Airith- the Kentilan War Read online

  Ming was a two-foot mechanical being with only his mind as a weapon.

  “Take what you want and spare my people.” He sent a message across the room while his opponents paused, exchanged glances, and refocused on him.

  “How dare you give commands? Your well-beaten head would make a nice trophy for my wall!” the slender one boomed as he lunged across the room.

  Ming froze, racking his mind for his best move, a voice in his head screaming at him to take flight. He shut out that voice, and a slash nearly claimed his head. Ming escaped by mere inches, intimidated by his foe’s speed. He jerked t to the side, escaping another slash, and backflipped, landing feet away. But the bigger one was a raging animal on his tail, his fists raised high above his head. They came down toward him and Ming dodged the rampage, managing two quick blasts of indigo light from his hands. They missed. But the waiting blade of his foe didn’t. Its quick arc tore into shaft and wiring, coming to a stop halfway through his arm.

  The alarms went off in his head. His opponent yanked the sword and Ming’s left arm groaned. The blade tore free, leaving a gaping wound. A million electrons crackled at the jagged array of wires and circuiting, and half of his arm hung limply by the side. His body told him calmly about the damage and while processors reassessed his efficacy. The calculations were a fatal, minute distraction. Steel fingers clasped tight around his throat, shutting off the impulses to his head. The rest of his body disconnected from his mind as he was lifted from the floor beneath him. Those expressionless masks floated in his sight as the energy drained from his head and the light in his core waned. His vision dulled.

  “You little speck of trash.” The voice was harsh in his mind, rubbing raw at the edges of his consciousness.

  “Mother is here.” The announcement registered only vaguely as a section of wall imploded, slabs of concrete bursting forth and spilling across the room. Ming dropped like a sack, unable to move as energy slowly returned to the center of his body, but able to understand what was happening.

  The smoke had barely dispersed when he saw the war machine that had embedded itself in the gaping hole. A lower panel in its massive body slid from place and gusts of white mist gushed forth, shrouding the entity within. But its evil reached across the room and wrapped its cold fingers around Ming’s core. He beat frantic tunes across the room to his fallen brothers, but most of them were dead or unresponsive. The remnant huddled in small groups, quivering.

  Valdovan soldiers marched from the mist in two rows, diverging as soon as they touched the ground and fanning out along the walls to surround Ming and the two warriors. After the last of them had alighted from the massive crawler, they all looked expectantly to the mist.

  An arachnid limb loomed there, its pointed tarsus hovered slowly above the ground before stomping down in one sharp thrust, puncturing the otherwise smooth floor. Ming remained unmoving, resigned to whatever beast lurked beyond his sight. Another appendage came after the first, three segmented legs tapping forward until the full girth and size of a creature came into view. Eyes as lifeless as a void of space narrowed at Ming, locked on him with sinister interest. It was female, this creature. Ming had heard stories about it. Stories of reverence and glory. And sadness, a sadness that had existed before its current form. Stories of a child that was loved above all, a child that never drew breath. Ming could see it, floating in stasis. Inanimate organic matter, long preserved. The being crept closer, its six legs slowly tapping the floor until it was directly above him. He couldn’t bring himself to look directly at it and take in the horrors of its thoughts. Horrors that spread around her, for her counterparts stood at a distance. They were the aggressors that had almost killed him, but this time they were three. One more had come from the mists and taken its place besides the earlier two.

  “I never thought I’d see one of you in the flesh,” the being’s voices whispered all at once, amused, curious, and underwhelmed. “How small.” He heard the soft creak of strained joints as her voice neared the back of his head. “How inconsequential.” Metal fingers grazed the length of his head.

  A connection jolted through him, burying a million pasts in the crevices of his mind. They mixed and synced with his senses and in under a second, he felt, lived, and shared in the cluttered emotions of the many. He was overtaken by grief. It clogged his tubes and filled his core.

  “You have suffered, haven’t you?” Ming tuned, and although he was unable to see those lifeless eyes, the silence told him that his comment had struck home. Her silence was a deafening nothing that took the room. Her cold fingers receded. In a flash, the perceptions of those memories were gone, but they had left an aftershock that couldn’t be cleansed.

  “Your heart grieves, with sorrow and fire.” Ming could have moved if he wanted. But he feared the silence behind him.

  “Are you in my head?”

  “I could be. But I fear the horrors in your mind will eat me alive. So my consciousness surrounds yours, staying at the edges, where it’s safe.”

  More silence. Until…

  “You can harness the Magija. You and your merry band of prayer warriors.”

  The purpose of the visit registered in Ming’s mind then, and his eyes widened at the Life Pool that still sat untouched around them.

  “Will you serve me?” her voices snickered.

  “To what purpose?”

  “You already know of my grief and fire. You have tasted it. I can sense it. And yet, the little you have felt terrifies you. Does it not?” Her fingers pinched him and flipped him like a disc until her liquid black eyes were the only things he could see.

  The terror numbed him.

  “I will never use the Magija to propagate violence. This ancient power was meant to give life and cause good.” She cocked her head at this, and marvel flickered in that abyss. Marvel that he put to the side. “I can see you are already decided. But it is my duty to protect the Life Pool.” His other hand shot out as he forced the last of his energy to the center of his palm, aiming for her head. Light exploded around them.

  And so, did pain. Pain in the center of his chest, acute and debilitating. The light was gone. And so was his light within. It was fading quickly, her appendage writhing through his chest, maneuvering to widen the hole she had created. Her expression was a wicked snarl before him, contorting her metal face plates. It was the last face he saw before darkness came for him.

  *

  “I’ve captured the Life Pool,” she said slowly as she mulled over the statement.

  It had felt too easy. And that made her distrust it.

  Her legs took her across the room to the gleaming Life Pool, where the surface of the water moved with a mind of its own. Rippling waves continuously emerged from the edges, dancing rhythmically across until they disappeared into an opposing wave. She drew closer to the surface of the water until her face hovered just inches above it. The water was a crystal indigo and hummed with presences. She could feel its far-reaching depth echo in everything around her, overcoming even her own. The power beckoned to her. It foretold of dreams she kept alive. She stuck one leg into it and the energy crawled through every transfixed atom of her mechanic limbs until it seeped into the organic pieces that still remained. A consciousness overtook hers. A connection that superseded any power she had ever known. She gasped.

  “Mother.” Her incompetent, sniveling, and oversized child dulled the moment, worry in his tone.

  She ignored him and ventured deeper into the essence, eyes fixed on her sole destination: the fountain at the far end of the pool, its water coming up from the layers thousands of feet below her.

  “How far away are the Emperor and his horde?” she asked as she neared it. She raised one hand, gesturing to the engine she had brought with her, a machine that was a moving distillery. The life essence was a radioactive element the Creator had only managed to process in minute amounts—amounts that had given life to the thousands of Homecity citizens she had birthed. And now, the element was becomin
g one with her very being, mutating what was left of her organic genes and filling her mind with an ecstasy that was purer than any cocktail could intoxicate.

  “Only a hundred miles out. They will be here by sundown, Mother.”

  “Let them come!” her voices sang whimsically as her vast distillery moved, ploughing into the polished floors of the Life Pool area, uprooting slabs of concrete and dirt until its bulk was almost spilling into the pool.

  “The Creator always thought he was something special. Something clever. I’m sure he thinks of me as his greatest masterpiece.” Her voice moaned and sobbed, forlorn and distraught. “After the Emperor, I thought I’d never want to kill any other man.”

  The machine stopped and, with the clicking of loud wheels and mechanics, it began to grow, tubing bursting forth like live tendrils into the Life Pool. The giant expanded and partitioned, revealing red-hot, rotating engines and thousands of empty stasis pods. Like a being of its own, it rose on metal over the center of the Life Pool. Then supporting legs shot out from underneath the machine and anchored into the ground around the pool, holding the engine in place.

  “Then I realized I had yet again been used like a spare tool, by the one I thought was my savior.”

  A drilling shaft dropped down from the machine and sank deep into the center of the pool, along with accompanying suction pipes.

  “I’ve never wanted anything more than to squelch the malevolent light in his eyes. I can’t believe I will never get that pleasure.” She made an effort to shake her head, but it clicked intermittently in awkward directions. Her pivoting parts needed changing.

  The machine came to an abrupt pause and she marveled at her creation. In a grand gesture, she turned. “Let the creations begin.”

  *

  Her eyes were burning. That much, Airith could see. There was a well of pain beneath her lids and still, she refused to let go. She let the silence foster a little longer. A provoking urge to touch Phara sizzled at her fingertips, but she couldn’t bring herself to make such a warm gesture.

  If Phara was going cry, she should do it already! Airith screamed in her head. She immediately hated herself for it. Phara had said only one name in the space of two hours as they watched the carnage unfold from a distance, unable to advance and unable to retreat. Airith felt the nauseating feeling of helplessness through it all, and she hated it. Hated that they had the greatest armor on the planet and yet could only stand by and do nothing as the last of the Indigos were torn apart by a monster they should have killed already.

  In the heat of it all, Phara had wanted to leave. She had wanted to disappear and reappear in the center of the battle, right in Mother’s presence. But they couldn’t have it, Airith and Rapha. So Airith bludgeoned the back of Phara’s head with the pommel of her sword. She hadn’t seen it coming. She was too engrossed with saving the day. She woke up twenty minutes later and in the following space of two hours had said only one name: Ming.

  Now, Airith couldn’t be dishonest with herself. It had felt good to smash Phara with her sword, especially after Airith had spent an hour picking sand from her teeth thanks to an accident Phara had caused. But now she was reconsidering her actions, especially as Phara had woken up shaken to her toes, like a child returning from a nightmare. She was staring into space, mumbling softly to herself. Airith wondered if she had broken something in Phara’s head. Worse, she couldn’t find the words to fill the uneasy silence between the three of them as they watched it all happen. Did she feel anger that she could do nothing? Yes. But if there was anything Mother had taught Airith, it was that biding your time for the best moment always made for the best kill.

  “Phara.” Rapha broke the silence, his hand moving gradually, almost fearfully, as he touched her arm.

  Airith blinked at the contact but looked away.

  “I felt it,” Phara started slowly. Turning to both of them. “I felt Ming’s disconnection. He’s dead.”

  “Who is Ming?” Airith asked, immediately regretting the rudeness of her tone.

  The ensuing silence was almost deafening. Almost destabilizing.

  “My spirit brother.”

  Phara rose suddenly from the sand and Rapha immediately joined her, his face long and concerned. Airith mirrored his expression. Phara had a brother? Probably an adopted one. After all, she had spent half her childhood growing in their midst.

  “I must go and scout the area. I must see what Mother is up to.” Phara sounded disembodied, and her eyes gazed off in a determined trance, locked onto the Life Pool structure some miles out. Its massive form was now burning with smoke and a strange light was glowing from within its complex. Airith feared what Mother was doing now.

  “But Mother will sense you,” Rapha said.

  “She would. But thankfully, my body will be over here. Will you protect me while I’m in COCOON?” Phara turned her gaze to Rapha, a hardened glare. “Besides, we need the information about whether we should go forward from here.”

  Airith agreed wordlessly. She set her eyes away from the two of them to the dark clouds edging ever closer. Only this time, they weren’t clouds but rather Kentilan airships in the thousands, coming for Mother. If Mother died in this battle, they would all follow her.

  “I’ll be back in a few.”

  Phara’s body dropped before she finished her sentence. Rapha caught her and slowly lowered her to the sand. Airith stared at her now-void body. She looked almost as if she were asleep, her eyes closed and her lips pursed softly. Airith turned toward the Life Pool structure, as if this time she would see Phara’s spirit lurking about. She was always disappointed.

  “You do know that as soon as Mother senses her, she’ll freak out, abandon her house chores, and come looking. Right?” Airith quipped.

  “She’ll be back before Mother can get to us.”

  Rapha was still looking down at Phara. It made something tingle in the back of Airith’s spine, but she said nothing.

  *

  Mother lowered herself into the small crevice that waited to receive her. The machine was rooted over the Life Pool and waiting to be used, her harbinger of death. In many ways, it felt like lowering herself onto her rightful throne, one that would serve her as she looked out over her realm and brought the Emperor to his knees. The sharp sting of neural plants in her lower spine and hip bone signaled the initiation of the link and the start of the transition as she became one with the metal beast. Energy from its powerful cores zinged through every atom in her body, and her mind exploded into a million seams, spread thin over a vast array of stars and planets she had never seen. It was energy unlike what she had been accustomed to over the years, trapped and enslaved in her dark lair. It was the Mother form to the Cymaga she had managed. This was true power. And how befitting that it was at her disposal now, when she needed it most.

  The energy sang in waves, echoing to life forms of all sizes and returning to her with the replies of a billion consciousnesses, including the millions of half-machine inbreeds she had given birth to. Her mind’s radius spread far and wide, enveloping the whole planet. Once again, she was connected to their every thought, and all without the help of the central neural implants she had installed in each and every head.

  She gasped for breath as her surroundings diffused into a billion scintillating visions from far and wide, a complex haze that was beautifully overwhelming. Her senses narrowed and her mind stilled to understand the workings of the matrix. To her delight, she sensed a rushing herd of life drawing closer and closer to her. The Kentilan army flying to their peril, delivering themselves on a platter, and in so doing, delivering the one man she had sought for years.

  She picked through the strings of connections that linked to her, sifting through the mass with keen fervor as she sought just one man. Her yearnings made her quiver, the excitement eroding all thought until she found him, flying ten thousand feet from the ground, straight at her. He was sitting, relaxed, above his subordinates, wrapped in his thoughts. His mind was a
curious specimen. A roiling mass with uneasy ideas. She probed at them and he shifted uneasily. Had he felt her? She hoped he did. His mind was a thorny fog of distorted images, a foggy destination that heralded doom. It intrigued her. And in many ways, it mirrored hers, though hers was a spiraling vortex sucking in on itself, pulling at everything in her path.

  She probed again, this time a sharp insertion that cut through the invisible barrier. The Emperor sat upright in his throne. Shaken. Violated, but unaware. He did not need to be. The first of his emotions that connected with her was the rage and long-nourished envy. Visions of the Creator flitted here and there, evasive but dominant. A cry surged from the pit of her gut. Could it be that after all these years, he still hadn’t thought of her? Had she been lost to the wormholes of time as easily as the rest of his whores?