[Marron.]
Gentle fingers closed around him, catching and holding him in place before he could drift far.
Will you die, now, too?
[The soul is immortal. I will be reborn, as always.]
And I?
[We are the same---but different. Here is where we part. When the last spark of life in your body fades, you will go onward. Your lover awaits.]
Zeii. Eagerness flowed through him, followed by shame and regret.
[Your enemy will not live out the day. Your vengeance, though imperfect, will be complete.]
Strangely, the thought did little to comfort him.
My family. And Gateau. Will they be all right?
[That lover and your brother will join you, soon. The rest will be well.]
What?
Images and understanding flowed past, swiftly. The chamber where his body now lay, surrounded by his friends and allies. Half-buried in the rubble of the room, momentarily forgotten by those who mourned him: Carunirian, burning with rage. Oparu, who loved him and would die for him, and whose gift was the amplification of magical energy. A single spark of magic.
An explosion, which would kill everyone in the room.
No!
[The future is always in motion. But this is only a step ahead on the present path.]
So you're saying it can't be stopped? No. I can't accept that.
[Why? They will be with you.]
They'll be dead!
Silence.
None of them have lived out their lives. It's too soon. It's not their time.
Amusement. [They will die. Therefore it is their time.]
He suppressed frustration. What could life and death mean, after all, to a being who existed in limbo, beyond the reach of either?
[I understand your concept of death. I understand loss. And regret.]
He heard---or thought he heard---the faint yearning deep within the calm acceptance, and reached a sudden understanding of his own.
I grant you your freedom. Save them.
It was, he noted with some rancor, quite gratifying to discover that he could still catch the other by surprise.
[You understand---]
I have always understood. I'm reneging on my reneging. Go, while I still have some link to life.
There was no need for further urging. He was enveloped, all at once, with a sense of peace---so powerful and overwhelming that he knew, in the last instant that thought was available to him, that it was not his own. Not human. It swallowed him and he drifted within it, filled all at once with that unbelievable peace and contentment and an understanding that stunned him in its complexity and simplicity and ultimate, all-encompassing beauty.
It was a final, parting gift. A moment later, he ceased to exist.
Mirufi gasped, startling them all out of the grief-stricken silence that had descended in the moments since Marron's death. Behind them, the other Haz Knight jerked in surprise, black robes shivering faintly with the movement.
Gateau ignored the gasp, unable to take his eyes from Marron's still face, unable to think. Carrot, huddled against a wall, his face hidden, did not move. But then Mirufi broke the silence again. He sounded angry and---strangely---frightened.
"Oh, gods. Oh, gods. We're too late. He's coming."
Before Gateau could muster enough concentration to puzzle out the meaning of Mirufi's words, Marron's eyes opened.
Across the continent, a small crystal sphere fell to the floor and shattered.
Daughter drifted forward, startled. "What is it, Mamu?"
The ruler of the Spooner continent blinked and lifted her eyes, seeing nothing. "It's over," Mamu said, softly. "We failed." She took an unsteady step backward and fell into her throne, gripping the armrests tightly for support. "Oh, Marron." Her face constricted in anguish. She closed her eyes and bowed her head.
He felt his son's death and nearly stumbled. At the speed he was moving, a fall might have been fatal; the use of Haz Knight spells when he was no longer a Haz Knight was a risky proposition at best. But it was the only way to get to his son, and so he ran on, heedless of the thunderclap of sound echoing in his wake, or the insects that stung like slung stones against his skin when he hit them, or the possibility of pulverizing every bone in his body should he falter. He had to get there.
He had been attuned to each of his sons since their birth. Three years before, the light in the back of his mind that was Marron had flickered and vanished. Not dead, he knew now. Not like Apricot. Just hidden. And today, for the first time in three years, he had felt that light again. So very briefly. For now, his baby boy, Apricot's soul-child, his son was fading, fast, like the glowing wick of a candle whose flame had just been extinguished.
He suppressed anguish and ran on. That could come later.
But then the light that was Marron suddenly blazed anew---and flared.
Without warning, the golden, clear light of afternoon suddenly faded as thick, heavy, ominous clouds rolled in---seemingly from nowhere---and gathered. Startled by the change, the people of the territory paused in their doings and looked up. There were cries of terror and murmurs of fear. The most prudent quickly went inside and gathered their precious belongings and their families and began to make their way out of the town, away from the immediate vicinity of the palace. The most foolish simply gawked, while the most opportunistic picked their pockets.
Those few who still had faith, and who remembered the old ways, knelt in their homes and quietly began to pray. Of them all, they were the most wise.
In the same moment that the first lightning-bolt came down and struck the windowsill, Marron screamed.
It was not a human scream. The lightning's snarl echoed in his throat, along with the howl of the wind that suddenly blasted through the open window and into the chamber, a small hurricane swirling out of nothingness. They cried out, ducking and moving swiftly away from the table as the demolished furniture suddenly became a whirlwind of small and deadly projectiles. All circling the table in the midst of the shrieking wind, protecting its occupant.
Kei fell back against Gateau, his arms flung up in front of his face. Gateau grabbed the smaller man and pushed him behind himself, raising his own arms---but lowering them as he realized that the debris was only moving in the immediate vicinity of the table. Beside them, the dark-clad Haz Knight remained silent, facing the table inscrutably.
On the other side of the room, Carrot stumbled back as well, his arms half-raised. "Marron!" He whirled to glare at Mirufi, who stood nearby, feet planted against the gale that whipped around them, fists clenched tightly before him. "What is this? What's happening?"
Even through the gale, they could all hear the tension of Mirufi's voice, see it in his stance. "The thing I've been trying to prevent," he said, tightly.
Then there was nothing more to be said. They all watched, in awe and wonder and not a little fear, as Marron's transformation proceeded apace.
It was good to have substance again.
Even if it was heavy, perpetually-dying mortal flesh, and not the higher stuff of which he was made. He discarded the flesh, letting power sear through his skin and burn it away. Now the garments---attractive in a simple sort of way, but inappropriate. Likewise the rest of his appearance.
He sheathed himself in light and reworked all of it, and let the light fade only when he had remade himself in his proper image. Then he rose, letting his essence split the table on which he lay, sending the halves spinning away to shatter against the walls, and stood upright.
Mortals huddled against the walls, cowered beneath shattered furniture, and the whirlwind---ever his faithful, if overzealous, herald---swirled about the room. Utter chaos. It displeased him. First things first---he searched for and found the life-forces of the two Sorcerers, half-buried under a collapsed desk. Both unconscious. He snuffed out the life of one with a thought, saving the other for later. Then he raised a hand and banished the wind, ignoring the debris that clattered to the floor, and examined his surroundings.
Interesting. Two of the assembled were immortal themselves, although still painfully fragile, in the way of mortals. Guardians of this incarnation of the world, he gathered; he had met such creatures before. He regarded the higher-ranked one for a long moment, remembering adventures and nights of pleasure with him, and understanding what the mortal part of himself had not. For his efforts, he deserved acknowledgement.
"Fate is fate, Mirufi Yu," he intoned, carefully modulating his voice so as not to harm these creatures' hearing. "You could not have prevented this."
The guardian was brave, despite his fear. Of course. He could not have served in his position otherwise. "The stakes made it worth a try," Mirufi said softly, and then he knelt, bowing his head humbly, startling his companions. "My lord Yakushia."
In the dream Mirufi had shown him, he had seen this being before. But at that time, only a fraction of the Presence had been able to manifest---a reflection of its true self, nothing more. This, Gateau realized, was power and presence in its magnificent, triumphant, terrifying entirety.
And the knowledge was bitter bile in his mouth.
It was Marron. His eyes insisted upon that. It looked like Marron. Even in the strange, elaborately ceremonial outfit, like that of a Fannellian Emperor from the ancient days before Sorcerers. Even with eyes that were, somehow, darker than black, swirling faintly with flecks like stars. The face was the same---a little slimmer, a little longer, a little more beautiful than usual, but Marron's face. He'd known that face his whole life. The hair was the same. The slim frame and the movements, incorporating grace into the slightest gesture, all of this was the same. It was Marron.
His mind knew his eyes' insistence for a lie. Marron had never been as tall as Gateau. His hair---perfect, not a strand out of place---had never shimmered with its own light. Or perhaps the light was a reflection of the pale, shivering aura that outlined the rest of his body. His face had never held such an inhuman depth of wisdom and power and sheer, incomprehensible knowledge.
And he had never looked at Carrot the way he was now---without the slightest hint of warmth or emotion in his face, without the barest flicker of kindness or mercy in his eyes. He gazed at, and through, Carrot as if contemplating a mildly interesting insect.
Then the being's eyes moved back to Mirufi. "Rise," he said, his voice mellifluous, shifting, with faint echoes of impossible vastness in its depths. "Your allegiance is not to me."
Mirufi stood, slowly. "I knelt out of respect, my lord. It has been long since one of your kind has walked this world."
"Not so long." And now Carrot tensed as the being's eyes turned to him again. "My brother the Destroyer came prematurely to this world, did he not? You and the mortals of this world performed admirably in returning him to his proper place."
"Yes, my lord." Mirufi swallowed, then steeled himself and spoke again. "While I do not seek to question the wisdom of a god, Yakushia-sama... you spoke of proper place. Is---"
"You wish to know if my place is not among the other Shichuuten, as it has been for the lifetimes of a thousand worlds." He turned, stepping gracefully through the rubble as if it were fine carpet. He stopped when he reached the window, gazing out over the land, his expression unreadable. "The cycle of imprisonment within which I and my fellow gods were compelled to bind ourselves was never meant to be eternal. It can be broken. You know this."
"I know it's supposed to be broken whenever the Shichuuten finally defeat the Destroyer," Mirufi said, keeping his words carefully diplomatic.
"Or whenever he defeats us. Which he will do, now. I am no longer bound to the others, and may ascend to a higher plane of existence at my leisure. I will doubtless do so before the next culmination of the cycle."
Mirufi took a step forward, his whole posture tense and full of urgency. "My lord, if the Shichuuten are weakened by your departure---"
"I am well aware of the consequences, Mirufi Yu."
Mirufi fell silent, chastened, fists clenched tightly. Carrot scowled and stepped forward.
"Well, I'm not aware of the consequences, whoever you are. I don't much care, either." He took a deep breath and called upon a courage whose existence he seriously questioned at the moment, and put a hand on the hilt of his sword. "All I want is for you to give Marron back."
Yakushia turned. As he moved, the aura around him shifted, and for a moment it seemed as if the room shifted with him, warping subtly as if to accommodate his presence, then shifting back before the eye could properly register it. "Marron is here. He is part of my self, as are all the mortal manifestations I have held over the aeons."
Carrot scowled. "You aren't him. I don't know who or what you are, but you're not him."
One gracefully-arched eyebrow lifted. "You do not remember me, Destroyer?" His eyes glinted in the room's torches, catching the light, and Carrot's eyes.
---reveling in the joy of the slaughter, watching the mortals struggle and then die like insects, continents crumbling beneath his feet. Even his fellow gods, pathetic weak beings that they were, hobbled by honor and self-imposed laws, could not stop him. Here were four, now, led by the Tenrin-Ou Yakushia himself, and even they would not be able to defeat him. Weaklings! He would destroy all of existence---
He shoved the memories---if memories they could be called---away from him with all of his will and staggered back against the wall, gasping and struggling desperately to rid himself of the terrible sense of growing, seething, inhuman malevolence, so powerful that just a fraction of it threatened to overwhelm him, so close to the surface that he could not think through the rising panic---
"Peace," said Yakushia, and suddenly his heart quieted. The memories and the horrible, swelling sense of Presence that came with them was gone, as was his panic.
He blinked and looked up, more awed---and terrified---by this display of power than anything else.
And understanding, abruptly, why Mirufi had worked so hard to stop exactly this from happening.
"Forgive me, brother," Yakushia said softly, startling Carrot out of his shock. "But you remember, now, who you are. And who I am."
He stared. For a moment---just a moment---there had been a ghost of compassion in the god's voice. A suggestion, impossible as it seemed, of the old brotherly closeness. A hint of Marron.
He stepped forward again, quickly, hope a tight knot in his chest. "I remember," he said. "You and the others... you keep that... thing inside me from destroying the world."
"No." The shimmering head shook, once. "You still lack complete understanding. It is the Destroyer's task---his desire---to kill the worlds that arise in the fullness of time. He would kill them all and never allow others to be born, if he had his way. There was war in heaven, when we realized his intentions. He was defeated but not destroyed. And so we, the four strongest of the gods, bound ourselves to him. When he rises to destroy, we preserve a single spark of life. We control him and drive him into sleep again. Then we build a new world, and nurture it until life begins anew. While he sleeps, life has time to exist. Until he rises, and the cycle culminates again." A graceful hand-gesture, moving in a slow circle. "But we have always sought to end the cycle---all of us. The Destroyer by defeating us and annihilating the last spark, so that no new life can be created. We by defeating him, and at last freeing the mortal realm to grow or fail as it will. Freeing ourselves as well." He tilted his head back, seeing beyond the ceiling of the room. "This world will end whether I leave or not. As long as the cycle continues, that is inevitable."
"But if you leave, then the next time the Destroyer comes back---" Carrot clenched his fists in frustration. "There will be only three gods to meet him. Without you the others will fail---he'll win, and life will end forever! Are you going to let that happen?"
"Marron is the one who chose to break the cycle," Yakushia said, quietly. "He offered me the bargain: my strength in exchange for his life. He did not care about future worlds. Only this one, and the handful of mortals in it who mattered to him most." He turned back to the window. "I have long questioned the wisdom of continuing this seemingly endless battle, all for the sake of short-lived creatures who misunderstand and squander the treasure they have been given. Why should I continue to suffer imprisonment within a mortal shell when the mortal who owns it cares nothing for life himself? He has freed me; my obligation has ended."
Carrot stared at him, too shocked to speak. It was Kei who broke the silence, speaking timidly from Gateau's side.
"Sir... it seems to me..." He pushed away from Gateau and the wall, stepping forward, hands spread in supplication. Yakushia did not turn. "Perhaps Marron's decision was made out of love of life. Individual lives matter a lot more to us... mortals... than they must, to someone like you. Something that might happen centuries or even millennia into the future---that's not half as important as what happens today, right now. Please---if I understand what you're saying---don't give up on us because we make stupid decisions out of love." He fell silent, and Carrot noticed that his hands were shaking, despite the steadiness of his voice.
"Individual lives are irrelevant," replied the god, flatly. "Love is irrelevant."
His nails had pierced the skin of his palms. He felt the pain and the first droplets of blood run down his fingers, but it did not matter. The pain in his heart was more pressing. That pain had no outlet, save action. And there was no action left to take that would make any difference. Marron was gone forever.
"No," he murmured, very softly. But no one heard him.
Carunirian decided that he had gone mad.
He hadn't been prepared for the backlash of the Kinjyu. Who could have known that the little bastard would find a way to counter a spell he'd been assured was impossible to counter? But he had, and Carunirian had felt every second of the spell's death-agonies as it had been crushed out of existence. Then he had awakened, buried in the rubble of his own conference room, with Oparu dead beside him and a bunch of strangers, including a god, talking beyond him.
It was the god's presence that convinced him that he was going mad. One did not simply imagine that the leader of the great Shichuuten of legend was having a conversation in one's conference room, not if one was sane. He had scoffed at first, but when he found a chink in the rubble through which he could peek, he hadn't been able to deny the evidence of his eyes and senses. Even if the creature standing only a few feet away from him was not a god, it was terribly powerful---and Carunirian was not at his personal best at the moment.
And then there was the little matter of why Oparu was dead when there wasn't a mark on him.
But he was certain that the creature could not be a god. More likely, it was an hallucination---because, of course, people who were mad often saw things that weren't there. The glowing man standing before him, who wore Marron Glaces' face, was probably Glaces' brother; he recognized most of the others in the room from his research and knew them to be the Sorcerer Hunters of Glaces' old team.
So he laid low, and tried to plan what to do next. And the more he planned, the more he realized how hopeless the situation was. The more hopeless it seemed, the more his fear grew. The more panicked he became, the more convinced he was that there was only one possible way out of this. The element of surprise.
He leaped out of the rubble during a lull in the conversation, when the god-thing had said something to shock them all into silence. He came out screaming, flinging a dozen magic darts at the god-thing's face, turning already to run toward the window. The others were shocked, he was delighted to see out of the corner of his eye; they'd forgotten that he even existed, and weren't moving fast enough to stop him. And the god-thing---
---was not at all surprised, Carunirian realized, mid-scream. The god-thing had been waiting for him.
The darts stopped in midair, a few inches away from their target. Then they vanished. Carunirian stopped screaming, wondering how that could have happened. Before he could begin to form an answer, the god-thing raised a slim, long-fingered hand and gestured, once. Carunirian was then quite terrified to realize that he could no longer move.
"Welcome," said the creature, and abruptly Carunirian began to suspect that he had been wrong. Very wrong. The god-thing was not so much thing and much more god than he had believed, and however mad it seemed, the god wanted to kill him. He wasn't sure how he knew that, when the creature's expression hadn't changed a whit since Carunirian had come out of the rubble, but he looked into those eyes---
like a void, his mind registered, its eyes are like a void
---and felt it with every inch of his being. It hated him---and this, he realized, was a being for whom the term "hate" assumed whole new levels of meaning. It was going to enjoy killing him. And there was no escape.
"I have a promise to honor," said the thing that was a god. It stepped forward, reaching toward him with that same, graceful hand. "And although my mortal counterpart reneged on our original bargain, I think he would be pleased to see you meet your end at last."
Then, for the first time, the entity's lips curved in a thin, chilly smile that was somehow far more terrifying than the emotionless mask he'd just worn. Somewhere, deep within Carunirian, something broke free and terror ran wild. If he had been able to move, he would have been gibbering.
"I have prepared a special hell for you," said Yakushia. "It is well-stocked with your favorite toys and games. And staffed by those who know how to use it. Very, very well. You taught them yourself. There are many of them. All your past lovers. And haters."
The smile spread, and Carunirian abruptly discovered that he still had control over one bodily function. He discovered it when he lost control of it, and felt warmth spread down the front and legs of his pants. And he managed to whimper. Once.
And then the god touched him. "Enjoy the reunion."
Carunirian began to scream.
He screamed as Yakushia's fingertips brushed the skin of his forehead and left a searing hole. Before the god's hand had returned to his side, the hole had spread, eating away rapidly at the rest of his face, spreading swiftly down his body---leaving, always, his mouth untouched. So that he could continue to scream, as his golden hair shriveled and his fine clothes blackened, and his aquiline beauty became a red, running ruin.
It did not take long. A few seconds later, nothing remained of Aruman Carunirian save a few flecks of ash that drifted toward the floor, and the lingering echo of the last gurgle his lungs had managed to produce.
The god turned to the remaining humans in the room, his smile fading back into its customary stern mask; he ignored their expressions of horror. Mercy was a human quality which, fortunately, did not burden him.
He watched one of them in particular. Yes. Just a little more.
"Saraba da," he said, and gathered his power about himself, to leave.
"NO!"
He lunged forward. To do what, he didn't know---grab the god and slam him against the wall and demand Marron's return, perhaps. For whatever good that would do. He'd probably be annihilated for his presumption. But he didn't care. Marron was dead, worse than dead---part of this creature who would live forever, wearing Marron's face. This selfish, cruel, cold-hearted bastard would live and Marron was dead. Dead forever.
I love you forever, he had said, under a cold and moonless winter night sky.
Gateau grabbed the god and felt, for just a fleeting instant, a myriad of sensations at once---heat, cold, pain, pleasure, and perhaps a dozen others he could not identify. Then the power blazed awake within him, and he heard himself scream, and the last thing he saw was Yakushia's smile.
The earth shook.
Now the people of the town cried out and ran outside, terrified. The region was not prone to earthquakes, and too many other frightening things had already happened; panic set in quickly. Stores were looted; fires began. Those who were already praying, prayed that much harder.
Where clouds had gathered overhead, suddenly they exploded outward, parting in a vast and spreading circle that cleared the sky as quickly as it had been obscured. Beyond them, gleaming through the last fading bands of the early-evening twilight, shone a single, bright, northern star.
Part of the top floor of Carunirian's palace collapsed, and the spire which had rested on its roof listed drunkenly before crashing to the ground, taking perhaps a quarter of the whole building with it.
At the other corner of the floor, in the conference room, a force like a titanic invisible hand caught everyone save Yakushia and flung them back against the walls of the chamber. When they finally recovered their senses, hours later, it was all over.
"Yakushia-Ou."
He heard the voice and smiled to himself. Deep as the earth and just as resonant, shifting and sibilant. It had been aeons since he'd heard that voice. For a moment fantastic, uncountable memories stirred in him, before he pushed them aside. The lingering remnants of his mortal personality were making him sentimental.
He turned to greet his fellow god, and inclined his head in formal acknowledgement. "Kaaruman."
He was taller, even, than Yakushia, with massive shoulders that all but filled a room which had once been spacious. Unlike the Shichuuten's king, he had chosen to forego elaborate costumery; he wore only a simple hood and cloak over a plain jerkin and pants. Seemingly simple: the cloak was grey, and made of smoke; it billowed constantly in an unseen wind. And as he lifted his head, twin pinpoints of light, flickering faintly like tiny stars in a summer sky, gleamed from within the shadowed recesses of the hood.
"It is not our time, Yakushia-Ou," said Kaaruman, quietly.
He felt a smile touch his lips. "I know."
"Have you, then, chosen to break our compact?"
"No. You know I would not. We began this together, and will finish it together."
There was a momentary muting of twin suns as Kaaruman's eyes lowered for a moment, and then he stepped closer. He lifted a hand to Yakushia's face, cupping one perfect cheek. Just visible within the hood, well-shaped lips curved in a slight smile. More softly--- "Then why summon me here, my king?"
Yakushia lifted a hand to cover Kaaruman's. His answering smile held regret, tenderness, and mischievousness, and reflected in his gaze were the shared memories of a thousand million unimaginable lifetimes.
"You have to ask, Kaaruman?"
Where their hands touched, light flickered: divine auras meeting and merging and amplifying. Growing until both their forms were sheathed in a light so bright that no mortal could look upon it without blindness, scintillating and crackling. Lightning on the surface of the sun.
And softly, in the depths of the light: a deep, rumbling chuckle. A lighter, rippling laugh.
Then the light and the voices and the Presences who created them were gone. And in their wake, the naked, unconscious bodies of Marron Glaces and Gateau Mocha crumpled to the floor.
**End Ch. 21