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VEDMAK
The luminous green fire is hypnotic. Tendrils of energy pass over one another, connecting and dissipating with a crackle, like neurons being fired in some ethereal brain. It has engulfed half the base now. The equipment, furniture, walls, ceiling and even the ground are now gone. The bubble’s incandescent surface blocking my view to anything that may exist on the other side. Yet I feel a kinship with this thing, a sense of belonging. Almost as if I can hear my comrades calling from the great beyond. Yes, this is the gateway to enough dushi to finish what I started those many long years ago. The last great purge.
It seems to me, you should have stayed where you came from, Vedmak, Demitri chides. Not that it matters now. You’ve caused a rift in space-time. A VME is all but inevitable. We’re not even going to Hell. Who knows what will happen when it tips over the edge and devours everything at the speed of light.
Hold your tongue, boy. Can I not finish a thought without the intrusion of your whining voice?
Why should I let you? What did you ever do for me? Besides, these will likely be the last moments I get to say anything at all, before that bubble swallows everything.
I can control this. I am one with the universe.
No, you’re one with me. And you’re exhausted, Vedmak. Weary to the core. You should rest. Take some much-needed sleep. My Gracile demon’s voice is dripping with sarcasm.
He knows I can’t sleep. The Red Mist the Alchemist created, more powerful than anything before, is the only thing keeping the whining kozel at bay and from seizing this body back. The Alchemist is still working on something stronger, if the old goat doesn’t die first. No, sleep is not an option. I cannot rest until my task is complete. The Logosian will come soon with her band of misfits. And I will be ready.
Oh, she’ll come. It was a mistake to raid the Vestal temple and take Husniya. Now you’ve given Mila purpose, Demitri says. And even if I can’t kill you, I’ll make sure she gets the chance.
I ignore my demon and turn to face what is left of the cage-filled dungeon. Where once terrified Graciles huddled, there is only the ever-growing green dome. It matters not. My legion of Gracile warriors, all endowed with a dushi like mine and controlled by the Alchemist’s stim, will die for me. Several hundred Gracile adults and perhaps fifty more adolescent warriors. Still, I need more.
“Where are we on the youngling warriors, Sergei?” I ask, approaching the trolley on which lays a Gracile boy just fourteen years in biological age.
The cowardly Gracile servant scurries back and forth from the trolley to his desk. He’s dragged half his equipment from the Poisons Lab into the dungeons to finish my army.
“It’s still not optimal, Vardøger,” he whimpers. “The ratio of souls you want to souls you don’t is still too low. And even when we do find one, the Gracile child we’ve rapidly grown has to be developed enough to bind with it. Most don’t have the mental capacity. We’re running out of specimens.”
“Then start attaching dushi to the Rippers too. I need as many as I can get.”
“I can’t guarantee the transplantation will take in the Rippers.”
I grab the sniveling man by his throat. “Did I ask for your opinion?”
He shakes his head, a stream of urine soaking his clothing.
Leave him alone, Vedmak.
My grip involuntarily weakens and Sergei slips against the trolley, which clangs and clatters into the wall, spilling surgical instruments to the ground.
Damn you, Gracile.
I turn to Sergei. “Get the last of the cells. Put them in the Rippers. Only keep the violent ones. Understand?”
Merodach bursts into the room, shoving the female Gracile engineers forward. They nearly tumble to their knees, but manage to keep their balance. There is true fear in their eyes. They know something.
“Spit it out, sheep.”
“The reactor, it’s unstable,” Alyona says.
Told you, Vedmak.
“Speak up. What are you whining about?”
“The reactor,” Nadezhda interjects. “It’s not built for what you’re trying to do. We ... we had to patch it together based on an old submarine reactor from the mid-twentieth century. The power conversion is too low. There wasn’t enough shielding and it’s spewing radiation. If it doesn’t melt down, we’ll die of gamma radiation poisoning anyway.”
I tried to warn you, but you wouldn’t listen. You’ve doomed us all.
“How close are we?” I spit.
“The plasma rifles are fully charged, but the gunships are not at full capacity,” Alyona says, her eyes downcast.
“Your embryo room is taking up too much power,” Nadezhda adds.
Not to mention you’ve triggered a VME which you can’t control and will swallow us whole. Nice work. Death by nuclear meltdown, radiation poisoning or being converted into nothing by a VME. Or maybe Mila will come and kill us first. What to choose, what to choose?
“Shut up, shut up!” This Gracile voice reverberates off the rock-hewn walls.
The women cower.
I step to Alyona. “I need those gunships ready before the little suka gets here, do you understand?”
She understands, it’s you who doesn’t.
“Yes, yes Vardøger. It’s just there’s not enough liquid water to cool the reactor and—”
“Merodach.”
The lumbering mute warrior steps forward and runs her through with an efficient thrust of his dagger upward and into the chest cavity. She struggles with little gasps for a moment before slumping to the ground, her lifeless eyes lolling back in her skull.
Are you insane, you sarding fool? You just had one of your engineers murdered. You never think ahead, Vedmak, and it’s going to be your downfall. She’s dead, and for what? Now you’re down a valuable asset. What happened to the great strategist?
You want to see strategy, puppet? Let me show you.
I already know what you’re doing, Vedmak.
It’s one thing to know—it’s another to taste.
Always with the words and the riddles. But come on. Let’s go. Show me what your inferior mind has cooked up. Impress me.
The Gracile releases his relentless hold over these muscles, allowing me to roam a little more freely. I push past Merodach, but stop in front of Nadezhda long enough to instruct her to push the reactor as hard as it will go, then march up into the lillipad proper, through the white halls and sterile foyer out into the bitter cold.
Wind and sleet bite at this skin and sting these eyes, but I don’t even bother pulling on my mask or wrapping my cloak around. Only my unignited scythe helps push this body toward the glassy ice battlement ahead. I grab one of the rope ladders nailed to the inside of the ice wall and climb, hand over frozen hand until I reach the summit. From here to my rear, I can see the whole lillipad and the dome of green fire consuming the rear half of the structure.
I make my way along the wall, through the pressing wind, to an outcropping of pure ice protruding from the top of the battlement. Affixed to it by ropes and iron nails, spread-eagle for the world to see, is the Musul girl. She’s clad in thick furs, the skin on her face blistered and red from the cold. At her feet is the Alchemist. The old woman’s tiny frame barely withstands the weather; a tether holds her to the ice lest she blew away like the twig in the wind.
Husniya, I’m so sorry.
“Is she ready, wench?” I shout over the growing storm. “It is installed?”
The Alchemist looks up, her lips blue and quivering. “She ... she’s ready.”
“And she won’t die of the cold or her injuries?”
The woman shakes her head. “She’s st-stimmed up good. Between that and the f-fur, she won’t freeze.”
I peer over the edge of the twenty-meter-high ice wall to my soldiers, who stand in regiments, wearing roughly hewn armor. Unflinching. Uncomplaining. I can’t see from here, but know their almond-shaped Gracile eyes are filled with hate and an unparalleled lust for blood. On either flank are several gunships, charging their cells for the final confrontation. And of course, rows upon rows of stimmed-up Rippers driven to madness through liberal application of the Alchemist’s cocktail. Yes, this battle will be glorious.
“Good,” I say, turning back to the old woman. “Can’t have her dying now, can we?”
“N-no,” the woman stutters through chattering teeth.
“And the final stim for me? You have it?”
The woman looks up and deep into these eyes, as if searching for the Gracile that hides inside. Holding my gaze, she fishes around in her pocket, extending a bony hand clutching a glass cylinder filled with sloshing crimson liquid. “Here,” she whimpers. “It is complete, as you asked.”
“Oh, I’m aware it is, you old bag of bones. Did you think I would take an untested stim?”
She bows her head, “Vardøger, I would never—”
“Sabotage me? Of course you would.” I snort. “Which was why I had Merodach test it first. Just to be sure.”
I’ll never let you get that anywhere near my body.
No, but you can’t stop her from doing it.
“You attach it,” I say.
My demon fights for control, but our wills are equal, neither being able to make a single muscle move. Our internal battle rages, hot and vicious, the sinewy fibers of this body straining to breaking point as the withered crone slowly climbs to her feet. She approaches, her steps unsteady on the ice, then unscrews the casing to the vial that will deliver the stim. She clips in the vial and twists on the casing.
“The mask,” I say.
She pulls the mask from my belt and slips it over my head and attaches the hose. One last hopeful gaze through the round windows and into these eyes, and she opens the valve. Thick reddish mist hisses inside and I feel my control of this body coming back, like blood returning to a limb.
A massive inhale and a forceful exhale. Yes!
Damn you, Vedmak. I’ll stop you.
Try and stop this, boy.
“You have been useful, Alchemist,” I say, turning to the old Robust woman. “This is simply your finest work.”
There’s a moment of pride in her eyes that is quickly replaced by the fear of realization.
“But I’m afraid if you have reached your zenith, you have also outlived your usefulness.”
Stop!
These Gracile hands, more powerful than ever, grasp her by the throat. She’s lifted into the air with ease, flapping in the wind like a flag at half-mast. Without another word, I fling her screaming from the battlement, her wail fading into the storm until not even the impact of her frail body on the icy ground below is heard. I grunt in satisfaction, stomping with renewed energy and confidence to the unconscious, splayed Musul girl. I lean in close so the mask is touching her ear.
“Let the daughter of the star breather come,” I whisper. “You and I have a little surprise for her.”
