DAGGEIRA FOUND HERSELF in a shadowy, confined space. Everything was blurry, indistinct. As sensations slowly returned, her surroundings became clearer. Solid walls, darkly clouded and veined with rusty gold, had replaced the flows of liquid crystal. Sickly yellow light bled in from a nearby passage. Once her eyes focused, she realized something was different, profoundly different, about her vision. The field of focus and periphery were much wider, as if she had more than two eyes.
She did have more than two eyes. And they weren’t her eyes. Panic spiked up her spine. A solar flare of pain fried her skull. Lifting her hands up to cradle her agonized head, she saw they weren’t her hands either. Dull gray skin hung loose on fingers that were far too long. Fire roared through every nerve, disintegrating any attempts at thought, allowing only panic and fear and agony.
Sorry. Sorry. The voice in her head was not her own. Just a moment while I tweak the biofeedback calibration. That should do it. Unfortunately, our sense of touch will be dialed back as well, but considering the level of neuropathy, that’s probably for the best.
“Trickster’s asshole!” Daggeira’s voice sounded deep and ragged. “What did you do?”
Transferred the loci of conscious sensory input to Abomination Zika.
“You put us in the godsdamned warseer? She’s dead, you insane old shit!”
Some of her, yes, but the body prosthesis has arrested the cascade of cellular death. The Final Masters learned millennia ago how to sustain body and brain functions, even at the brink of demise. And her biomech implant is similar to your own, allowing for easier interface and integration. Overall, this is a suitable vessel.
“Suitable vessel? We were supposed to get my body back.”
Yes. About that . . . We can’t.
“This was not the plan. Get me out of her.”
I’m afraid it’s either this or back to the interface sub-levels. That implant in your spine, everything hardwiring you to Godsfall converges there, and the High Godseer has established full dominion over it. We can’t beat ahn in ahns own dominion. We have to come at ahn sideways.
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
I didn’t know until I tried. But as luck would have it, the High Godseer hasn’t established dominion over all the peripheral systems yet, such as Abomination Zika and the snare satellites. I’ve got one of the satellites set aside if we need it.
“This is so gross. So drilling disgusting.”
It’s either this or we resume our conversation for the next eternity back in the sub-levels.
“Conqueror see me. I hate you so much.”
Well, I’m along for the ride, so you should really try and get over that. Careful. Someone’s coming.
Abomination Zika stood in a deep recess off one of the internal corridors. The alcove lacked any light-emitting blisters. The only illumination came from the adjacent passage.
A shadowy silhouette of a human head peered around the corner into her recess.
“Oh, it’s the abomination,” Ahn spoke to someone behind them. “See me now? I told you it wasn’t ghosts.” Ahns high-pitched voice sounded familiar, yet strange. Everything sounded hollow, distant—perhaps from Zika’s nerve damage, perhaps that was just how warseer hearing worked with their conical sense mounds instead of ears.
“You there, Chosen,” called another voice, out of view from the alcove.
“We have names, Attendant Bolta, just like you,” the silhouette said. “My name is Altaro. This is Scripturo.”
Attendant Bolta’s silhouette walked into view. Her looming presence clearly intimidated the smaller chosen. “Go inform the High Godseer that Pinnacle Bohru Jerik is on his way. I go to await his arrival.”
“The Pinnacle is coming,” Daggeira whispered to herself. “The Gods heard my prayer.”
Attendant Bolta turned her gaze to Abomination Zika, her lips nearing in disgust. Had Bolta heard Daggeira’s mutterings? The many tattooed glyphs covering Bolta’s head and face seemed to radiate a faint, spectral aura. “As for you, abomination, stay hidden away in your alcove. The Ihvgohn-Lo should not have to endure the sight of you.”
The attendant and the chosen went their separate ways, leaving Daggeira alone again. As alone as she could be with the crazy old man’s voice in her head. In this head that wasn’t hers.
“How do we get my body back?”
First, we need to gather more information. Additional unknown variables are about to enter the equation.
“You mean the Pinnacle?”
Exactly. He’ll want this weapon for himself.
“Because of course he will. After he solves the High Godseer problem for us, he’ll need me to control the superweapon.”
Potentially. Control of Godsfall is certainly going to be contested. We need to know who is going to win.
“But the attendant ordered me to stay here.”
You want to be the most powerful weapon in the galaxy and still take orders from an underling?
“I . . . no.”
Good. Don’t worry, we can keep an eye on what’s happening from here. Our sync into this body consumes its transmission capacity, so we’ll do this the old-fashioned way. Reach out your hands and touch the walls.
It still unnerved her to see Zika’s half-dead fingers instead of her own. An exoskeleton of interconnected machinery covered the backs of her arms and hands, creaking with each motion. When she placed her palms on the walls, it was the resistance to her movement that she felt more than the thrumming, smooth crystal. The exoskeleton squirmed like something alive, growing tendrils that reached out to the alcove walls, and once contacted, absorbed seamlessly into them.
Daggeira’s vision swam. Color and shape stormed through her sight, reducing everything to a confusing miasma. Dark walls slanted at odd angles, blurring and interpenetrating.
Close your eyes. It’ll be easier.
Once closed, Daggeira understood that her mind had been trying to interlace two completely different points of view into one. And failed miserably. She looked down from a corridor ceiling. Attendant Bolta waited near the airlock she had used earlier.
Daggeira and Subaru were accessing the maintenance drones, but with a deeper perceptual connection than before. She understood that through them, she could see and hear anywhere in Godsfall.
After some time, the airlock dilated open. With a fanfare of gongs and horns, the Ihvgohn-Lo entered, dressed in his multilayered uniform of silver, black, and green. He wore an ornate armored chest plate, inlaid with three yarist gems. The edges and seams of his armor undulated with each movement. Almost as if the armor itself was a living thing. Daggeira had never seen the Pinnacle before, only the holo of his three penetrating, orange and black eyes. Nine horns rose long and sharp from his sloping brow, shaded a deep yellow beneath the blister lights.
Attendant Bolta genuflected before him and proclaimed in Ihziz-Ri, “Hail Dzor Bohru Jerik, Pinnacle of the Ihvik-Ri, whom I am honored to attend. Conqueror see you and all of Clan Jerik!”
“Take me to the High Godseer.”
Attendant Bolta led the Pinnacle and the two warseers accompanying him to the heart of Godsfall. The maintenance drone followed, scuttling quietly along the ceiling. When they reached a middle-tier balcony overlooking the cavity and the spinning polyhedron, Attendant Bolta tapped her palukai to the floor three times and announced his arrival. On a lower-tier balcony, the three chosen knelt and bowed their heads. Spectral auras shimmered from their glyphs.
The globes of holy ore continued their perfectly synchronized orbits. The glowing yellow dodecahedrons containing the Final Masters circled as the diamond-shaped geometry rotated, keeping them aligned to its points. The pulsing wwaawuum wwaawuum reverberated endlessly, each echo bleeding into the next pulse. All through the heart cavity, drones swarmed through the air and skittered over the walls.
One of the few still points was the luminous pink vat holding Subaru’s physical remnants. A thick band of cables connected it to the cavity floor.
The other still point was Daggeira’s naked body floating above the dark sarcophagus at the apex. Her own face was turned from her, but she could see some of the nine eyes that had been branded into her back. The biomech implant glowed blue, brighter than she’d ever seen it before. Strange cables and wires of smart-matter crystal connected the implant to the roof of the heart cavity. Other biomech cables spliced out of the implant into a trigonal pyramid of holy ore floating beside her, the glyphs on its three faces burning green.
Next to the pyramid, High Godseer Lonno Atu Madzo stood on a hover platform, resplendent in robes of silver and emerald. A tall mitre made of long, skeletal fingers rose between ahns stubby horns and shimmered with cobalt blue radiance.
“Behold, Pinnacle Bohru Jerik, behold the power and glory I command for our Divine Masters and their Holy Unity.” Atu Madzo licked ahns thick lips and made a sweeping gesture.
“And it is for glory I come to you now, High Godseer,” the Pinnacle answered. “Glory and retribution for all the Holy Unity. I am mustering the fleet for a full-force incursion into Monarchy space. This new weapon the servant brought back will have the honor of leading my vanguard. The Vleez and all the vermin races of the infidel Monarchy will finally answer for their crimes.”
The High Godseer laughed, a thick, meaty sound that reverberated throughout the cavity. “Your vision is as myopic as your tactics, Dzor.”
Daggeira recoiled at the High Godseer’s words. Not only had ahn refused the Pinnacle’s command, but also called him by his personal name alone. The two warseers flanking the Pinnacle shifted, visibly tense.
As I predicted, Subaru whispered in her mind. They’re contending for Godsfall already. When the time comes, we’ll need to act fast.
Pinnacle Bohru Jerik pointed up the High Godseer. “Conqueror see me! I—”
Atu Madzo cut him off mid-sentence, ahns amplified voice echoing through the cavity.“Conqueror does not see you! Your failures against the infidels bring shame to our Divine Masters. It is I whom the Gods look upon with favor. I to whom They delivered this great weapon, issued forth from the very Gates of Heaven.
“And it is I, and I alone, who wield it.”