Blackhand (13 page)

Of course, this would be the moment. Just as his armies began their advance upon the Abanshi, just as the human kingdoms again looked to him for strength. Of course, now would be the time for Yuul to make its move.

Ru calmed himself and remembered a plan. Long ago, he had considered the possibility of Yuul piercing the placenta of substance and had constructed a strategy to meet the occasion. Yet it was a grave and dangerous tack. And the results would be unpredictable. 

The god reviewed his stance. His army stood at a hundred thousand Thogs, and he had enough soulstones to build half that again. Many humans were also still loyal to him -- four kingdoms with faithful Huk at their lead. That was another eighty thousand swords.

But still not enough to battle a god. A heavier weapon would be needed for such a task, one that could strike the trespasser down before it could employ any magical strategies against him. Ru had known this from the beginning and was prepared. Or so he hoped.

The god thought longer. If he set such a force in motion, the defense could be more dangerous than the threat.

But what choice did he have? If he wanted to keep the world to himself, if he wanted to rule all who lived upon it, desperate actions must be taken.

Rising from his throne, the god opened his wings and floated across the castle to a room he had entered only once before. The door to the room bore a heavy lock crafted from magical science. Ru mumbled a string of syllables and the mechanism fell open. The seams of the door parted and a wisp of air a thousand years old escaped in a musty cloud.

Ru drifted over the threshold like a butterfly on a breeze, his feet never touching the floor. The room had no adornment, its stark walls stared blankly inward. At the center of the room, sitting upon a granite pedestal, a black object caught the encroaching light but did not wink in response. The Greatstone perched, barely remembered, just where he had left it centuries ago.

The god paused in appreciation of his craftsmanship. He had forgotten the stone's perfection, its simple lines, the depth of its hold. More complex than the soulstones he used to give life to the Thogs, the Greatstone had been the first to pass from his body, a prototype preceding the lesser design. It was much larger than its successors, and ovoid, not spherical like those which animated the Thogs. The stone’s true distinction shone in the breadth of its capacity. Although not reflected in its physical dimensions, its walls could contain the raging power of a Demonthane. Not yet knowing his strength, Ru had put everything he had into its conception. It was to be the building block of a new life form. But when the stone passed through him, he saw instantly that it was too powerful. A creature built around such a matrix would be a force beyond control. A rival for a god.

Putting the stone away, he pursued more modest designs to animate his creations. Ru had learned much from the Greatstone and applied the knowledge toward building a lesser version, one that could be reproduced in vast numbers.

With two of his hands, Ru picked up the stone from its cradle and held it close to his breast.

“Sadly, it seems you will have use, my first born,” the god said to the black form. “Your emptiness will soon be filled. I wish only that it was not by so foul a creature. Yet events have forced my hand. I must face this new foe as I originally intended -- with might that will require but a single blow. If I do not act decisively, all could be lost.”

Without a sound, the god moved its wings and left the chamber. He took the Greatstone to the middle of the throne room and held it at arm’s length. A glimmer of force shone around the stone, and when Ru removed his hand, it remained suspended in the air.

A chant rose from the deity and its four hands drew graceful patterns before the floating stone. He closed his eyes and called into the depth of another dimension. Throughout the entire earth, darkness fell. The gates of Non trembled and the seven Agaras stirred in their cages.

Ru parted the folds of existence just enough to let his mind pass their boundaries. He traveled to a place not even the gods roamed. While his body sang and his hands gestured in the empty air, the god's consciousness crossed an ocean of time and distance. Twisting through a maze of nonexistence, he traveled to a place no god should roam.  The barrier confining the damned. The Gate of Non. The black barrier pulsed and oozed like a living thing.

Beyond, imprisoned Agaras tested their chains. One rose and stepped forward. It was a Demonthane, the strongest of its kind. “What brings you to our gate, creature of light? Have you come to taunt us?”

“No,” Ru replied. “I have come to bargain.”

The other Agaras shuffled in the distance, aroused by the god's words. The Demonthane hissed.

“A bargain?”

“Yes,” Ru said. “I am at war with one of my kind. A rival god has invoked strategies that only the might of a Demonthane can thwart.”

“Now I know you,” the Agara said. “You are the Lover of Life. The god who preserved a broken fragment of the world. You are Sirian Ru.”

“I am.”

The demon withdrew a few steps. Ru knew what they thought of him. Among their kind there were laws that could not be broken, rules they did not question. His deed was a crime even to the Agaras, a blaspheme. Interfering with the course of the universe never entered their warped minds. They, too, were a part of its fabric. It was their given duty to devour and destroy, to return order to chaos. To them, he was a force of evil.

But Ru also knew the demon was an demon.

“What aid do you require and what reward shall we receive?” the Agara asked.

“I wish to incarnate one of you and use your strength upon my world,” Ru explained.

The weaker Agaras grumbled in the distance.

“Incarnate? You mean to give us flesh? Such a task is impossible even for a creature of light. There are those who live and those who do not. We do not.”

“No,” Ru said. “I have devised many new sciences since your imprisonment. I can create a semblance of life.”

The Agara scoffed. “How?”

“The one I choose will be the one who learns.”

“Only one? Why not all?”

The image of all the Agaras freed upon the world caused Ru to shudder.

“There is only room for one.”

“And when you are done with the one, what reward shall it receive?”

“One thousand years of physical existence. Then it must return to Non.”

“A thousand years! That is but a breath!”

“You judge what you do not understand. A thousand years within the stream of time will make you long to return to your original form. It will wear you thin. I know this.”

“We could never long to return to this place,” the Agara said.

“It will not be the place you left,” Ru said. “It will remain a prison, but if you help me, I have the power to make it more tolerable. Thus, all of your kindred will benefit from the work of one.”

Ru felt a twinge of what he believed to be guilt as he said this. He was not sure he could deliver such a promise.

The Demonthane pretended to consider the proposal, yet Ru knew it had already decided.

“I will help you, Lover of Life. I warn you, do not dishonor the agreement. We are not confined here for eternity. Should you betray us, there will be retribution.”

“Then you will help me? Do you not require the counsel of your king?”

“He is imprisoned within a deeper hold. I am the strongest of this lot. It should be me who is freed.”

“Very well,” Ru said. “First, you must give me your name so that I may know what Agara I free.”

The Agara fell silent. They did not distribute their names often. Such knowledge could be used against them. At last it surrendered its label.

“I am Grom.”

Ru cringed at the word. He knew the Agaras and the horror of their accomplishments. Grom had been one of their heroes, a warmonger, a devourer of hope. A glimmer of doubt crossed the god's thoughts. Did his need warrant his actions? Was the threat against him so great that he would release such danger upon his own world? Ru remembered the visage that had visited his throne room and his hesitation vanished.

“Step away from the gate,” he said. “When the door opens, be swift.”

The Agara moved back and Ru performed the combinations that would open the barrier. Ru had helped create the prison long ago, but even with his knowledge of the seal, it took time to open all the locks. He finished and the Gate of Non parted.

“Hurry,” the god commanded. The Agara squeezed through the narrow slit into the dimension of freedom. His brothers and sisters wailed from the blackness of the prison pleading for their own release. Ru slammed the portal shut and refit the locks. The Demonthane waited at his feet, relishing its freedom, but not daring to move far.

Ru ordered Grom to follow and the Agara stayed close.

They crossed over a formless plane of infinity, skirting the dangerous pools of primordial realities that could drown them if touched. Ru followed random avenues through the universe to conceal their movement.

As last they arrived at the reality which Ru called his own. The god's consciousness returned to his still gesticulating body in the throne room. With Ru's aid, the Agara entered the world of substance. It quivered in the air without form, a black cloud of spirit and thought. Before it, the Greatstone hung transfixed.

“Here is the summation of all my efforts,” Ru said. “The basis for a new life form, a house for a soul.”

“It seems to occupy both the physical and spiritual realms at once,” the Agara said.

“It is the engine that supplies my creations with life, a battery that replaces their souls.”

The Agara studied the stone. As its understanding grew, a noticeable agitation fluttered at its smoky edges.

“You wish me to enter it!” It shouted. “You would have me exchange one prison for another?”

“Calm yourself, Demonthane,” Ru said. “It is only a part of the whole. After you have taken residence, I will manufacture a body around it. The form will allow you to touch, taste and feel. You will move through time and space in the manner of a human being.”

The Agara remained reluctant. “How is this possible?”

“I have learned much from my own incarnation,” Ru said. “Things I have no time to explain. Do not hesitate. You must enter the stone.”

“Wait! I have another question.”

“Ask, but be brief.”

“Once encased within the strange stone, what task would you have me perform?”

Ru considered many answers, but settled upon the simplest.

“There is killing to be done,” he said

Inside the ebbing blackness, invisible to the god's eyes, a smile crossed the Agara's face. Now, it understood Ru's need.

“Your generosity is boundless, Lover of Life,” it said. Then, like a dark mist, the Agara moved across the room and enshrouded the oblong stone. Pausing for a moment, it entered. The black cloud dwindled as it found accommodation. Inside the stone, a red fire began to glow.

Ru grabbed the floating Greatstone and left the palatial room. He held the stone before him, no longer cherishing it.

His castle was many miles tall. It had been cast and mortared from the corpses of the Pastworld cities. From its highest turret, half the world could be viewed. With urgency, Ru stepped out of an open terrace into a bank of clinging clouds and floated to the base of the structure.

At the steel roots of the castle sat Ru's largest factory, bloated with the fruits of his work. The factory's cavernous interior stretched for miles. Along its walls a thousand soulstones sat in coffin-shaped crucibles awaiting the next step of their construction. In a few days, nerve tissue would crisscross the stones and begin to spread outward, taking the overall shape of a Thog.
Hard bones would form, organs would sprout, muscles would coagulate.
In a few hours, the outer skin would harden, the soulstone would spark and a new Thog would tear away from the mesh of its afterbirth. The process was continuous and many half-born figures twitched and moaned at the end of the assembly line, anticipating life.

The Greatstone already had a fire, now it needed a body great enough to carry it. The design would be more complex. The Agara's task required unique attributes not found in the Thogs. And it would require sturdier construction.

Several human workers stood about the factory tending to the Thogs. Ru motioned for their assistance and a dozen came running over. The god explained his needs and the workers scurried into action. They made adjustments to an empty crucible, making it longer and wider, doubling its volume.Ru placed the Greatstone in the center of the crucible and began to mumble and gesture, sometimes touching the stone's smooth surface at key points. A crackle filled the air and narrow fingers of lightning jumped from the stone to the edges of the container. Ru turned to his servants.

“Tend to it night and day. Send me word of its progress every hour,” the god floated upward, bypassing the castle interior. “Now I am weary and must rest.”

A hundred feet up, he hovered and shouted down to the humans.

“And tell Tok I am hungry.”