"We live in an age in which there is no heroic death."
― Yukio Mishima
Prologue: The Sixth World
Phospiach, Dominion of the Gods
This is a story that begins with grain.
Not the relentless monoculture of the agri-domes, with the modern advantages of genetically-modified feedstock and colossal production zones controlled by gigantic macro-processors. No antibiotic treatments or dispatch flyers for crop-dusting, no harvester leviathans prowling the grey fields with whirling blades and dirigible-drones for mass extraction-
But grain, all the same. Sheathed in inedible husks, pounded by pestle and mortar - Great hollowed-out tree trunks, higher than the pounders themselves.
Imagine: Raising the pestle. Letting it fall, catching it after it crushes the gritty covering, but before it smashes the grain. Over and over again, day and night.
World without end.
Hard work. Backbreaking work. Grinding, pounding: Some of the heaviest tasks that could ever be undertaken, in this age. But necessary, all the same - For the mills belonged to the nobles, and the fees charged were as high as they could make them.
Since time immemorial, that was a peasant’s lot. Come rain, or snow, or sun: Watching the rise and fall of the pestle, between threshing and tossing the seed, splitting logs and drawing water. Feeding the scabby animals, silently praying that the wheat would rise in time, for the alternative was starvation.
Hard years, unrelenting and monotonous. Working the soil, until one joined it.
There were gods, too, in those days. Gods of the harvest, of the hearth, of the changing seasons, of prosperity and famine. Not grand, like the deities that resided in the great temple-cities, with thousands singing paens to their glory: Small gods, brought forth from the wishes and hopes and fears of villagers, made to work the soil like those who paid homage to them.
Pa’quan, God of Grain, was no different. His priesthood, the Tillers and the Strawmaidens, claimed that He was spun into existence on a day as dark as night. When the village of Squall’s End had faced famine - Addressing the heavens with their desperate prayers - He’d emerged from their fields, like a farmer returning after a hard day’s labour, their withered crops surging with new life where He strode.
And the people rejoiced, for they had their miracle.
For a time.
----------------------------------------
No one knows what makes a god, not truly. For centuries, the priests of a thousand cults have debated the nature of the divine, and the circumstances that bring it into being: Yet, none have ever found a conclusive answer.
It has never been clear why some desperate prayers are answered, and others ignored - Only that the events surrounding a god’s birth, in some fundamental way, defined their purpose, their panoply, the very core of their existence.
Consider, for instance, Vairocana the Frenzied and Rastuvia, the Brother of Accord. Both are gods of war - But while Vairocana is a bloody-handed slayer, whose warrior-prophets preach personal enlightenment through relentless struggle, the scrolls of Rastuvia teach that battle is the crucible in which a man is sublimated into a greater whole. In the Brother’s words, immortality is found in common purpose, in the shield-wall and the levelled spears: Those who fight alone, die alone and bereft.
Their doctrine is matched by their gifts, too. In each foe struck down, the faithful of Vairocana find renewed strength and momentary clarity: Fragmentary insights, leading the aspiring adept further down the path of inspiration. Many-eyed Rastuvia grants men spines of iron, the endurance to stand and fight in the face of hideous wounds and impossible odds - For the line is everything, and to allow it to break is the gravest of sins.
Both espouse radically different views of war. One exalts the warrior, the other the many: And yet, both were born on the same day, from the same battle, when the legions of the empire of Tash’ro met the myrmidons of the Daelic Hegemony at Jackal’s Bluff.
They hate each other, of course. The way only siblings can, a great, deep hatred with no end in sight. By divine edict, Rastuvia’s priests are bound to reward any man who presents them with the flayed scalp of one of Vairocana’s apostles - In return, Vairocana offers divine boons to those who would sack one of the Brother’s temple-monasteries.
Personally, I favour Vairocana. Not because he’s more agreeable, but because he’s right: In the end, we are all alone. There are many causes, but you only get one life - When that’s gone, you’re gone, and there’s nothing more to be said.
But then again, I’m hardly an unbiased source.
Just ask the priests of Rastuvia.
----------------------------------------
Whatever their domain, whatever their nature, all gods seek two things: Followers, and apotheosis.
To the gods, the first is their meat and drink. Without a steady supply of worshippers, without their faith to batten on, a god is a puny thing, a nothing - Insubstantial as a wisp. As such, all work to expand their influence, to swell the ranks of the faithful. Through faith, they can move mountains: Not as metaphor, but in truth.
In return, the gods reward their followers. They heal their wounds, sweep aside their foes with reeking plague, ensure their children grow tall and strong and well-favoured, grant them powers beyond the ken of mortal men…All this and more, an eternal and ever-perpetuating cycle, world without end.
And when the time comes, the gods harvest them.
When one of the faithful dies, part of their essence joins their deity forever. Some say this is the closest a mortal can get to divinity, to be a mote of flame within a great blaze. To me, it sounds more like being fed to the fire, as kindling - But perhaps I’m too cynical.
Perhaps being fuel for something greater is the best anyone can really expect.
I don’t know when the covenant between man and god was first sealed, not really. The deep past is a strange place, and further back you go - on this and on any other world - the truth gets blurrier, more obscure. But Phospiach is the world they shaped, more than any other.
Gods exist as long as enough people believe in them. And by ‘believe’, I mean believe - As gods age, as they swell and bloat on the souls of the faithful, they need ever more faith to sustain them. Grand ceremonies, feast days, pageantry…They become essential, not just displays of fervour, but like a long draught of water to a man dying of thirst.
Few can sustain such appetites for long: Eventually, the demands of divinity become too much, and their cults implode under their own weight. At the first signs of weakness, jealous rivals and opportunists close in, like sharks drawn to blood in the water…
And what comes next is as awful as it is inevitable.
But for those who would seek it, a way out exists.
----------------------------------------
All roads lead to Adrijanopolj, say the Godbinders.
Adrijanopolj, the First City. The Sacred Capital, where the air itself smells of incense and sacred oils, where the smoke of burnt offerings rises in an eternal haze. Fabled, fantastically rich, the inner sanctums of some of the most holy priests of the powerful temples adorning the main broadways like bejewelled rings on a noble’s hands.
Adrijanopolj, City of Beginnings. Home of the Platinum Spire.
The stories say that Adrijanopolj was raised by the first god to achieve true apotheosis, the centrepiece of a complex, centuries-long ritual to transcend the limitations of his own divinity. His name is long forgotten, but the Spire remains.
It’s the first thing a pilgrim sees, at the end of a long, gruelling journey - A great silver needle, piercing the skies. Set at Adrijanopolj’s very heart, the Spire rises from the dark waters of the Well of Void like a jewel from a ring’s bezel, glittering with silent majesty.
No one knows for certain what lies within the Spire itself. Entire tomes have been written about the traps, challenges and guardians that lie within: Ever-shifting, ever-changing, an infinitely self-renewing puzzle box. The city’s faith feeds the Platinum Spire, fueling its great mechanisms, the complex alchemies necessary for it to fulfil its truest purpose.
Once every few centuries, when critical mass is reached, the Spire sings. It is a call, a paean, as unique as it is indescribable - Once it has its hooks in you, you never forget it. According to legend, men and women born while the Spire sings sometimes speak of hearing it in their dying moments, regardless of where they lie breathing their last.
For seven days and seven nights, the Spire’s eternal song reverberates through the streets, the cathedrals, and the high holy places of Adrijanopolj: A promise, a warning and a call to arms at once.
It is a time of great, and sometimes frenzied, celebration. The Festival of Ascension, they call it - A jubilee of feasting and dancing and general excess. Food and drink flow freely: It is said that any child conceived during this time is blessed to live a long and lucky life. No surprise, really - For the Spire’s awakening is a prelude to a birth of sorts.
As the city convulses in paroxysms of long-repressed joy, the chosen of the gods make ready. Some have been waiting for this their entire lives, armed and anointed by the theocrats of the great temples for just such a day. Others hail from distant lands, knowing nothing other than the touch of divinity and the harrowing trial ahead.
The goal is the same, to one and all: To ascend to the very height of the Spire, through its horrors and wonders, where the Purificapex awaits. That final, eternal vaunt bears many names - The Intrinsic Gate, the Exigence, the Flame of Unbinding, amongst a hundred others.
Most know it by its purpose: God-maker.
Only a mortal, acting of his own free will, can set the gears of that great engine in motion. In that one place and no other, the hand of the divine falters. The tales hint at the dire consequences for trying and failing, like the cataclysms of the Great Sundering and the Wrack, lost in the deep past.
When the chosen champion crosses that last threshold with his god’s name on his lips, he brings about his patron’s ultimate triumph - an end to the games of petty politicking and grasping for followers that the gods play, and a rebirth into a truer form of divinity. Swept through that final gate, the victorious god ascends into the waiting firmament, shedding all limits, all restraints, in one glorious moment of ascension.
What comes next is a mystery, known only to the gods themselves. Perhaps they dwell in the true heavens, amid gilded pleasure-domes. Maybe they’re set free to roam the stars, infinite and unbound at last. Or perhaps they become one with the primordial essence of things, forged into a fundamental part of the cosmos itself.
Personally, I don’t think the gods know, either.
Perhaps, in their own way, they’re taking a leap of faith.
Isn’t that funny?
----------------------------------------
There are rules, of course. Even a game of death has rules.
No Chosen may be barred from the Platinum Spire, but each god may only have one champion daring the gauntlet. In truth, few divinities would anoint more than one: When a god yields power to a mortal, it can never be taken back. Most are wary of diminishment, doling out their gifts sparingly and to their most trusted, like a miser with his purse.
Armies have attempted to force the gates before, and each attempt has always ended in disaster - In many ways, the Spire is a mind as well as a place, and it recoils at the presence of too many intelligences. The bronze-armoured praetorians of the Vushka stand ready to repel all such defilers, pledged to the Spire’s eternal defence.
The ruling pantheon of the Hundred Great Gods supports them, as a matter of practicality. Better to have an even playing field, rather than to lose their prize forever.
By ancient law, no Chosen may shed the blood of another, during the Festival of Ascension. Those who announce themselves before the Court of the Palatine are - in theory - bound and protected by this rule.
That doesn’t stop a flurry of assassinations and sabotage from playing themselves out, all the same. Man has ever been willing to shed the blood of another, after all.
Seven, frenzied days of rejoicing - Seven nights of murder and knives-in-the-dark, world without end.
There are other rules. Many, in fact: A cavalcade of them. All serve to provide some measure of protection, some thin veneer of civilization over a seething cauldron of greed, power-lust and zealotry, one that could - at any moment - spill over into all-out war.
And then, the followers of Pa’quan - In the name of their murdered god - came along and broke them all.
----------------------------------------
It began with a scourge of invisible fire. A dancing plague, amid the revellers - Convulsions and spasms, the sense that every nerve in one’s body had been set alight. Few knew it for what it was, at first: Some thought it was all part of the frenzy of the crowd, too much wine, or even some divine visitation. The presence of a new God, or many, making its presence felt.
But when the skin lesions and the weeping sores appeared, the first horrified whispers came: Poison? A curse?
And then the hallucinations, the psychosis, spreading like wildfire. Visions, terrible visions, daylight horrors: Limbs blackening and going gangrenous, like a damnation-swarm of locusts blighting a field.
Plague, someone had said at last, and all hell had broken loose. Blind convulsions of panic, the gurgle of wine replaced by the gurgle of blood. The sick had been murdered in paroxysms of horror, or left to roam in growing mobs of half-blinded madmen, seeking succour or at least an end to their suffering.
The temples had been besieged, heedless of the soldiers sent to restore order - With thousands sick and dying, the toll rising by the hour, the streets of Adrijanopolj rang with screams and pleas and prayers alike.
From a certain perspective, they were one and the same.
Some said it was in the water, others in the wine. Others blamed impiety, the corruption of the priests, the wrath of the gods high and low.
They were all wrong: It was in the bread.
For Pa’quan had been a god of grain, of rye, of the harvest, and His followers were familiar with its blight. They knew it as the sight-blinder, the fire-bringer, the red flesh of demons.
We call it ergot.
----------------------------------------
They must have been planning this for months. Labouring on in the name of their murdered deity, through seasons of patient toil - The Strawmaidens and Tillers of Pa’quan’s priesthood, nurturing not just the grain, but its opposite.
The same blessings that made the crops grow tall, lush and true fed their weapon, evoking in it an extraordinary potency, a lethality, that few expected. It had been in the city’s daily dole of bread, in the stews and gruel that so many subsided on.
The onset of the burning had come within mere hours of ingestion, and thus had begun the reckoning.
Had it been Alistair’s idea? When I’d met him - With three worlds under his belt - I’d marked him as a romantic, a dreamer, a well-meaning bumbler who survived through luck rather than skill. Then again, maybe there was a steel to him, after all: Whatever the reason, I’d misjudged him, and badly.
No. It had to be Eulisia. Strawmaiden Eulisia, the inheritor, heir to Pa’quan’s legacy. Holder of the last few fitful sparks of divinity that remained after his death.
For that was their plan, you see. Their last, great hope: That the Spire could fan those last, fading embers back into a roaring flame. When the followers of Pa’quan - the cult dedicated to his memory - stormed the gates of the Spire, great scarecrow effigies raised like banners, sickles and scythes gleaming like a forest of steel as they hewed through all in the way, they knew it was their own chance to make recompense.
To save the God that had given all, for them.
Don’t misunderstand. I lived amongst them for a season - I could relate, even sympathise with what they were doing.
When I went to kill them, it was for reasons entirely my own.
----------------------------------------
Beyond the Spire’s walls, the city burned.
The first silo had caught light, without any warning at all. A great volcanic plume of flame lurching skyward, a tiny flash becoming wider and brighter and more intense, expanding outward and upward. The percussive crump of the explosion had rippled across the doomed city, the concussion bending the air, bending sound-
And in the long, breathless moments that followed, it had rained fire.
Burning debris had hailed down from above, plunging down out of the twilight. As a grey dust cloud had rolled outward from deep within the district, the sizzling deluge had given rise to a rippling wave of new fires. Hungry tongues of flame leapt and danced and crackled, spreading with a greedy will; As if at the perverse whim of the God of Wind, the breeze had fanned the blaze higher still.
The ramshackle tenements and wooden shacks had been the first to ignite. Thick smothering coils of black smoke twisted towards the night sky, visible against the lurid glow of the distant blaze.
Far, far below, I could hear shouts and screams could be heard - Distantly, like the echo of someone else's war.
Everything ached.
It felt like I’d been fighting for hours, making my reeling way through the Spire’s cyclopean halls, its winding corridors. Around every corner was a new horror, every floor a new nightmare vista.
Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
I’d lost the Furstenburg three floors ago, when gilded skeletons had lurched from the intricate maze of frescos etched into the walls, pinpoints of crimson fire burning in their eyes. They came at me with scimitars and spears, always shields, and - my ears ringing - I hadn’t heard their chattering teeth and mumbling bony rattles until it was almost too late.
I turned, just in time, and a swinging blade ripped the pulse rifle out of my arms before I could get off more than a single burst. It tore right through the silicate and plastek of the barrel, gouged through the recoil dampeners, and ruptured the power cell in a bleak fzzk of malfunction.
All the way from my fourth world. Gone, just like that.
Furious - incandescent, almost - I hurled myself into the onrushing undead, laying around me with gauntlets of black jade. Made wrecking balls of my fists, bashing back swords and ripping through shields.
Sometimes, it’s good to work with just your hands.
Every blow shattered skulls into dust, but the lurching warriors kept coming: Even through the satisfying crunch of gleaming ribs giving way, the feel of bone crunching beneath my fists, I’d known that staying to fight was a losing proposition. There were just too many, capering forth from the depths of some painted hell, and every moment spent was a moment lost.
I fled, heedless of the spear-thrusts and blows that had rained down upon me from behind - The ice-white scales of my armour took the worst of it, though the acid-etched runes had glowed with fell light for long minutes after.
I only stopped when the Spire’s architecture shifted again, with a deep, tortured groan - One of the omnipresent hexagonal doors slamming down behind me, panels of carnelian and mother-of-pearl sliding in every direction at once.
I was still trying to catch my breath when the carved gargoyles had come swooping down. They were hideous things, goat-headed, features of grey stone locked in fright-masks of scowling rage, stinking of old blood and new gore. I caught the first one, tore it in half with a single punch, but there were a half-dozen of the squalling, shrieking horrors: Yellowed fangs clamped down on my arm like a vise, as raking talons caught me across the face.
Ever since Unity, I’ve been tough. A less resilient man would’ve had his flesh flayed to the bone - Instead, they drew shallow gouges in my flesh, missing my eye by a hand’s-breadth. I jerked my head back, swearing aloud: The dry, bloodless wound would heal in hours, the way a smile slowly fades, but I took things like that personally.
It was time to cut right to the chase.
----------------------------------------
I’d wanted to save my store of spintriae for what came next. It’d taken two seasons, as the people of Phospiach reckoned time, to accumulate my trove. Two seasons of running favours for the small gods, the up-and-comers and the fading stars. Fighting in their petty wars, for a soul full of this, a skin full of that.
“Always pick the underdog, boy,” Oloin had said, half-drunk on kulosa. Between swigs of sap-beer, the old Godbinder had stared into the distance, scowling at something only his milky eyes could see. “The desperate pay better. Skins off their back, if you can believe it - But make sure they pay up-front.”
I’d taken his words to heart. Time and time again, I’d married my cause to the weaker side, and profited from it. The salamander-leather pouch I carried was half-filled with tokens of bargains given physical form: Splinters of ivory bone, perfect black pearls, shards of rusted weapons and glassy teeth, each one a debt-marker yet to be called in.
I would’ve had more, but I’d traded some in, bartering for other gifts - Seeking information, above all. A respite from the eternal hunger that gnawed at my gut, the power that was slowly killing me.
It’s funny. Being activated was agony: I remember the fever, the spasms, the smell of my flesh burning each time they applied the catalyst. But that had been nothing compared to the pop of my bones expanding, the ache of referred pain that coursed through my limbs, over those long and awful weeks.
After that, however, as I contemplated my new self in the mirror - a full head taller, skin drawn tight and glossy over corded ropes of new-grown muscle - I’d considered all the pain and suffering worthwhile. I was a different man, a new man, from the wan and faintly nebbish office drone I’d been all my life.
A man reforged. A man remade, ready to seize adventure by the throat. To crush the jewelled thrones of a dozen worlds beneath my sandalled feet.
Yes, I’m ashamed to admit that was - in fact - what I really thought.
Me, Morgan the Destroyer. Master of the obvious, reaver and conqueror extraordinaire. Power goes a long way, even in this mad life we lead: Give a man a little, and it goes right to his head.
You’ll indulge me, I hope. Sometimes, I embarrass even myself.
But there were drawbacks, too. Not just the physiological and hormonal changes, or the looming specter of cellular degeneration, hanging overhead like a sword of Damocles. Those, I’d known and accepted from the very beginning: Wracked by activation sickness, it wasn’t like I’d had much choice.
No, it’s the smaller things that I miss. For one - No matter how much I eat, I’m always famished.
Always.
I can’t get drunk. I can’t even remember the simple pleasure of a full stomach, a sated appetite.
Back on Unity, enhanced humans subsisted on a myriad of elixirs like Quench, Cascade and Molt - Liquid food, fermented and chemically distilled, calorie-dense and nutrient-rich. It looked like aviation fuel and tasted like it too, but it beat the constant, nagging feeling that you were just on the edge of starvation.
On Phospiach, I ate five meals a day. Steamed fish in black sauce, spiced oysters, litres of the salty beef extract known as raab, crisp-skinned meat birds heaped atop each other, bowls of pickled greens, wedges of soft local cheese and haunches of roast mutton. Steak, dumplings smothered in oil and pepper, medallions of honeyed ham…Nothing worked.
No matter how I gorged myself, it all went through me like spring water, and I would rise from the table feeling like I’d eaten nothing at all.
It was maddening. It’d never been this bad before, not on Dolor or Cradle. Back on Unity, where enhanciles were a known quantity, there were measures that could be taken, specialists that could be consulted.
Here, the most common form of healing was the laying of hands.
Golag the Monger, master of the Soul Market, couldn’t cure me. But his merchant-priests knew someone who could.
And so I entered the service of Tauruskhan the Horned Conqueror, Bull-king of War and Cattle, and my path had turned - inevitably - towards Adrijanopolj and the Platinum Spire.
----------------------------------------
When I crushed the shard of fulgurite in my fist, lightning struck. For a moment, I saw it - arcs of crackling electricity gathering in a single, brilliant point, blindingly bright - in the heartbeat before it lashed out, uncoiling like a whip. The jagged bolt struck the first gargoyle with a vindictive clap of thunder, garlands of charge crackling across the barbed protrusions of its stony form.
It howled, briefly. Convulsing, thrashing as the awful stench of burning flesh choked the air. Before its limp form could collapse, a second blue-white bolt leapt from the gargoyle’s corpse, jumping to the next victim.
Then the next. And the next, a seething chain of power that linked them, just for an instant, in a crackling web of discharge-
I was moving past them, even as their charred bodies crumpled, heedless of the copper taste of ozone in my mouth. Running full-out now, the polished ebony and etched silver of the walls blurring past. Boots scuffing against the black marble of the ground, knowing I had to be close, now…
There was a flight of stairs ahead, spiraling up to a landing. I took them three at a time, my heart pounding in my chest as the rising halls gave way to a towering archway, then to the cyclopean chamber - scarred columns standing silent vigil - beyond.
I saw the blood, first. Blood on the floor, bloody footprints on the marble, bloody handprints on the walls. It scummed the light-orbs that illuminated the carnage, reduced everything to agonized shadows.
Corpses, strewn like fallen leaves. Weapons scattered across the scarlet ground. A hand, severed at the wrist, still gripped the sundered haft of a spear. Things crunched beneath my feet, hard but brittle, as I looked down…
-Teeth.
Dimly, I wondered who the dead were. Who they had been, in life - The nature of their deaths stole all identity from their remains. Cut apart, dismembered and unmade, reduced to slabs of sundered meat, they barely seemed human: To my eyes, they seemed like mock-ups, mannequins, taken apart and left to rot.
But the walls rang with the dying echoes of their screams, like a palpable force. The air was choked with smoke, with miasma, with the unutterably foul stench of death.
Caught on the cusp of a premonition, I felt every muscle tighten at once. Felt the tang of nausea at the back of my throat as something vast, something huge, moved in the firelit gloom.
Their killer had been waiting nearby, hunched like a ghoul over the fallen. Headless, iron limbs articulating with a cackling werewolf growl, it rose up. Four metres tall and half as wide, chased with gold, it was a towering giant, armored in the style of the Vushka, except for the haunting absence of a head. Badged with gore, the dullahan’s bronze cuirass shone like a mirror, the finish undimmed by the filth that clung to its surface.
“Fucking hell-” Seeing it, I lost a step, as my gut twisted itself into knots. For one frozen instant, I could see myself reflected in the gleaming surfaces: Dark-eyed, dark hair cropped brutally close to my skull, hunched frame warped and distorted. I looked startled, desperately afraid, out of my depth-
How did I get here? How did I…?
The giant’s sword - the blade fully eight-feet long - stabbed at me, and I hurled myself to the side as it hissed past. Threads of ocher lightning sizzled along the pale edge: I felt every hair stand on end as I made myself step inside the thing’s reach, hammering my fist down on the thing’s arm-
I was a delta-grade enhanced human, strong enough to lift upwards of six tons, tough enough to wade through low-caliber gunfire. With my gauntlets, I could crumple an iron helm into tinfoil, shatter stone with my fists.
The dullahan was made of sterner stuff than I expected. The thunderclap of the impact rang in my ears, the shock reverberating through my bones as spell-scored iron rang beneath the blow, but the limb held. Held, in spite of everything.
My hand vised down, fingers digging into the gleaming metal of a burnished vambrace-
The dullahan kicked me aside.
There was a crunch, a bang. A full-body impact: Not my ribs or my limbs or even my skull. It struck me in all of me, my entire body smashed back by the all-encompassing force that lifted me from my feet, and sent me tumbling.
I crossed the ground on my back. The breath whooshed from my lungs I slammed into a column, half-folded against it, the world spinning end-over-end.
Dazed, I think I made a sound like:
“-”
The great sword whistled round, and nearly cut me in half. Somehow, I managed to scrabble away on all fours, a taut hiss wrenched from my throat as the pale blade hacked a smouldering gouge where my head had been.
Close, too close, that could’ve been me-
The backswing cleaved clean through a pillar without stopping, obliterating centuries-old carvings of the torments of the damned. With a deep, grinding groan, stone scraped against stone, toppling with a crash that shook the ground as I staggered to my feet…
Beneath my coat of scales, the tattoos on my skin writhed, sensing the imminence of death. In my mind’s eye, I could see them: The barbed and thousand-legged ahtitlak, mandibles clattering as it squirmed over my flesh. The raiton, beating four wings as it soared through an inky sky, seeking escape. Even the thysser - Equal parts snapping turtle and armadillo, fully as large as a small tank - had to be stirring uneasily in the endless darkness of its burrow, roused by some distant sense of danger.
I’d had them for more than a year now, and they still felt raw against my flesh. No wonder, of course: A friend had gifted them to me with his last breaths, and they’d grudgingly settled in their new home.
To hell with it. If they could live on me, they’d fight for me all the same.
The dullahan’s sword rose, ready to descend with the force of an avalanche. In the heartbeat before it came hurtling down, I took a single lunging step forward, one arm leveled straight and true-
Thyssers are big, strong and stupid. Traditionally, they tunnel through hilly areas, sensing prey walking above them. When roused, they lunge upwards to devour their unfortunate targets whole - But when driven by hunger or fury, they can put on a surprising burst of speed.
Force slammed out. There was a hurricane of wind, a wrenching tug on my flesh. The burrowing leviathan - A half-seen, almost-real shape of ink and shadow - burst from the churning air.
It hurtled forward with the fatal velocity of a speeding bullet, and smashed into the armored giant like a wrecking ball.
The splitting boom of impact eclipsed all sound.
The air-shock pummeled me, the recoil wrenching my arm back. Their thrashing forms slammed into the wall, hard enough to send cracks skittering across the surface: I heard the scream of tortured metal against stone, the dullahan momentarily pinned by the great bludgeoning weight that tore at it with digging claws and rending teeth.
In the wild, an adult thysser bull could mass anywhere between eight to twelve metric tons. They feasted on ore deposits, in order to grow fangs and claws capable of churning through stone - The crushing strength into those great jaws could crush armor plate.
Shards of enchanted bronze flew like buckshot, crumpling with a scream of tortured metal. But the dullahan’s blade flashed out, hacking a gash into the behemoth’s hide: Ink, black as night, gushed from the wound as a great, outraged howl tore from the thysser’s maw-
I charged. Low, fast, half-running, half-stumbling. Shouting wordlessly, lungs burning with the need for air. Through flailing limbs, ducking a blind slash as bronze armour ground against the stone of the wall.
Given a moment’s respite, the giant would have torn free, but I was too close, moving too fast.
“Tauruskhan!” The words came in a bellow, a roar, as the sword carved the thysser open, from gut to flank. The beast fell back, substance unraveling in swirling lines of ink, drawn to me like iron filings to a magnet. I felt my skin burn as if branded anew: Wounded, it was burrowing back into my flesh, seeking the only home it’d ever known.
“Tauruskhan, be with me now!”
For a moment, nothing. Then a surge, a flood of power, shooting up my spine and into my limbs, making them sting with strength. I felt my muscles bulge, my vision hazing to red. A single great bound closed the distance, as both fists came crashing down against the joint in the dullahan’s long arm...
This time, something crunched. This time, something tore.
The headless knight’s sword-arm went limp as metal crumpled inward, hammered out of alignment. Blade-tipped fingers clawed for me all the same, raking across my shoulder in a vicious swipe-
But by then, I’d wrenched the sword free from its mangled hand. Worms of yellow lightning danced across my spined knuckles, the giant blade as heavy as an anvil. Even with both hands on the hilt, it was an unwieldy thing, and I staggered back as the peerless edge carved a shallow groove in the black stone.
The weapon was so huge and heavy, just being strong wasn’t enough. The sheer mass of it meant that there was no riposte, or feint or parry to be had: If you committed to any blow, you’d better follow it through, or it would pull you from your feet.
Fortunately, I had only one blow left to make.
I torqued, dark clouds billowing in my field of vision from the effort, and drove the blade’s point in beneath the lip of the dullahan’s breastplate. The tip punched home, with a crunch of brutal impact - Then the rest of the blade followed, metal screeching on metal, right through the giant and the wall behind it.
Ichor gushed forth. A great spray of it, squirting out around my hands. It stung my skin where it touched, like battery acid, hissing and smoking as it pooled on the ground. The bitter stench of it made my nostrils twist, made me wince as I gritted my teeth, twisting the sword in the wound…
The giant jerked, stricken. The one remaining arm fell to its side, a deep, damned groan echoing from the hollow confines of the armour. Vapor coiled from the gorget, twisting and squirming in odd shapes, as if fighting to cling fast and survive-
It swayed, and fell with all the tragic majesty of a centuries-old statue being toppled. The weight wrenched the great sword from my hands. I staggered back, just in time, before that giant, leaden titan crumpled on top of me: The headless knight’s armour tolled once, like a doleful bell being sounded, as it struck the ground with a ringing crash.
Bruised, panting, I doubled over. Hands on my knees, trying to catch my breath. The strength that had flowed through me was draining away, my ribs and back aching abominably from the kick.
I coughed once, again, then spat - No blood. A good sign.
The lychgate loomed before me, at the end of the hall. It had the faint gleam of tarnished silver, an intricate lattice stretching across obsidian-black stone like the geometry of a spider’s web. Six-sided sigils, the angles never quite true, defied the eye as I limped forward on shaky legs.
I had my coat of scales, my gauntlets, and slightly over a half-dozen spintriae remaining. And, of course, Oneira’s gun - that sleek, lethal lancet of a weapon - was a familiar, comforting pressure against my thigh.
All this time, all the way from my first world, and I still carried it the way she did.
It’s good to remember your roots. If nothing else, it teaches you not to make the same mistake.
Some rebel impulse told me to retrieve the giant’s sword. I ignored it: This close to the end, I’d use what I had on hand. And if it wasn’t enough, well…I’d just have to make do.
Not much further now, I told myself. Not much further at all.
----------------------------------------
It got bad.
It got bad, and fast.
The Platinum Spire was less like a single, discrete structure, and more like a shared hallucination. To venture into psychetecture of the great silver building was to yield to the peculiar logic of the place: Many could enter through the same door, but each would emerge alone.
Some sages say that the Spire’s interior held the nightmares of a slumbering God, stirring uneasily in its sleep. That one day, it will wake, fuelled by centuries of worship, and began remaking the world to its will.
Who can say? They may be right.
At the very least, I know that the place is constantly shifting, constantly changing. Altering itself to best fend off invaders, reconfiguring for better defence or simply to provide a greater trial.
I’m sure there were plenty who seized this chance for glory - Those who weren’t reeling from the plague of invisible fire, I mean. From my count, there were at least a score of temples with Chosen, all absolutely champing at the bit for the chance to fulfil their life’s purpose. A little thing like mass poisoning and fear-fuelled riots couldn’t have stopped them all.
----------------------------------------
I’d run into a few, on the way up.
Like Selah Swift-Arrow, godsworn of Ull the Silent: She’d rained bolts of seething bloodlight down upon me from a balcony, firing relentlessly as I sprinted for cover. All the while, she’d been weeping, her mouth straining against the stitches of fine violet thread that fastened her lips together.
I never did find out what happened to her.
Kamal Farag had been worse. All four of his arms had been bloody to the shoulders, when I ran into him. He’d nearly got me with a thrown adze, before I’d shot him full of holes - the damn thing had knocked me on my ass, and I’d squirmed away on my back as I fired again and again.
His roars had blitzed the air, deafening over the zap-spit of the Furstenburg on rapid: I’d shot him in the legs, shot him in the chest so many times I could see light through his grey flesh. Utterly mad, frothing at the mouth, he’d kept coming until the last, desperate burst blew half his skull away.
I couldn’t even pronounce the name of the god he’d sworn himself to, but he’d been a good man. By the standards of Phospiach, at least - He honoured the spirit as well as the letter of every bargain, accepted surrender whenever it was offered, and he’d freed his father’s male and female slave-concubines upon the six-armed patriarch's death, rather than having them ceremonially strangled (as was the custom for the Tzieke) as part of the funeral sacrifices.
I suppose, by the laws of his people, he was something of a saint.
“One death is enough,” he’d said, watching the last flames from the pyre smoulder out. “It is a shame, but my father’s spirit will find others to warm his bed. Life is for the living, after all.”
He’d nudged me in the ribs, all companionable now. “-And I like my lovers a little younger, eh? Eh?”
I nearly told him why I was appalled, but he would have never understood.
----------------------------------------
I emerged to the cold bite of the wind, the sudden awareness that only comes with a vast, open space. It took me a moment to realize where I was, a moment longer to make the mistake of looking down-
Beneath me, I saw an intricate scale model of Adrijanopol, rendered in miniature. Tiny blooms of fire rose from matchbox dwellings and the chalk lines of streets - Until perspective kicked in, and vertigo seized me in its dizzying grip.
The very top of the Spire was a perilous expanse, a sweeping plateau of flawless platinum open to the skies. It was cut into tiers, each one ending as abruptly as they began, like the teeth of a key. Gently-sloping walkways connected them, spanning that yawning plunge.
There were no walls or railings, nothing to take away from the finality of the waiting drop on all sides.
Held upright at the very centre of the final platform, the dazzling blue-and-silver arch of the Intrinsic Gate awaited. Even from here, I could see it was open. Could see that the gate was slightly ajar, swinging back and forth in its frame as if blown by the wind, dark figures milling around it.
Too late, I thought, my heart sinking. I’m too-
Then the first screams reached me, across the distance, and I realized that there was everything yet to play for.
----------------------------------------
The faithful of Pa’quan had suffered horrific losses, on their way through the Platinum Spire. Even now, I don’t know what artifice, what magic they used to enter as one. Perhaps they felt that there was strength in numbers, or simply company in death.
It was a feat of extraordinary desperation, and the Spire had punished them for it. It had responded to their numbers in kind, I believe - Whatever opposition I’d faced on my way up was nothing compared to the horrors they’d been forced to wade through.
Yet somehow, they’d persevered.
Maybe they’d thought that they had come as conquering heroes, united in faith. In truth, Alistair and Eulisia had sacrificed them: Not literally, not the way an offering goes under the knife, but the way ammunition is expended for the purpose of the kill.
Or maybe they knew it was a one-way trip, a straight ticket to Hell, and they’d gone ahead anyway.
I’ll give them credit for their courage, at least. That, I can’t deny.
----------------------------------------
It’s funny. On Earth, I’d never considered myself to be particularly religious, mostly because of the sneaking suspicion that God wasn’t really real. That all the sound and fury was just so much wasted breath.
When I’d first set foot on Phospiach, I’d had my pick of gods - In the end, however, it’d simply made more sense to engage with them on a strictly mercenary level, favours offered for favours given.
Trust me: If there was even one that was worthy of my wholesale worship, I’d have committed myself utterly and without restraint. A true believer, a ready-made zealot, born anew.
Unfortunately, none could give an answer I liked about the big questions - the afterlife, or the fate of one’s soul - and I’d grudgingly settled for more material benefits.
On Unity, Ryan Trent had accused me of being one of nature’s born lapdogs, that there was no boot I wasn’t ready to lick. We’d been trying to murder each other at the time - Concussion mace versus Zerite glaive, disruption halo versus telekinetic wrath - but I’d taken it to heart all the same. Then again, I’d just killed his best friend, so I can forgive him for being hurtful.
He won, by the way.
It was my second loss, two worlds in a row, and all the more shocking for that. I distinctly remember the sound Ryan’s freezing blade made as it slid from my chest - The way the world went grey and hollow, as I began the swift and involuntary process of bleeding out.
He would have finished me, but he had a revolution to win. I’d crawled, hand-over-hand, through the portal meant for Ryan while the fighting continued to rage. No clean escape for me, not this time: I left Unity much the same way I’d arrived, painted in my own blood.
It was the flesh-ward that kept me alive, though I was weak for days after. He hadn’t known about that, I think - Some secrets, I like to play close to the chest.
It’s funny. Two worlds later, I’d fought to bring down an empire…But Ryan wasn’t wrong, not really. I like to think I’m not ideological, but - if I’m honest - I’m all for authority, all for the status quo, as long as I’m on the winning side.
To my mind, unfairness is a basic principle of the universe. In all the worlds I’ve been to, I’ve seen nothing to shake the foundations of that belief. Fundamentally, men are not equal: Some are raised high and others are brought low through no fault of their own, and all you can do is to play the cards you’ve given, the best you can.
They say a rising tide lifts all boats, but there are always those who - inevitably - drown.
According to some schools of thought, ideals are everything. Even if you fail, even if you fall short - Well, at least you tried. I don’t agree: Vae victis, as the saying goes, and you can best believe I’ve done all I can not to be among the vanquished.
----------------------------------------
Take everything you’ve read, up to now.
Me, reaving my way through the Platinum Spire as the Sacred Capital collapsed in blood and fire. Alistair, Eulisia and all the others, fighting their way to the top of the Holy-of-Holies in the name of a murdered god.
Murdered, mind you, because He just wanted the greater pantheon to lower their tithes. To give His people, the ones He considered His own sons and daughters, a better life. Even when His own fane was put to the torch, the last act of Pa’quan’s immortal but all-too-brief existence was to heal His own mortally-wounded priestess, to save one more life before the flame of His being flickered out.
In truth, I don’t think Pa’quan had what it took to be a god. If you’ll forgive me for the blasphemy, He loved His people too much. Sure, He loved Eulisia most of all, but He can hardly be blamed for that.
All men must be allowed their weaknesses. Given how Pa’quan was Man writ large, we must forgive Him for His trespasses.
For if not us, then who else?
----------------------------------------
So, their cause was worthy, their efforts heroic, their leaders just. You might be wondering why, then, I was coming to kill them. As with all things, as with every crime of passion, my reasons were myriad.
As you’ve probably already guessed, I was Tauruskhan’s champion. His ringer, anointed in the blood of the hecatomb, brought in to do what his ever-loyal followers amid the Twenty-Six Tribes of Tulgar could not. He promised me power, vitality, an end to the hunger that devoured me from within.
To get him across the finishing line was to save my own life.
More, I liked this world of Gods, great and petty. It was the most fun I’d had in a long, long time: A fever dream of swords and sorcery, world without end, amen. There’s nothing more gratifying than being secure in your own strength, than fighting those who - Generally speaking - have no way of fighting back.
Does that make me a coward? A bully, even?
Maybe, but I’ve come to terms with it a long time ago. In truth, I don’t enjoy causing harm - I’m no butcher, no sadist. I spared nearly (all right, there were accidents) everyone I fought in the arenas of the Sacred Capital, partly because everyone deserves a chance to limp away, but mainly because I don’t like killing.
Not even when I profit from it. Especially if I profit from it.
Sure, I like the easy win, the flawless victory, the big knockout…But then again, who doesn’t? That part, I enjoy. But actually killing someone, hand-to-hand, close enough to kiss - It changes something in you.
Not for the worse, necessarily. Maybe even for the better. Either way, it doesn’t mean I have to like it.
On to the other reasons: I’d been on Phospiach for a year and a half, and I had a feeling I was beginning to overstay my welcome. I’d been a novelty when I’d arrived, but even before this, there had been…mutterings. A good guest knows that It’s better to leave than to be shown the door.
Alistair was one of the two (or three, as you’ll see shortly) ways out, but my already-scuffed pride wouldn’t allow for another loss. In a way, a fight between us had always been inevitable - It felt natural, felt right, for things to end the way they always would.
Besides, he had a sword I wanted. Yes, I can be greedy, too.
Speaking of greed, the Monger had offered me any one item from his trove, in return for Eulisia’s head. Two, if I brought her to him alive. He was fascinated by her, I think: It’s almost unheard-of for a god to surrender all they have, all they are, for a mortal. And whatever others held precious, Golag craved.
There’s something attractive about being able to name your price to an anonymous genie, even if - especially if - you have to do something dark to get paid. I guess it’s that fantasy we all have: To murder, and be rewarded for it. To be the hard man, cold as ice, ruthless as a prowling shark.
I wouldn’t have done that to her, of course. But I’ll be lying if I said that thinking about it, knowing I could if I really wanted to, wasn’t tempting.
Or maybe, just maybe, I still couldn’t forgive Eulisia for choosing Alistair over me.
Maybe that’s what it comes down to, in the end.
Spite. Jealousy. The eternal, grasping envy of the loser, married to the intoxication of power.
You could say that he was the better man, here.
I say: Better at what?
TO BE CONTINUED