ground.

***

Senrii rushed to her mother’s side and fell to her knees. “Mom. Mom, mom, mom…”

“Senrii.” Oralie smiled.

Senrii cradled her mother’s head gently in her palms. “Stay with me. Just a little longer.”

***

Eztli left the chamber.

Rosabella glanced down at Tvorh, then back up at the screens. Ilhicamina’s corpse lay cooling on the ground. Next to him Senrii, kneeling over—

Oralie.

Oralie!

“Tool,” Rosabella said. “Meghan. My Era. How far can you release the genophage-cure?”

The cyst containing Tvorh’s mother trembled. “How far do you need?”

Rosabella stroked Tvorh’s hair and thought for a moment. “Could you cleanse the whole city?”

***

“No, no, no!” Dorsin fell to the ground next to his daughter and his wife.

“Yes, darling,” Oralie murmured. “It’s time. Don’t mourn for me, my love—”

A feminine voice rang out from the vocal units. “Standby for genophage cleansing procedure.”

The floor, the walls, the ceiling sprayed a shimmering white aerosol.

Senrii stood, her mouth agape. “Blood, bones, and bile.”

“Language,” Oralie murmured.

Dorsin watched in awe as the mist swirled around his wife. Almost instantly, the anguish disappeared from her face, and color began to flush back into her cheeks.

The cure wasn’t just eliminating the infection. It was normalizing her genetics and repairing the damage that had already been done. Oralie, her face red but healthy, drew a gasping breath and rolled onto her side, coughing out wads of phlegm and blood.

Oralie’s second gasp was full and clean. Dorsin placed his hand against her cheek in wonder.

“He did it, dad,” Senrii said. “He really, really did it.”

Seemingly as one, the Nxtlu and the Nethress troops realized that the duel was over. The sound of weapons being recocked filled the air.

“Kill the Nxtlu bastards!” somebody shouted.

“Wipe the Nethress scum from your boots!” someone replied.

“Stand down.” Eztli pushed through the crowd to the open circle. The rendering fluid still bubbled beneath the open trapdoor. “You have fought well and bravely, men of Gens Nxtlu. Now lay down your arms! As Ductrix of Acerbia, I command it.”

The soldiers peered at one another, uncertain of what to do. Dorsin stood. “Listen to your Ductrix and do as she says, Nxtlu.”

“And Nethress,” Eztli replied.

“Do not give orders to my men,” Dorsin said, stepping around the circle to meet her.

“One good turn deserves another, Dux Dorsin,” she replied, staring up at him.

“You have done me no good turn.” He was a head taller than she; it would not be so hard to shove her into the rendering pool.

Eztli smiled evenly. “If you do as you are thinking, my dear Dux, I’m afraid your life, and that of your family, will be forfeit.”

“You poisoned my family.”

“I saved your family. But only after discovering my brother’s plans.”

“You are responsible for the genophage. Your whole Gens is responsible.”

Eztli raised a hand and pointed across the circle, her gaze never wavering from Dorsin’s. “The responsible party lies dead over there. I was on my way through the melee to escape and warn the rest of my Gens about his madness when he caught me. I assure you, Gens Nxtlu is no more responsible for your family’s illness than Gens Nethress is responsible for his death.”

“We are reponsible,” Dorsin growled. “He tried to kill us, and we took our vengeance on him.”

Eztli smiled. “Did you?”

Over the heads of the throng, he caught a glimpse of red hair moving through the crowd. Thoughts of Eztli, of all Nxtlu, fell away. “Rosabella!”

“Dorsin.” She came forward, a beleaguered-looking Tvorh stumbling her side. She was wan, tired, and ravishing.

“Are you all right, Ambassatrix? I have heard that this—”

“I am fine, Erus.” She curtseyed. Only an eye trained and intimately familiar with her unearthly grace could have caught the slight wobble in the motion.

Dorsin stretched out an accusatory finger toward Eztli. “In that case, Ambassatrix, I insist that you report to your superiors that Gens Nxtlu has been performing unconscionable research on the genophage and went so far as to target the entirety of Gens Nethress for extinction.”

“Dorsin.” Rosabella laid a hand on his outstretched arm. “She saved your wife.”

“I helped,” groaned Tvorh.

“Is she or is she not an Era Generosus Nxtlu, based in Acerbia? Ambassatrix, inform the Sodality of the abomination that she wrought.”

“I would not do that, Dux Dorsin,” Eztli said quietly.

“And why not?”

“You might rue the consequences.”

Dorsin snorted. “And those would be?”

“For your sake, Magus Dux Dorsin Generosus Ortus Nethress, I will not enumerate them now. I propose discussion in a more private location.”

“You will not trick me thus.”

“I do not intend to trick you. I intend to help you. If you will provide me your word of safe passage, I will gladly accompany you to any place of your choosing in order to explain myself.” Eztli stepped forward. “But do believe me, Dux, when I say that for your sake you want this discussed quietly.”

“And you will not take any hostile action to me during this time?”

“Only in self-defense. Do you provide me your parole?”

“Fine. Piotr,” Dorsin called.

“Yes, Erus,” came the breathless reply from the ground. Piotr staggered to his feet.

“Inform the fleets that the genophage is being purified within the city. My family will want to know. Have a skywhale brought down, decontaminated, and prepared for parley. I would hear what this Nxtlu… maiden would say to me.”

Eztli smiled and bowed. “As you say, Dux. We will discuss this further aboard your ship.” As Dorsin turned to walk away, she added, “Oh. And Dux?

“I am no maiden.”