Bloodstone (10 page)

Images coalesced...

Darkness. Indefinite period of waiting, longing. Movement. Progression through time? space? Danger. Energy. Danger narrowly averted. Interminable movement. Flight from danger? Danger in transit? Craving; anticipation. Ebb and flow of vast energies. Patience/despair/anticipation/hope. Termination of movement. Danger. Energy. Danger countered. Fulfillment. Hope.

Light. Transition.

(From a great height) Clouds, sea, land. White blue green red flashes of black. Danger. Closer. Across endless azure ocean to verdant land cloaked in towering dark forest. Danger hidden in forest and sea. Awesome violence of incalculable energy. Steaming rush of sea into glowing wound carved from continent. Destination/haven achieved. Fulfillment. Settling to earth. Hope/ambition.

(Images clearer now, moving with a curiously collapsed flow of time, stylistic representation often merging into pure symbolism.)

An island of raw stone arising from inland sea. Across choppy black water the misty shoreline encompasses horizon. Walls rising, jutting forth from the island like rubrous crystals of hoarfrost. Walls, buildings of outré architecture, network of streets. Beyond, docks and stabbing piers, a great causeway lancing across the sea like a ray of light. A city bursting like some fantastic growth from the earth that was not its mother.

(There is a strange duality. A vantage point both fixed and transitory. Perception from shifting angles, the same instant viewed, projected from varying points. Simultaneous expression through lenses subtly differing.)

Moving forms through the rising city. The Krelran builders--dull-scaled creatures whose ancestry of their degenerate progeny, the Rillyti, was evident. Reptilian assurance, intelligence in their actions. Webbed hands molding the city, leaders directing its architecture to exacting detail. Immense machines crawling throughout, gleaming, tireless as ants busy in their hill. Metal arms lifting colossal blocks of stone. From curious instruments brilliant lances of flame fuse the joints to seamless strength, carve out the precise angles, etch intricate patterns in the faces. Giant vessels like water beetles scuttle across the sea; bronze centipedes hump-backed with loads tread ponderously along the causeway, disgorge mountains of crushed ore and rubble. Mounds of unguessable material unloaded from elsewhere/above/within. All fed into towering hulks of machine/furnace, transmuted through unimaginable energies, reborn as blocks of red mottled stone, sheets and cables of various metals, materials unidentifiable. Raw substance metabolized into living cells of Arellarti. Workers transport, lay down the skeleton, the structure--create the exact geometries of life/organism. Overhead the vast shadow, rising and falling, wavering. Guard/nourish.

(There is something more here, something veiled. Many doors are closed in blackness, locked, and often their presence obscured. There are two minds that are one, and yet not the same. Each has doors, barriers, has keys that may unlock/open to reveal beyond/secret. Their doors are not the same, nor are their keys--but there are doors sealed with no apparent lock, and keys for which no door is evident.)

Need. The city grows to completion/fulfillment. Urgency. The dome lifts to the sky, enclosing/protecting, nerves/arteries develop apace. Danger grows greater with each day, each day because the city draws closer to completion and defiance of all danger. Hunger for energy burns/craves. Power drained perilously low to give birth to Arellarti. Urgency. Preparations must be complete/matured before attack while energy low. I/We/Being must gamble/risk more energy to accelerate completion before attack/before can defend. Presence known, earlier thrusts just to test strength. They may understand, plan to attack when vulnerability greatest.

Arellarti nears completion. Walls, structures, every cell/nerve close to organic unity. Dome is ready, cupping/enclosing like a protective/sustaining shell, translucent to perception from within/without. Final moment is near. Ship has already transformed/incorporated all but fraction of energy/unity. Embryonic surges of power begin to flow through nascent gridwork. Transmission/transformation/ transmutation of life/awareness is beginning within new organism. The patterns are almost complete. I/We/Being come to life within new energy/ structure.

Life flows. Energy. Birth/emergence/renewal. Sense the triumph of fresh life/energy rush through infant organism.

(There are two--union of duality. Separate the consciousness, know two parts of the whole. One lies within the dome, the crystal monolith. One lies within the ring. Both are one, together Bloodstone, linked together, parallel structure, obey the laws of crystal sentience/symmetry life, to leech the flow of cosmic energy. Within the dome is Bloodstone's consciousness, harnesses the energy of the greater cosmos, coordinates/ governs the power/life. Within the ring lies its parallel self, independent/dependent parasite/symbiote, draws upon the energy of organic/[this plane] life of its bearer. The lord/priest/servant of Bloodstone--external power to manipulate that which cannot be controlled internally--extension of the power/life. Both incarnations are one and essential to the unity. Dichotomy of size/energy cosmic too miniscule illusion/limitation of perception--both equal/essential to laws of symmetry of life/energy being... )

(Block)

Time is very almost [now]. Krelran flash across Arellarti in insane dream speed? slowness? The Master of Bloodstone directs the final preparations. Leader of the Krelran, there gleaming on his thumb where the webbing does not stretch, the bloodstone ring, symbol and instrument of his absolute power. The Master commands, his servants obey. His is the mind that oversees the raising of Arellarti, coordinates the directives that culminate in triumphant life/power.

Danger! Long-dreaded attack at most vulnerable phase! Dark ovoids of metal hover in the sky, hurl incandescent bolts of destroying energy upon Arellarti. A second assault from the sea--rushing teardrop vessels that overpower the ocean channel defenses, lash out at the walls with blasts of unnatural lightning. Too soon! Not enough power yet! Energy screens repel the enemy attack. Counterattack not yet effective. All power concentrated to defense screens. Not enough to hold--penetration! Sections of the city explode under the crackling energy blasts. The gates erupt with a splatter of cinder and fused metal. Hundreds of Krelran die with each failure of the defenses. They rush through the streets in terror-stricken madness. Arellarti writhes in pain.

Betrayal!

(All is chaotic; much is totally obscured. Treachery? Rebellion? Only the most broken images transmit the scene of panic and destruction.)

The Master has. broken away! Now at the lowest ebb, greatest drain of energy... he has fled. Controls are locked, all power resources cut off. Trapped--only enough energy to defend the dome. Beyond the dome screens, the city lies in blazing death. Sacrifice unavoidable--last energy must power the dome defense screen.

The traitor escapes. The ship rises into the air. He tries to break through their attack. But he has doomed himself--there are not enough to control the ship, nor sufficient power to defend it long.

(Images separate into bewildering divergence. Only a few intense impressions stand out from the blurred chaos.)

Flight/pursuit/battle. Concussions shake the universe, metal hull fuses and sags. Cannot escape. Defense screens fail. Engines destroyed. Falling, falling. Attack moves away, they pursue the ship, they are burning it from the sky. Strikes the ground, final power absorbs blow, ripping through forest, bursts apart. They have won. Crawl from the wreckage... pain, strength failing. Across the forest, need to get clear. The ship glowing cinders under their fire. Cold. Cold/pain/weakness/ dark...

The attack withdraws, watchful. Satisfied with destruction of ship, Arellarti in ruins. Power broken. Defeat. Only last defense holds. Cannot penetrate. Energy source cut off/locked shut, power grid destroyed. Helpless until [returns]. Need to maintain defense until final reserves exhaust...

The images grew dim, monotonous. Through deep twilight the fallen city was viewed. Survivors crawled about the ruins, broken and leaderless, slipped into degenerate barbarism. Centuries seemed to pass over the slumbering ruins. At times glimpses of strange shapes flashed by, but no new attack came. The sea grew stagnant and receded, left a marshy corpse across which a blighted extension of the surrounding forest crept. The swamp swallowed up Arellarti, stealthily crawled into its empty streets. Time began to rot away even the impervious mottled stone; the central dome itself was not spared.

All power exhausted, Bloodstone lay waiting within the crumbling dome--only the faintest glimmer of. crystalline life yet burning. At times the Rillyti, savage misshapen descendants of the city's builders, fearfully entered the chamber to perform certain demented rituals before Bloodstone. In their murky minds' still. lived memory of their ancient power, of Bloodstone, but their rites were only superstitious remnants of the old knowledge, useless abominations, seemingly. The secrets of Bloodstone were lost to them--surviving only was twisted legend.

And finally Kane saw himself entering the dome, felt the indescribable hope/craving that observed/directed his actions. The sudden release of fantastic energy. Freedom from the centuries of powerless waiting. The resurgence of life.

Rebirth!

The alien union of dual existence suddenly returned. But with a significant difference.

Kane was no longer a drifting observer within Bloodstone's consciousness.

The coruscating stream of light that had engulfed him for only seconds receded into Bloodstone, and Kane slumped across the stone crescent in a sleep far deeper than death.

A flash in the firelight, the dagger spun across the room and stabbed its quivering fang into the overturned table braced against the far wall. The blade's tip was embedded into the edge of one of three tiny circles clustered about the smaller one in the center.

"Twelve more to my total, Teres!" exclaimed Lord Malchion jubilantly. "Make your last throw carefully--you'll need a ten at least, or Lian's gift warms my bed tonight!"

Teres left off from stroking the nervous slave girl's tousled hair, and squinted through the flickering light. "Lying lecher! I can see from here your blade's stuck an inch off the side of your twelve points!"

Lord Malchion drank a derisive toast, wine trickling over mustache as he upended the flagon. "Your eyes that bad, Teres, you'd better concede now, before you gouge up the wall. My blade cuts well into the circle--get your fat ass over here and see for yourself!"

Laughter rumbled from the several other men who lounged about the paneled chamber. "It's half into the circle, all right. You'll need a good throw, Teres," called Lian, as unofficial referee. Lian, a freelord from Wollendan's northern coast, had only this day pledged his sword and more than two hundred of his men to Malchion's service. The lean captain had presented his new lord with a honey-skinned slave girl, bartered--cheaply for her inexperience--from the tribesmen who roamed the fringes of the Salt Desert upon the Southern Lands' eastern shore. Malchion had responded to the gesture with a sumptuous banquet and, many gallons of wine into the night, Lian was aroused to observe the Breimen lord and his heir quarreling over first night with the girl. A succession of drunken insults had led to a raucous contest, with chestnut-haired Cosmallen to serve the winner's pleasure.

"Come on, Teres!" Malchion taunted. "Look for yourself, if you won't trust a doting father's word! Come check it before I yank my knife free!" He chuckled with the ebullience of one who expects victory and waved for another cup of the sweet native wine. In younger days men called him "the Wolf," an epithet earned by his feral zest in battle and hunt. Four decades past the day he first drew blood in combat, his ferocity was undimmed, though physically Lord Malchion was beginning to mirror the years of hard living. The Wolf's stocky frame had grown fleshy of late, giving a false impression of corpulence that was denied by the unleached strength of his shoulders, his swaggering step with just the suspicion of a limp. Flushed with the exuberance of wine, his face seemed eased of the lines of age, the stains of riot; no gray streaked his yellow hair, although the disordered tangle of greasy locks began to grow thinner. Malchion stood firm like a great oak against the winds of time, but his teeth showed rot, and one suspected that unseen decay lurked elsewhere, as well.

Teres stood up with a tight-lipped frown and echoed his toast. Wine shone a rivulet along the straight scar that traced an oblique path across beardless cheek. "Shifty tub of guts! Leave your dirk where it stands, or I'll skewer your greedy hand to the board! Let it alone, and in a second you can contrast yours to a well-thrown score!"

The Wolf's cub' proffered blue-gray tempered steel to Cosmallen's red lips. "Kiss my blade for luck, pretty-pretty, for you'll find my kisses sweeter than that sway-backed goat's!" Cosmallen uneasily complied.

Calculating the throw with assumed nonchalance, Teres shrugged tension from well-trained muscle and raised the knife. Despite the wine, there was smooth coordination in Teres's arm as it drew back and uncoiled with lithe strength.

The dagger flew toward target with apparent accuracy. But Teres had fumbled the release, and the knife struck the circle hilt first, its impact dislodging Malchion's weapon. Both blades dropped to the floor with a derisive clatter.

"Thoem! That was a lovely bit of work! Damn near stuck that in my foot, you did!" Malchion howled with amusement.

Teres's face was livid. "The knife slipped in my fingers! It was the lip rouge this bitch smeared on the blade! Damn you, you bloated bag of wine puke! Stop your idiot's giggling! No--keep it up till you're apoplectic! I was fouled, and I'll damn well take another throw!"

"Oh, you were fouled--your head befouled with wine!" Malchion crowed. "You asked for her kiss, and you got it--the only one you'll have tonight! As final judge and chief arbiter, I declare myself the winner and this contest ended... before my wolfling's wild casts injure our gentle spectators! Watch the temper, Teres, and next time don't forget whose hands taught you to throw a knife, nor try again to match keenness of eye and head for drink with the old master! Sorry, dear daughter, but Cosmallen is the Wolf's prize tonight! Aahrr-rooo-oo!"