I would learn much from Azon’s Sword.

The Sword was more than one object; it was a multitude, its many copies bound to one another in transcendental superposition. They held constellations of memories, as numerous as the stars themselves. The sheer immensity of the information would have broken the human mind.

Of course, by the time I’d discovered it all, I was far more than just a man.

The memories were splintered into countless pieces. Slivers. Rough-edged fragments. For most, even a heap’s worth was only enough to resolve into the briefest glimpses. But there were always exceptions: memories large and old, as clear and striking as the day they were formed. And the memories surrounding Angelfall were the clearest of all.

Angelfall… it was an inflection point. The worldlines leading up to it were taut and parallel. Even the event itself was broadly unified across all its variations. The biggest differences were always in the skies. Some were starless, like mine had been. In others, night had not yet reached true emptiness, even though the stars had dimmed. Rarest of all were the worlds that were blessed with jeweled nights, where the cosmos was a poem on a tapestry of living stars.

Even now, after all this time, that beauty never fails to move me and stir up wonder.

But, after Angelfall, the lines diverged. They became sprockets of hairy time, though, here and there, certain moments stood out, gleaming like crystals. One such memory happened not long after Angelfall—and from my own version of my world, no less.

Talk about dumb luck.

The memory began with the Sun, looming high over Southmarch Plain. The Trenton army—the Holy Army of the Angel of the Lass—marched south across the land, beneath a cloud-whipped sky. Hobnailed leather sandals crunched into the dirt, treading past the turning chariot wheels.

The army was a beast of noise and motion. Horses snorted, and clopped their hooves. Shields rattled. Swords and spears glinted in the noon-light; the troops’ segmented loricas gleamed dully beneath the pounding sun.

And the Lass rode with them.

The Lass Enille, Emissary of the Angel rode in a golden chariot, bearing the Holy Sword. Only to the Lass’ eyes did the Sword reveal its subtle light. The radiance danced like moonlight on the water, wrapping around the blade’s ever-shifting tines. It had been that way since the beginning, back when the Lass was just a girl. But Enille was no longer a girl. She was a prophet. She was a matriarch, proud and wise.

A conqueror.

Age had no purchase on Enille’s power. To her faithful, she was the Light itself. Where she led, they would follow. And for half an era, they had. The Pekt’s warlords had been the first to fall. That would always be the sweetest of her victories.

It was personal.

In those days, the tales of Angelfall spread quickly, though few would accept the truth at first. After five years’ time, the Pekt deemed the new faith was enough of a threat that they marched on Enille’s village and the settlements that had sprung up around it. The soldiers of the great city descended upon them. With their torches, they razed the community and then quenched the fires with the blood of the slain. They killed Enille’s kin down to the last. Nearly all who had Witnessed Angelfall were lost. Only Enille and her closest allies had survived.

The Pekt had attacked because they feared Enille’s power. It was a wicked choice, heinous and murderous, and that wickedness would be the Pekt’s undoing. They’d brought an army to kill a prophet, and had failed. And worse than failed: they’d gifted the Lass with the blood of martyrs.

So when Enille proclaimed her comrades her apostles, and spoke to the people, the people followed. Like the mountain streams to the river, they flocked to her wherever she went, to see the Sword’s power with their own eyes.

Enille’s power grew alongside her faith. At first, the powers were arcane and unknown, but with time, Enille gained familiarity, and with familiarity came victory. She sought mastery over the Sword and found it. In her hands, the Sword became an instrument of judgment. She led the people to the Pekt and brought the wicked city low. Fire. Tempest. An army of the righteous, swathed in fog.

In the ashes of their doom, the Pekt learned the error of their ways. They rose from the city’s rubble, to lend the Lass their strength. With the Pekt’s power, a new Church was born. It grew as the years passed, until all Trenton-folk embraced its peace and prostrated before it.

They were the Army of the Light; Crusaders of Truth. Not even Time itself could stop them.

For the enemies of the Light, the Lass was a demon; a sorceress; a renegade god. But to her faithful, she was luminary and paragon. With the Sword in her hands, the powers of the Gods were hers to command. No one but Enille could see the gossamer webs of subtle light—the threads of the Angel’s Love—that churned around the Sword, and no one but her could use it, and for this, the people worshiped her. They feared her. They loved her.

With a flick of the reins, Enille’s charioteer drove the horses around the last hill. The Lass’ hair was a silver raiment above her wrinkle-edged face. It trailed behind her, as did her billowing robes, and the wind whipped them as the chariot sped. Dust spooled off its wheels. The Angel’s host followed her, amassed to either side.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Southmarch Plain had only just come into view when the first shouts broke out among the troops.

The land had been desecrated.

Befouled.

Tall palings rose up from the grass, bearing the bodies of dead believers. Heads on pikes. Carcasses strung. The bloody triangles drawn on the dead men’s clothes bore witness to their fate: martyred for having dared to speak the Angel’s Truth in King Krog’s realm.

Crows perched among the corpses, pecking out guts and brains.

Enille’s breath caught in her throat.

These dead… they were from her flock. It didn’t matter if they now reposed in Paradise, their deaths were on her conscience. Quietly, she prayed for their killers’ souls.

She hoped they’d be able to see the Light.

Firmly grabbing the chariot’s handle, Enille raised the Sword to the sky.

“Hold!” she yelled.

Her charioteer tugged the reins. The cantering horses snorted and whinnied as they slowed to a stop.

The Lass’ command rippled through the army.

Trenton’s spearmen, swordsmen, and chariots ground to a stop. Their golden triangle banners cast fluttering shadows over Southmarch Plain.

Shielding her eyes with her hand, Enille surveyed the expanse. Wind swept down the hills to the eastern, crossing the grassy plain, up to the thickly forested hills at the west. Further south, the plains opened onto Polovian lands, where cruel King Krog ruled in his ungodly splendor.

The people of Polovia were lost to their pagan ways. For the sake of their souls, they had to be saved. And they would be saved, them and every nation, that all men might know peace.

Enille could rest once that day came. Until then, she would fight to the last.

But for all of Krog’s bluster, the Polovians were nowhere to be seen. But Enille couldn’t be so easily tricked. She knew they couldn’t be far. She felt it in her bones.

Traders from Elpeck to Gravrch spoke of the Polovians’ pride. The people of the wooded hills did not shirk a challenge, least of all when their homeland was at stake.

Enille breathed in deep.

Battle-hardened, she knew the Polovians would mount an ambush. The valley’s long, narrow profile made an ambush the natural choice, and even if it hadn’t, an ambush was the Polovians’ only hope for victory. They would not be able to win in a direct confrontation with the army of the Light.

Most likely, the Polovians were hiding in the western woods, and perhaps also beyond the hills to the east. There could be archers hidden among the trees; giants among men, waiting to step forward and dole out their deadly rain.

But the archers could be dealt with.

What troubled Enille were the Polovians’ winged hussars. Those renowned, horse-mounted warriors were Krog’s deadliest soldiers. The horses could not navigate the narrow gaps between the trees. They would have to be elsewhere.

Enille shared her warnings with her soldiers. Weapons clinked as the shield-bearers moved toward the army’s western flank.

It would be so much easier if the Polovians simply surrendered. She would have this be a day of peace if she could, but she feared Krog would not relent.

Clasping both her hands around the hilt, Enille lowered the Sword and called on its power. Marvelous weaves of color and texture poured out from the Sword, filling her mind’s eye. As power welled up from within, the Sword took on a glow that all men could see, light streaming from it like pollen in summer’s wilds. All the soldiers lowered their heads in reverence. Enille spoke her own prayers, opening herself to the light that only she could see.

“Holy Angel,” she whispered, “I see your sunlight.”

She reached out to it with her soul, grasping at the light, and then weaved it with her heart and will. She sculpted the sound of its shape and the rhythms o f its colors, twisting them into a familiar position.

Even after all these years, Enille still barely understood how it worked. As a child, she’d helped her mother with her art, fetching abalones and cowrie shells for her to shape into fine goods. Enille never understood how her mother could make so many fine things out of the lowly shells, but that was the nature of beauty. One did not understand, one simply knew.

And so it was with Enille’s art: the Sword’s subtle light. Through it, she found new ways to call upon the Gods’ powers.

“Throw up a voice, Holy Angel,” she prayed. “Make thunder from my words.”

Speaking the words was a ritual unto itself. Enille had to draw up her remembrances of what she’d done before, in order to shape the Sword’s light into the form that would work her purpose. And when she knew she had it right, she closed her eyes and opened up her soul.

“Men of Polovia,” she said, “subjects of Krog the Cruel. You need not die this day.”

She didn’t need to yell.

Her words were like the thunder. The Sword’s light trembled in her mind’s eye. The Angel’s might plucked the words from her mouth and scattered their sounds across the sky. She could feel the pebbles tremble from the sound.

“Cast off your ignorance,” she said. “Renounce your wickedness and step into the Light of the Angel’s Love.”

And her words echoed through the vastness of Southmarch Plain. But no one stirred. Only the wind spoke, soughing through the boughs of the forest on the western hills.

“I will see this world made whole!” Enille said.

The grassy plain trembled.

“We shall all be one house,” she said, “the Holy Angel’s happy children. There will be no war, no slavery, no cruelty. Life will be fruitful. And the children will smile.”

She let the sound fade into silence.

But, still, no sign of the Polovians.

Sighing, Enille broke off her connection to the Sword’s light. The Sword’s glow dimmed as her thoughts stilled.

Her charioteer spoke up. “You Holiness,” he said, “this has to be a trap.” He averted his eyes, keeping his head bowed low.

“I know,” she said. “Keep us waiting in the wings, Hant. If the Angel’s might is needed, I will bring it.” Enille held her head low. Her heart was heavy.

The world had to be set right, so that all could be saved. That was her duty. It was the Angel’s command, and the Angel’s Will was absolute.

And she had no choice but to obey.

Enille did not fear defeat. She could not be defeated, not with the Sword in hand and the Holy Angel on her side. She just wished the Polovians wouldn’t have had to die.

But, in the end, that was their choice, not hers.

Giving the word to her charioteer, Hant whipped the reins, setting the horses off back into a canter. As the golden chariot drove down the army’s flank, Enille held the Sword aloft.

“His Will Be Done!”

Her hair billowed as she yelled.

Trumpets blared as spears raised toward the Sun.

“His Will Be Done!” the legions cried.

Players beat the drums of war.

“March!” Enille yelled.

And, with a roar, the Army of the Light followed. They advanced into Southmarch Plain, proud and undeterred.

If the Polovians were going to strike, it was now or never.