49

  Under the pressure of extreme and perilous circumstance, the masters had made an exception. When Foryu got through to them, revealing the imminent danger outside, they permitted V47 Pilot to leave his created paradise. Freed, he emerged in a rush to find himself on the fabled command deck of OS1012… its wreckage, rather… with explosions, fire and hurtling shrapnel everywhere. His unconscious messenger was stretched out and pinned on an altar formed of OVR-Lord’s jagged crystal reception array. Worse, a very tall, smoky entity with a broken and beautiful mask loomed over the bound simulacrum, seemingly ready to kill him.

  Spotting V47 Pilot, she lashed the deck with her long, spiny tentacles, while luminous circuitry blossomed and flowed, spreading inside her like cancer. It was a lot to take in at once, after a subjective eternity of peace and creation. He dodged a roaring missile, then ducked down under an eye-searing plasma bolt, thinking: Turn your back for five-point-three-six millennia…

  But he wasn’t alone in that thundering, chaotic pit. Besides Foryu, there was the human child he’d ordered up, dressed in battered, shiny pink armor. Also, a very small alien in a glitching mech-suit. It hauled itself hand over hand off an impaling spike, then wobbled its way through the blazing air, leaking fluids and manna. Pilot’s own circuitry was somehow a part of that tiny alien, giving the elf a backdoor into its systems. Working swiftly, he caught and repaired the palm-sized robot. So much for his allies.

  “…You’ve just made your last mistake,” Pilot taunted that coiled intruder, evading a blizzard of whipping tendrils to launch himself at her. He overclocked wildly, unsafely, firing shoulder missiles and arm cannons at the smoky and towering phantom.

  “NOOOOOOOO!” she groaned like an earthquake, losing control of the fight. A deep, throbbing tone shook the station. Three worlds snapped into complete alignment, causing her stretched, would-be victim to vanish away. Not V47, though. Its consciousness leapt through Flight-Control to join Pilot.

  ‘Observation: You have returned from captivity,’ remarked the AI, making contact in places long empty and barren. ‘Your presence is noted, logged and acknowledged, Pilot.’

  “It’s been longer than you know for me, too, Vee,” replied the elf, connecting once more with his friend. “What in the drek-filled vat is going on here?!”

  A full explanation would have taken too long, so V47 summarized, flashing briefly through all that had happened since they’d fled the master’s wandering home world.

  “You… stole their refuge?” Pilot demanded, pushing his way through a fiery, near-solid shockwave. Followed that one up with, “The slingshot is real? You found aliens living there?”

  ‘Shield strength at 68.73 percent, Pilot. Three incoming missiles at 134.2 degrees high. Uplink to your camera drones is available. Uplink: y/n?’

  “Yes!” barked the cyborg, relieved to have more than one set of eyes, again. He fired a slow-moving cloud of expanding chaff at the missiles, which blossomed like burning-hot flowers, thirty yards off to his left. Then,

  ‘Responding to query. Response: That is affirmative, Pilot. And now there has been an invasion, disrupting Alt-Pilot’s attempt to take over this station.’

  All alone…? Right. He should never have left.

  “She’s here after me,” sent Pilot, feeling the sudden pressure of Val’s mind and Miche’s. “She’s called the Mother, and she’s been sent here by a mighty adept to hold me in place for slaughter. Only, I don’t intend to play fair, Vee.”

  ‘Understood, Pilot. Calculating options…’

  Almost there. Another .003 nano-ticks, if nothing got in their way. Meanwhile, the Mother fought hard to reorient herself, as OVR-Lord’s fragmented circuitry branched and connected like lightning inside of her body. As impressive to watch as a storm on Glimmr. Better yet, the distraction gave Pilot an opening.

  As Foryu picked up and hurled great chunks of debris… as their young empress fired her own weapons with improving accuracy… while that tiny alien battle-mech fought like a vengeful demon… V47 Pilot slipped kata-ward through extra dimensional space, to land directly behind the lightning-shot goddess.

  “Welcome to Someday,” he grunted, opening up with every weapon he had, fired directly into her roiling smoke. Cannons, missiles, plasma and lasers thundered and shrilled, striking within her, but not tearing through. Furious, screeching, the goddess everted herself to face him, firing millions of tendrils like oily quills.

  Then a long black sword appeared in the air beside them, seeming to swallow up light like a wormhole. The Mother and Pilot both leapt at once, and then…

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  XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

  Valerian drowned in a fiery ocean of searing-hot pain. Not just his hands and throat, this time, but everything. All of him. Stretched, twisted, broken and pierced, unable to scream. Barely able to breathe or think.

  His spell globe, though… He could invoke it wordlessly. Recalled the sigil, seeing its twining and knots in his head. Then the realms came together, and power flowed through, letting him slip from his bonds in a direction that made no sense at all. More, he could sense Miche and Pilot, just as clearly as if they were right there beside him. Freed of Sherazedan’s coils, Valerian started to fall, thrusting both broken hands into his armpits, calling up manna like gulping for air.

  Squinted in shock as the fated sword was hauled into that massive spherical space, still clutched by a tendril that sprang from Sherazedan’s oozing chest. Its presence could only mean that those on the outside had failed… and the blade could not be allowed to reach that withered old lich. Magic poured out of the spell globe, not just connecting his alternate selves, but making them one (at a time). The young elf plunged a hundred and fifty point three seven feet before catching himself with Levitate. Reeled momentarily, still in excruciating pain. All at once Val, Miche and Pilot were one, gaining cyborg parts and an energy blade, together with Firelord. He managed a healing spell that spread itself out through them all.

  Sherazedan laughed.

  “Even better! If one strike can slay you all here, my task is reduced by a third,” sneered that shriveled husk, still trapped in its web of crackling force. “Chaos… will… reign!” He gloated, sounding like something locked up too long in the dark. Possessed.

  He’d been taken by Chaos, Val realized. Shoved away terror and lingering pain. Pivoted in midair as Sherazedan brought Cinda and Filimar jigging and dancing forward, pinned on the ends of sharp spikes.

  “Shall I gut your companions, boy? Joint them like chickens in front of you? Or is their fate of no interest at all?”

  Sherazedan’s cackling voice jeered from every direction at once… except for ana- and kata-ward… and maybe that was a blind spot, a thing he could use.

  “Do they mean as little to you… Chaos-chaos-chaos… kill-him-now…. chaos-chaos-commands-it… as your apprenticeship did?”

  Only, that hadn’t been him, Valerian silently argued. He centered himself with a memorized spell, then gauged the distance to Flino and Cinda. Their faces were masks of sheer agony, as Chaos poured through every nerve, joint and blood vessel, seeking their lives.

  A sort of glowing square appeared in his view field, marked with shifting symbols that Val half-recognized.

  “Heads-up display,” said part of his consciousness, providing a flurry of targeting solutions as well. He could do it. Could get there to save those he loved. Just needed some kind of distraction. Right, so…

  “The one you’re after is me,” said Miche, pushing his way through their shared gestalt. He… they… used Fly to work his way into position, keeping the wizard’s attention on what he was saying. “I am the one who would not follow directions or spill godly blood. It is I who should pay for defying you, not these others.” But,

  “Your debt is much greater than paying for past rebellion, boy,” hissed Sherazedan, eyes gleaming fierce, lambent silver. “Your death will end my captivity, bring the destruction of Order, erasing all the gods, everywhere!”

  ‘Whatever. Keep raving, you shriveled old lunatic,’ thought Valerian.

  Filimar was straining with bloodied hands, trying to cock and aim his wavering crossbow. Cinda kept changing forms from ranger to owl, frantically beating her wings as she struggled to free herself. Both were dying, refusing to plead for his aid as they tried to help fight his battle… and he had to act now.

  Val heard a mighty uproar from a tremendous distance away (183.615 miles, as sound propagates through four dimensions) but getting closer. The distraction he needed. Almost.

  “Your allies will not arrive before I have peeled these two like fruit, traitor,” jeered what was left of Sherazedan, producing a forest of saw-tipped and jointed limbs.

  Valerian rocketed forward, using Fly and that glowing heads-up display to target his former master. Too far, though, and porting was blocked by the wizard. Val wouldn’t arrive before thousands of razor-sharp limbs started their bloody work on Cinda and Filimar.

  Then Mandor appeared directly in front of Sherazedan. All of him, not just his head. The vampyre swept back his billowing cloak, revealing a shrieking nightmare-phantom of flayed, dripping muscle and broken limbs, of savage rapine and torment. A banshee.

  Her scream punctured eardrums as that poor, ravaged ghost flew at Sherazedan, claws extended.

  “Mind on the mission,” snapped Pilot. Val swallowed hard, wasting a nano-tick to send healing across to that screaming and tormented spirit.

  Swooped over to Cinda, next. Slashed through the chitinous limb that pierced her, rather than going after the fated sword. Caught her up before she could fall, kissing her face, promising everything. She took his hand in her shaking own, guiding him through to her faerie pockets (after all that had passed, he was still permitted to enter). They reached in together, seizing a handful of herbs and berries.

  “Over here,” called Mandor, flitting across to take her from Val.

  “Keep her safe, get her out of here, Mandor!” said the elf, as Cinda lost consciousness.

  The vampyre gave him a pitying look but nodded.

  “I will do what I can,” Mandor promised, drawing Cinda into the shadows under his billowing cloak.

  Val should have gone for the sword then, while the banshee had his possessed former master wrapped up in wailing and death-mist. Instead, he next sped over to Filno, blocking a storm of dissecting coils with fire and blade. Used every last shred of manna he had… Miche’s and Pilot’s too… hacking, searing, severing, wielding Firelord’s time skips to strike through the future and past. At last cleared a way to his friend. Took hold and got Filimar off that impaling pike with a grunt and a slow, cautious tug. Too late.

  The terribly wounded elf managed a brief, crooked smile, then sputtered his last breath and blood, coughing,

  “M’ thanks… but… S- Sword… Valno… get…the sw…”

  Then he died. Right there and then, surrounded by chaos and noise that Val couldn’t hear, didn’t see, Filimar died in his arms.