Airith- the Kentilan War Read online

  “I have found a different way to use the Life Pool. As you know, I already harnessed its power in the use of the city’s firmament; however, that is not enough. I sensed it had far greater potential, and began to test its interaction with Cymaga, mechanical magic.”

  On impulse, the mechanical limbs connected to Mother began to move, gingerly picking her up from her glass exhibit until she was fifty feet above him.

  “I have found a way to use the Life Pool and Cymaga to extract Phara’s consciousness and replicate her genome outside of her body. Recreate her, if you will call it that.”

  Mother’s gasp pleasured him. He had hit home.

  “You will bring Phara to life?” she cried.

  “Yes. She will be a living child, an exact replica of the dormant cocoon in your belly. But to do this, I require your utmost trust and sacrifice.” He grinned, adjusting the mechanical monocle on his right eye.

  Mother's pitch-black eyes watched him, and though the fleshy half of her face twitched, she showed no emotion.

  “I will need to modify you a little more.” The Creator dropped the bombshell, turning away from her. The silence that followed revealed many things, and he could feel the press of her glare.

  “What do you say?” He spun to meet her.

  She rose up, using the crane he’d attached to her, and gazed down at the Creator. Her gaze wavered and moved to the rest of her body. The Creator followed her gesture and her hands as she slid them gingerly over her bulging stomach and then let them stop at the rift where thick cables latched to the crane held her up. She was already 75 percent machine, and yet it was not enough; not for the child she longed for.

  “When can we start?” Her voice held pain, but her features showed no remorse.

  “Now,” the Creator chuckled, turning back to his console.

  *

  The atmosphere over Mother’s chambers hung thick with static fog in the days that followed. Lightening rippled in minute flashes as the chimneys released their colored smoke. Everyone in Homecity acknowledged the familiar signs of the Creator hatching another invention. Mother’s children gathered at the foot of her gates, kept at bay by the muzzle end of Valdova rifles. They picnicked in wait, to see what wonders the Creator had bestowed on Mother. They watched the abyss behind those doors with anxious excitement, reciting Mother’s mantra.

  Deep into the abyss and along those winding halls, electricity flitted through the circuits in the walls, a by-product of the energy from the mechanic-smithing happening in Mother’s slumber room. The Creator’s ragged breathing could be heard in the hallways. He laughed wildly with every surge that swept through the chambers, and the distinct zing of left-over electricity that hummed in the walls.

  Mother came apart in pieces; a rare assemblage of meta-matter fused with organic and mechanic. She needed less flesh, for nature had its limitations, and could only be made efficient with mechanics. He drew the DNA from the child in her womb and translated the child's genome into long streams of alphanumeric; a language that would meld with the many quantum systems linked to Mother’s neural system, but now also linked to the frail form of a small girl. She glistened with vitreous fluid, in which he had grown her skin, and still had small tubes attached to her at her sinuses and navel, where tubing fed progenitor cells the necessary nutrients to help them duplicate and replicate into specialized cells. Those cells continued to multiply until they formed into the small creature that was breathing into an oxygen mask, wrapped in a gelatin sheath, layered with organic muscles, and enclosed in a spherical capsule.

  He stepped back to adore her. Her hair was wet, partially covering her face. Her lips and her eyes reminded him so much of Mother, who was still in disarray.

  “Time to put Mommy back together,” he chuckled, turning to the half-being that was Mother. He began to reassemble, and time dragged on until he finally wiped at his brow. She was almost complete, but still lacked one thing. He picked up the body plate that was missing from one half of her face and slid it back in place.

  “Awake, Mother,” he whispered, and her lids flicked open to reveal a starry vortex of bright indigo fumes. She was alive. He had recreated her yet again. The attachments that ran from the base of her waist had been replaced with better and more seamless mechanical arms. She rose from the metal slab on which she had laid and hovered above him.

  “How do you feel?” the Creator asked.

  She ignored him and, as if drawn by an invisible force, moved to the glowing capsule that held her daughter’s clone. Her eyes widened and her mouth fell open. Her fingers glided over the capsule’s smooth surface, pausing every now and then to relish the tactile sensation of the life force embedded within.

  “I can feel her pulsing through me,” Mother muttered, her words drawled with bitter-sweet joy.

  “You are connected to her.” The Creator smiled as he drew closer to her. He gingerly lifted her face by the tip of her chin and guided her eyes to the neural link that led from the capsule, connected and synapsed separately, at the only node not connected to the millions of other life cords linked to her growing children. Phara’s emotions, sensations, and impulses were guided singly to Mother, and untainted with the essence of her other spawn.

  “After all this time. I am finally complete.” She shuddered. “Can I hold her now?” she whispered, resting her head against the capsule and closing her eyes, captivated with bliss. “Please, return me to my organic form. I just want to be with my Phara,” she pleaded.

  “Now, now. You have other beautiful children as well.” The Creator took care to hide the disappointment in his tone. “You can be with all of them. But if you wish to be with them in a full organic form, then I will need time. It will take time to develop stem and progenitor cells and allow their development into a full feminine body.” He brushed her hairless forehead gently.

  “I will wait.” She sighed, opening her eyes. “Please, leave me be.”

  *

  The weeks that followed ushered a silence in Homecity that would be recorded in the halls of time. Mother’s children waited anxiously, piling at her gates, laden with offerings and gifts to see what wonders the Creator had bestowed. Wonders that the Creator had publicly announced when he finally emerged from Mother’s chambers. But weeks of patient doting turned into months of anxiety. A stench hung heavy around Mother’s chambers as edibles spoiled and heaps of trinkets and antiques clogged the entrance to her love. She refused to see anyone, even the Creator. It worried him. Perhaps he had made a mistake.

  He stood at top of the endless stairs that led to her great gates, taking in the dead flowers and ribbons that remained unattended at the gates. He scrunched his nose as the scorching heat of the sun sweltered the rotting food offerings. The children no longer came to bring gifts and sacrifices, but watched hopelessly from afar, heavy with grief. Anger. Anger and disappointment welled within him as he turned to approach the gates, with two of his elite guards tailing closely behind him. He hadn’t anticipated this turn of events; he only sought to create Phara as a means to test out his newfound theory. He hadn’t expected such neglect from Mother. His left brow twitched.

  The gates parted as he approached, ushering him into the whistling darkness, but he knew his way. His body had become accustomed to the echoing of his steps that rang in his ear and the zing of electricity that roamed the walls. He made two turns and came to the hover disc that descended until he was walking through opening valves.

  Mother clung to the incubation pod that held Phara in stasis. Her two arms wound tightly round the glass that held her suspended daughter and her face pressed into the glass; the Creator could see fissures where she had repeatedly bashed her head.

  “Disconnect her,” he ordered, and one of his elite guards rushed to the task, his metal boots clanging as he rushed forth.

  It distracted Mother. She looked at him with a drowsy start. The guard swung quick and the butt of his rifle sent a paralyzing jolt through her. She could not recover quickly
enough to realize what was happening. The guard aimed and shot at the gridlock latch that clasped Mother to her mechanical arm. The sound was deafening, bouncing off the enclosed walls, and Mother's sharp scream made the Creator shudder. Her terrified gaze floated for just a moment before she collapsed on the floor, detached from her crane.

  “Bring her.” The Creator pointed to Phara and his other guard rushed to the pod. One swing and the glass imploded, slime pouring from the jagged hole. He wasted no time in grabbing the child roughly and disconnecting her from her placenta.

  “What are you doing? What is this?” Mother’s screams bordered on hysteria.

  The soldier returned with the child in his arms. She was fragile and innocent up close, like new petals in the wake of spring. Her jet-black hair was plastered to her back and her skin was a pale blue. She needed to breathe; he needed to wake her. The Creator adored her silently, even though Mother’s screams tore at the background.

  “Awake, child,” the Creator whispered, leaning in.

  She purred and opened her eyes. Her helical pupils were a crystal indigo and her skin was a pale blue. Immediately, her lids cracked, and tears welled in her eyes. She opened her small mouth and her shrill cry silenced Mother.

  “My baby!” Mother cried.

  Phara instantly turned from pale blue to a crimson pink, and the Creator drew a sigh of relief.

  “Bring her,” he said softly, turning back for the entrance. His guards followed closely, leaving Mother’s wailing at their heels.

  “You were created to make life. But you have neglected all your children over just one,” the Creator stated coldly, reveling at the sight of her broken and strewn at his mercy. He was her God, and he would treat her as such.

  “I don’t care about them. They only worship me because I create happiness for them. They have children to dote over and watch over at night while I’m deserted here, locked away in towering walls with nothing but silence as company. What about me?!” Her cry was a fury of anger and despair as she clawed her way toward the Creator, dragging along the floor.

  The impudence. The anger the Creator had kept in check was now a twitch in his left eye. She was ungrateful to the gift of life he had so graciously given to her. A sly smile danced on his lips. He had reserved a vice for a day like this.

  “Guard,” he seethed softly, turning to the soldier that had detached her. “Grab her by her neck!”

  He darted across the room and away from Mother to one of the walls. He felt along its panels until he found what he was looking for. The panel pushed back, and the grating of rusted wheels accompanied the opening of the wall. Fumes snaked from the crevice as it widened to reveal a transparent cylinder attached to tubing that disappeared into the walls. Another birthing chamber, but obviously not designed to birth children. It was built to be a confinement that would force Mother to conform to automatic birthing cycles; in other words, milk her of as many children as possible.

  “I was hoping it would be not have to come to this,” he said, despite her screams as the guard dragged her to him. “You should have just gone with the plan, Valdova. Your role is to create my world.” He spat. “Plug her in.”

  His eyes had a sinister glint as he held her horrified gaze. She was powerless without her crane—a mutual understanding they both shared—and she watched haplessly as she was strung up in the large pod and plugged in to the base of the device, where countless tubes connected to larger ducts, leading through the walls to the millions of premature pods holding unfertilized ova. Her ova, the ones he harvested yearly after treating her to endless days of treatments that made her gametes replicate and continue to populate; abnormal to any normal woman.

  Perhaps he should have done this all along, instead of playing master and subordinate, the Creator thought to himself as he slid the glass back in place, not taking his eyes off her. He saw the terror deepen into something familiar, something that he hadn’t seen in ages, something that reminded him of the broken woman he had found so long ago at the palace grounds. The vulnerability, how it filled him with delight. It was the sheer joy of superiority and dominance, like a master over his minion. He had let all that power go to her head, that she forgot her place.

  He turned to leave, finished with her. He would check on her in the next five months. She screamed, as if she had heard and disapproved of his verdict. Her scream. It was different. Different from what he remembered and made him stop and turn. It had almost sounded like a roar from a group of barbaric savages. It shook the floors and clawed at his heart. The sight behind him made his knees water.

  Half her face was stretching horridly, gaping fissures growing across the strained body plate as her skin churned. The Creator took a tentative step away. She screamed, a legion of voices screaming all at once, and the whole room shuddered. The Creator stumbled backwards just as his eyes caught a phenomenon that couldn’t be true. Her essence, the fluid that ran through the tubes to her millions of growing fetuses, one which was supposed to be indigo-colored blood, rich with nutrient and growth factors, had now turned a tainted black. It was seeping from her, crawling through the tubes and mixing with her formerly indigo-colored blood.

  “What is this?” The Creator quivered, his eyes darting in their sockets, bulging outwards. “Stop her!” he almost whispered, but in his mind, the solution had no form and his logic processes were blank. “Stop it, you'll ruin everything!” he whimpered, clawing at his face as he could only watch the tainted blood being supplied to millions of his creations.

  “What this is?” her demons cackled from one mouth. “This is the by-product I have so willingly collected all these years; the anger, hate, and sorrow from millions of your brainwashed creations. Perfect little creations you infused with your Cymaga.” All over her, her body plates were sliding from place and this dark matter flowed from her in winding tentacles, slowly creeping over her body and filling the small space in the compartment. “Did you know? That all these emotions have weighed me down and have ultimately become my sadness?”

  The tentacles wound around the plugs of the thousands of tubing that sucked from her and the base latch that kept her in place.

  “Did you know? That your mechanical magic was still expressed in their emotions and I have been collecting portions of this power, building a tainted energy that I have now become one with!” Her voices snickered and right before his eyes, he saw the tentacles snap off the plugs like twigs and yank her free from the base of the birthing chamber. Now she stood on ten bent tentacles, towering over the Creator and his guards by a few feet.

  The Creator stepped back. The air imploded as the chamber's glass flew through the air. The Creator gasped from sharp stings that caught him in the neck and arms; glass shard caught in his skin. He fell to the floor, shielding his face with both hands.

  “It’s a consuming power to harness, it twisted me inside, but I've suppressed it for so long and filtered my essence so as to keep your creations perfect!” her demons cackled.

  Using his mechanical arm, the Creator pushed himself onto his knees, gazing warily up at the monstrosity before him. Where had he gone wrong?

  “But now, now you will experience first-hand the profound depth of your children’s emotions. How befitting that the monster who made me his lab animal should as well serve as a specimen for me!”

  Her tentacles squirmed in a frenzy, a monster coming alive. He had to protect what was left of this project. And he had to put this rabid animal down.

  “Blast her down! Now!” the Creator ordered, and one of his guards moved to raise his rifle.

  The air cracked as one of the tentacles lashed with lightning speed. The soldier flew from sight with his scream tailing after him.

  “Quick! Run with the child!” he snapped to the guard holding Phara. The soldier took off and the air blurred in a flash of black behind him. He screamed and stumbled forward, almost throwing Phara down, but Mother’s tentacle hadn’t been long enough; he was almost out of reach.


  “Run!” the Creator urged, holding forth both hands, one over the other, and summoning an ancient energy he had trained to come to his call. The electricity from this gift rippled at his fingers, entrapping ionized air and forming a small ball of plasmid energy.

  “You have disappointed me. I am taking the child,” he seethed.

  She laughed, her laughter a staccato sound of a million snickering voices as her pseudo-legs projected her forward. Her gaze was intent and her sneer, vicious.

  “She has a purpose neither you nor anyone else could understand. And as for you, I will replace you like the dozens of whores in the Emperor’s bed.”

  That struck her; the intensity changed in her eyes and her sneer lengthened into a snarl, baring a toothless abyss, her face plate snapping from the strain, the black essence oozing from her.

  “You will be forgotten, and another will take your place!” The rippling force shot out from his grasp and hit Mother square, but she sent it back at him, the searing force snapping, sizzling his skin and sweeping his feet out from under him. He crashed hard into something. Mother’s banshee cries cut through the pain and pierced his ears.