The Malice (29 page)

All three of them scream.

An eye opens and with a snap, wings unfurl. They catch the strange currents and rise with them, the sword sliding free of its scabbard.

An angry note slices the air, severing invisible strings.

There is a sound like thunder and the pulling stops, alien winds diverting around them like a river around a stone.

They fall with variety: Vesper on her back, the kid on his front and Duet crashing sideways.

A beat later the sword clatters next to them. It’s eye flicks from left to right, tracking currents of alien essence, widening at what it sees.

For a few moments all three lie still while chests rise and fall and air is gulped.

Vesper sits up and reaches out to the sword, her hand resting on one of the wings.

The kid looks around. They are surrounded by the strange trees and the stranger atmosphere. It is hard to tell which way is home. With a bleat, he jumps into Vesper’s lap, burying his head, his small body trembling. She strokes him with her spare hand, soothing, the gesture automatic.

Around them, colourful gases swirl, drawing the outline of an invisible dome where the sword’s voice holds sway. Nearby trees are shaken by the vibrations, crystal branches shivering, trying to bend away.

‘Thank you,’ says Vesper. But the sword does not register her voice, its eye stares elsewhere, its wings rigid with effort. The girl turns to Duet. ‘I don’t know how long the sword can keep this up.’

The Harmonised is studying her left hand, suspicious, rotating it in front of her face.

‘Did you see it? Did you see the way it stretched?’

‘No.’

She raises her voice. ‘I’m not mad! I saw it!’

‘I never said you were mad.’

‘Yes, you did, you’re always saying it. That I’m mad, unworthy, slowing you down. You think I don’t hear you but I do.’

‘Duet, who do you think I am?’

Behind the visor, her eyes are unreadable. ‘You’re … you’re … Oh, Vesper, help me. It took my arm and my leg.’ She holds out her left hand. ‘This isn’t mine any more. I can’t keep it still.’

Vesper feels the kid burrowing deeper into her lap, the sword humming beneath her fingers, fighting. There is tension in her head, the kind that comes before a storm. Above her the dome shrinks slightly, bowing to the pressure.

Duet starts dragging herself closer. ‘Cut it off, like they did for Tough Call. And my leg. I need to be purified. You can use the sword to do it.’

‘I can’t.’

‘You have to.’

‘I’m not a knight.’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘I’m scared.’

‘Do it!’

She takes a breath, takes the hilt.

The sword is light, seeming to rise from the ground by its own accord. An eye comes level with hers. She sees fear in it to match her own and grips the hilt tighter. Wings reach out, gentle, and close her eyes.

But she still sees. With the sword’s vision, the world is transformed. The swirling clouds that press around them have rings of teeth, sharp circles that open onto tunnels of emptiness. Not nothing, rather a hungry hole that demands to be filled. The trees are the same. To the sword, they have no colour, their surfaces feeding on the light, sucking it down greedily. In return the trees exhale more clouds of empty, hungry essence. And all of it, all of the endless desperation is linked together, a living growing loss, driven by black need.

Vesper feels horror but not revulsion, fear but not anger. The sword seems caught between a desire to attack and hopelessness, all of its strength needed to hold back the Yearning. All of its strength not nearly enough.

Again, the dome shrinks.

Duet kneels, leaning on her right arm to keep balance. She forces her left arm straight, holding it in front of Vesper. ‘Please, I invoke the rite of mercy …’

As the Harmonised speaks, an eye looks down, and Vesper sees Duet laid bare. Her essence flutters, half remembered, tattered around the edges where strands of it peel away. Vesper sees a loneliness there, strong enough to kill, that spreads. The essence is weakest on Duet’s left where the ill-defined shape of her left arm tries to pull away from her body. It is searching she realises, trying to reconnect with the lost half of itself.

The Yearning sees it too. For the first time since its arrival in the world it recognises something like itself, something that might end its terrible isolation. The Yearning tries to touch it, to take it but the Malice holds it at bay.

Vesper raises the sword. The shapes on the outside of the dome flinch and Duet steels herself, her arm extended, ready.

But instead of striking, Vesper turns on the spot, wanting one last look, one last chance to think, to consider if she is capable of the idea that has just occurred.

‘Duet, I need you to do something for me.’

‘What? No. Take my arm, quickly.’

She makes her voice harder. ‘In the name of The Seven, stand up.’

With a grimace, Duet complies.

‘Go to the edge of the dome.’

As she does so, she asks why.

‘Because … the Empire needs you to.’

The dome shrinks again, its protections brushing over Duet, exposing parts of her to the outside.

There is an immediate reaction. The shapes rush towards her and parts of her essence respond, the fragmented silver ghost that floats around her arm lifts up, drawing the physical limb with it.

Duet tries to step back but Vesper shakes her head.

Behind her visor, features contort, tears spill.

Essence stretches from Duet and from the Yearning, a great emptiness reaching toward a small loneliness, entwining, touching. Tendrils of smoke wrap around her, boneless fingers of a giant hand, swirling and tasting, obscuring her. Like a thin smoke in a storm the edges of Duet’s soul are whipped away.

The Harmonised gasps. ‘She’s gone.’

‘Who?’

‘Me. Her. She gone.’

Vesper sees ethereal teeth pressing against Duet. The action is not violent however, the many mouths moving carefully, not biting, bonding.

‘I can feel it! The Yearning. It’s … calling me.’

‘Yes,’ says Vesper, her voice small.

‘It’s huge and sad, so very sad. So alone. It … wants me to join it. You have to help me, I don’t think I can hold on for long.’

‘It needs you. If it has you I think it will stop growing.’

With effort, Duet turns her head. ‘What are you saying?’

‘I’m saying I can’t fight the Yearning but you …’

‘No! I’d rather die than be an infernal.’

‘I know.’ Vesper brings the sword to her chest. ‘I’m sorry.’

The dome contracts around Vesper, shrinking past Duet, exposing her.

Unimpeded, the Yearning flows around Duet, whittling away resistance until it finds the core, the need in her to be joined again, the need to belong. This, the Yearning raises skyward like a trophy.

There is a ripple of satisfaction in the mists and then a distortion. For a moment, Duet’s body begins to stretch towards the south, the tendrils of smoke elongating with her. Then both she and the smoke are gone.

Sunslight falls suddenly bright, the world reasserting itself, claiming back old ground, burning away stray wisps the Yearning has left behind.

Vesper falls to her knees, clutching the sword to her. Eyes still squeezed shut, she howls in despair, the sword catching the note, echoing it, extending.

Around her, trees shake, chunks of crystal flaking away from brittle branches, smoking in the hostile air. Gradually, the sound dies away, leaving behind the soft sobs of a lonely girl. After a time, they too pass.

The sword has waited long enough. It takes action; wings beat once, languid, pulling Vesper to her feet.

She opens her eyes.

Without the strange mists, the landscape is exposed. The rocks have been stripped bare of vegetation and blasted clean, their surfaces left smooth, rounded. And everything shines, from the mundane stones to the bizarre crystal trees. Of these, the ones that hang in the sky begin to burn, breaking into fragments that rain musically onto the ground below.

Vesper holds the sword high and opens her mouth. Only a soft song comes from it but it is enough to chime against the blade. The air around her shimmers with sound and, above her head, crystal chunks explode into harmless powder.

Protected now, she walks south. The kid is tucked under her arm, a small ball of fear that refuses to look anywhere but in her armpit. She taps the sword against any trees that she passes, and the crystalline bark shivers, the sound screaming through it, shattering.

She travels for several miles, seeing no one, the sword drawing her on, until at last she finds a great gash that runs across the land, a rough edged chasm yawning wide in the distance. The Breach.

She is the first human to see it in her lifetime. It too has been picked clean of history, giving a false air of timelessness. Since the Yearning’s arrival, the Breach itself has been silent. No newcomers have found their way through and there is no hint of any on their way. From this distance, the Breach appears like an ordinary feature of the landscape, fixed, natural. Only by looking inside would an observer be able to tell any different.

In front of it, the Yearning settles, folding itself inward, vapours thickening, darkening, not quite solid but more substantial than air. Essence so potent it becomes a kind of slime, existing partway between the physical and the ethereal.

It still dwarfs the girl but in a conceivable way, as a cloud might dwarf a mouse. Infinitely preferable to what was before.

Even so, she stops. Feet fidget and shoulders twist, suggesting a desire to turn away. An eye swivels to look at her. She meets it and finds its gaze softer than usual, understanding. Guilt stirs inside, stamping down fear, and she nods to the sword, tired, and keeps going.

Within the quivering viscosity that the Yearning has become, something moves. A tiny sphere, a pearl of essence, the purest parts of Duet’s need to be joined to something bigger, to not be alone. It travels through the Yearning’s insides at incredible speed, orbiting internally within the colossal infernal.

And the Yearning treasures its new companion-component, totally absorbed in self-reflection. The outside world is rendered irrelevant, a bad memory that does not bear revisiting.

It does not notice Vesper as she approaches, nor the Malice singing at her side.

They get closer, the girl not stopping until she is inches from the translucid being. She watches Duet’s remains rush past, again and again, noting the way the Yearning shifts each time. She wonders if it is expressing pleasure.

The sword is eager in her hand, keen to finish the job.

But Vesper hesitates. There is a kind of beauty here and an absence of threat. Perhaps the Yearning would remain like this if she left it alone. Perhaps she has done enough. She shakes her head and tears fly from cheeks. Duet’s words echo in her mind: ‘I would rather die than become an infernal … I would rather die …’

Her friend’s sacrifice has exposed the Yearning’s heart and Vesper knows what has to be done.

When the pearl’s orbit brings it close she cries out, giving voice to grief, and plunges the sword into what passes for the Yearning’s flesh.

Singing steel slides easily inside, the point piercing the pearl, infusing it with deadly malice. She pulls the sword free and watches as the pearl continues on its way, changing. Gradually, the sphere brightens, a tiny star trailing sparks that spread behind it, birthing new spheres that immediately start new orbits, whirling faster and faster until the infernal’s innards appear like the night sky. The essence comets follow their orbits doggedly, chasing their own light trails until they catch them, forming bands that burn, widening, blurring together, until the Yearning is eclipsed.

The multitude of lights blend into one, a chorus of wounds that build to a final flare, dazzling, deafening, overwhelming, peaking, then calming, echoing in pulses, each softer than the one before, fading away.

When they are gone, nothing of the Yearning remains.

Massassi punches the air as the report comes in. Finally, she is ready. After years of war, the world is hers. From the Dagger states in the west to the Constructed Isles in the east, from her outpost in the far south to the Emerald Peaks in the far north, all comes under her banner. All are loyal to the Empire of the Winged Eye.

And the flag is more than just an image. The Empire’s role is to watch and it has many eyes to do so. Human ones scattered far and wide and metal ones on the deep of the sea and the dark of the sky, flying, floating, unblinking. Should the eyes discover a problem, the Empire has other tools at its disposal. Soldiers armed with her weapons, with fire and spinning shot. Swords, imbued with her song and placed in the hands of knights trained in their use. The forces of the Empire wear armour to protect their bodies but protecting their essence is more difficult. Massassi fears that she alone is strong enough to stand in the presence of the infernal and not be broken. To prepare her knights, she trains them in simple techniques to anchor their simple minds. It is much easier for people to cling to a narrow idea than a complex one.

And if the knights lose a little creativity or a little empathy along the way, it is an acceptable loss. But she does not stop there. The best way to protect the essence of her knights is to give them a shield, something to prevent any contact between them and the enemy. For that, Massassi uses other humans. A pair is allocated to each knight as guardians. These pairs work in tandem, drawing strength from each other, giving up independence for a shared sense of self. They fight and live and think together. Massassi calls them the Harmonised. It is their role to hold off attacks both physical and other while the knights bring their swords to bear.

So far, there is only one breach between her world and theirs but Massassi knows that as things degenerate, more could appear. Outposts are constructed in all of the most likely breach points, patrols set over the others. Maps are made, exhaustive charts for every inch of sea and land. New islands are discovered, their populations quickly overrun and assimilated. A whole branch of the Empire is dedicated to the maintenance of these maps and the monitoring of infernal activity. They have many names but are commonly referred to as the Lenses.

Massassi has had to break many hearts to get to this stage. Stealing corporations and levelling cultures, appropriating scientific discoveries and crushing other smaller dreams in pursuit of her own. But, at last, her forces are prepared for what is coming.

She has been conservative in her predictions, terrified that the Breach would open too soon and spill death on the unwary. A year before Breach date, she returns to her outpost, the ex-quarry where first contact was made. Her forces come with her, giant warmechs and multi-segemented snakes of metal, wave after wave of foot soldiers, legions of Seraph Knights and their Harmonised sentinels.

They take up positions around the Breach, covering it from all sides, ready to eviscerate the invaders before they can get a toehold in reality. Armour sparkles in the sunlight, silver buffed with gold. Nervous hearts are mastered with quick prayers to their leader and hands hold steady on a thousand thousand lances.

High, high above, metal eyes orbit, whispering to each other, relaying positions, organising, delivering the picture, complete, into Massassi’s HUD. She surveys her preparations and is content. If her empire fails, she will feel no guilt.

At the thought of guilt, faces swim up, a long line of lives snuffed out too early. Some were killed by accident, some by intent, all by her hand. But here, in this place, she is able to return their gaze and say, ‘Look! This is what you died for. This is why I had to do it.’ She dismisses them easily, empty phantasms compared to what waits before her.

The Breach itself appears quiet, no different on this side from the image she has stared at like an obsessive parent for the last thirty years. The sky distorts around it as it always has, threatening to burst but never actually tearing, a tease of cosmic proportions.

Her troops have unquestioning faith in their leader. They know that something is coming because she has told them so and for them that is enough.

For Massassi, however, there is a flicker of doubt. The phantasms return as quickly as they went, dead eyes questioning. What if this breach is just a hole in the ground? The horrors on the other side merely imagined by a mad woman? What would justify their deaths then?

She climbs out of her warmech, gliding down into the blast zone that exists between the front line of her forces and the Breach. Her jump boots catch the rocks, absorbing weight, storing energy, then spring off again, sending her forward in decreasing hops.

She skids to a stop in front of it. A tiny line of darkness in the rock. She can see bubbles of silver along its edge, marking the place where she sealed it shut many years before. Her seal has begun to peel away, suggesting the earth has shifted in her absence but it is clear that nothing has emerged.

There is only one thing to do, one way to be sure.

Massassi takes a deep breath and raises her metal arm, allowing the iris in her palm to open. Blowing out air through gritted teeth, she steps forward, pressing her open hand against the crack, and closes her eyes.

As before, she feels them as much as sees them. Formless things that flow through the void, rushing towards her like a great shoal towards a fresh meal or a river of poison towards a sinkhole.

For the second time they see each other across the fathomless distance. Without a doubt they are closer than before and she is able to perceive differences in them, to identify one from another, to see that some are more potent, that the larger ones effect some kind of pull on the smaller.

But they are still far away. Too far. She pulls her hand back, forces herself to remain upright and maintain the appearance of strength for her forces. Her head shakes from side to side, unwilling to accept the implications of this new data.

Her predictions are wrong.

The demons are coming, that remains true. The threat they pose is undiminished, the need for humanity to prepare just as relevant.

But they will not arrive when she thought. Not in the next few months, nor the next few years. Based on her new readings, the invasion will not begin in her lifetime. Not for hundreds, or possibly even thousands of years.

Humanity’s only hope against the tide has arrived too soon and all of her power and preparation is suddenly meaningless, a joke.

Her life has been given for this one purpose: to fight the demons. But when they do come, in unimaginable numbers, and with unquenchable fury, she will be dead.