No Return (32 page)

“That makes no sense, Father.”

Omali’s irises spun slowly.
Indeed. But sense is hardly a requisite of existence. Strength and strength alone dictates success. Pure will sets the stars and the planets spinning.

Berun dismissed this claim as useless. He had no interest in cosmology or philosophy.

“Why have you brought me here?” he asked.

Omali rubbed his fingers together, producing a sound like singing bowls.
You are here because you sought release. When you pleasure yourself, you become susceptible.
He clapped his hands together and they tolled like bells.
You have been bad, Berun. Very bad. You have kept your mind from me.

“You took control of my body.”

Omali’s eyes widened.
This was a surprise, that I should treat you this way, my own creation? At what point did you begin to consider yourself an autonomous creature? You are not—nor have you ever been—your own man.

Indignation pressed Berun’s hands into fists. “And yet I’ve managed to keep you out for some time.”

Now the eyes narrowed.
Truly. You have discovered that your physical form and my influence over your mind are related. This is a small inconvenience and a greater disappointment to me. In time I will overcome your resistance, but your character is not so easily mended. When I am animate again, you will submit to some adjustment.

Berun parsed this language. The possibility that his father existed without a body had never occurred to him, perhaps because he did not want to consider the implications. He had grown in his father’s absence, had he not? He had always half-believed himself capable of overcoming his father’s dream-specter, but what chance did he stand against the great mage in the flesh? Berun would be defeated, made into little more than a tool. A weapon.

It did not require a vivid imagination to picture the target. Vedas would die, and Churls would very likely die defending him.

The thought of being used to these ends caused a tightening of the spheres in Berun’s shoulders and chest—a slight but distinct darkening of his vision, a wavering of the figure before him. Berun raised his right arm, opened his fist, unsure of his intent.

Stop!
Omali commanded, and the world snapped back into focus, crystallized on him like ice.
You are not a man. You are my creature.

Berun resisted the compulsion to lower his arm. It felt as if a great weight had been attached to his wrist. “You have threatened my friends,” he said, though opening his mouth and forming words took a massive effort.

I have. Your black-suited friend endangers the balance. Adrash’s eyes will soon be upon him. If allowed to live, he may very well throw the world into chaos. You do not see it yet, but you will. He must not fight at Danoor. He must not live.

Omali raised his silvered left hand and touched his index finger to Berun’s fist. As the mage lowered his arm, Berun was forced to lower his own. Omali pointed to the lake floor, which began bubbling. A lake of black tar, boiling, from which Vedas’s body surfaced.

The puppet—for it could not really be the Black Suit himself—opened its eyes and yellow light poured forth, washing out the scene around Berun.

‡

They stood on the mesa of blooming azure flowers where Berun had first recognized his father. At his feet, once again, a sleeping figure—and this time there could be no doubt as to its identity. Remembering the injury from his previous visit, Berun glanced at his right arm and found it whole.

A prediction that will not come to bear
, Omali said. He stood beside Berun, face angled to the sky.
You have disobeyed and disrespected your creator, but you will redeem yourself. You cannot be my sword of justice with a chipped blade.

“The cost of my freedom is a limb?”

Omali’s laughter rang in Berun’s mind.
Freedom? Why, the word means nothing to you.

Berun regarded the body at his feet, its familiar lines. He had tried to see it as Churls did, as a thing of beauty, and failed. Vedas was no more beautiful than Churls, the captain of the
Atavest
, or the Baleshuuk they had encountered on the Steps. Still, his features had become oddly reassuring to Berun.

“I’ll resist you,” the constructed man said. “I’ll win this fight.”

Omali turned. He floated up from the ground, orange and red robes flowing around his thin body as though he had been set aflame. Wind blew across the mesa, causing the flowers to undulate like the surface of the ocean.

You will not even try
, the great mage said, fingers outstretched toward his creation.

Berun struggled to lift his arm again, and then stopped as realization hit. He would not fight in the world his father had created. He would leave. Prepare himself on his own terms, in his own reality. He allowed his anger to build, let it run through his limbs like molten lead, fusing him in place. Heavy brows came together over bluefire eyes. Brass lips curled back from brass teeth. The expression froze.

He felt the pull his father exerted on every sphere in his body, yet he knew with absolute certainty he could withstand the attack. He had buttressed himself, had become his own man through strength alone. Compressing his component pieces together, he locked himself in place against his father’s influence. Deep within his chest, spheres that had always spun stopped their spinning—a fearful but exhilarating sensation.

Indeed, his father had been correct: pure will set the stars and planets in motion.

It could also stop them cold.

You will go no further with this, Berun,
Omali said. He sent a second, stronger wave of force through Berun’s body, trying to bend his creation to his will.
You do not want to force my hand any more than you already have. My compassion extends only so far. If you continue on this path, I will make you suffer. I will scatter you to the eight winds, Berun.

Berun’s strength wavered. He fought the urge to allow himself to expand, to mobilize himself. A voice told him that stopping his spheres would lead to death, but he knew this to be false. He possessed a body just beyond the thin shell of his father’s world. He could escape through concentration, through the force of his will.

Omali laughed.
No. I have closed all the doors.

No, you haven’t
, another voice countered.

Berun looked down. Instead of Vedas, at Berun’s feet lay the girl in white. The girl with blue eyes. Berun’s savior.

She stood, and then rose from the ground until her eyes were level with Omali’s. The folds of her dress did not flutter in the wind. Unbound hair fell straight over her right shoulder, every pale strand in place. Light blazed from behind her, outlining her small form in fire. She was not a part of Omali’s world, yet something of hers seemed to be leaching into his.

Beyond the fact that Berun recognized her from their previous encounter, her features were now vaguely familiar. Her face tickled his subconscious mind, but he had no time to examine it.

She extended her left hand, and the great mage shrank back.

Lavesh atross!
he hissed.
So asfelz! Adramass psua!
He weaved graceful charms with his hands, locking long, thin fingers and releasing them explosively, hurling magma-red spells at her. They sizzled through the air, tearing black rents in the dream reality.

The girl smiled, and with a gesture halted the spells in flight, dissolved them.
All wrong. I know all that stuff, and I’m learning new things all the time. You’re too old to learn anything new.
She held her right hand out to Berun, but her eyes stayed locked on Omali.
We’re leaving. Don’t try this again. I know where you live now.

Who are you?
Omali asked. His eyes had become slits of bright amber. His skin had taken on a purplish hue.

The girl shook her head, smile still in place.
Figure it out on your own. We’re leaving.

“Goodbye, Father,” Berun said.

He took the girl’s hand and they disappeared.

‡

Churls and Vedas woke only moments after Berun. The sun had not yet risen. He spoke nothing of his encounter, and opted out of accompanying them into Sent to fetch the construct horses. A fellow traveler on the trail had provided the names of a few reliable stablemen, but Berun suspected the affair would take much time and haggling—a prospect he did not relish.

Besides, he had much to consider. He watched his companions enter the walled city and then sat down to think.

For the first time in his existence, he noticed a difference between sitting and standing. Resisting Omali had sapped him of energy.

An hour later, the first rays of sunlight found him in a meditative posture, legs crossed, soles upturned on his knees, hands clasped behind his back.

One elbow up, one down—this was now the extent of his flexibility. Just as a man understands he cannot turn his neck to look directly behind him, Berun knew his spheres would no longer rearrange per his command. They were stuck in a matrix, forming one thing only: a bronze man. The solidification he had effected in Omali’s world had crossed over to this one, and stuck. He would no longer form shovels or knives or hammers at the end of his arms. He would no longer carry items within his body. Splitting himself in two and achieving a release,
pleasuring himself
as his creator had termed it, was now impossible.

Though he had gained an advantage over Omali, strengthened his mind against the great mage’s attacks, he had crippled himself physically. He could not rotate his spheres or spread himself like a blanket on the earth to take in sunlight. Without this capability, he was doomed to a life of near-starvation.

His strength would be a weak thing compared to what it was. This was not all. He tried to summon his map of the world, and failed. Devastating losses, undoubtedly—but the suspicion that he had left a stone unturned stayed with him as the morning progressed. Suspicion became dread as certainty lodged within the spheres of his mind. No, he had not yet discovered the worst consequence of his encounter with Omali.

When the full extent of his vulnerability became clear, it seemed he might tumble into the earth in his despair. He recalled the few times he had been impacted heavily enough that a portion of his body shattered into its component spheres. A sensation beyond pain, it was the awareness of dislocation, the opposite of the release he felt when splitting himself in two. Now that he had lost control of his malleable form, rebuilding himself after such an attack would be impossible. He could very well die. Worse, he could be dismantled as Omali vowed, scattered to the eight winds, forced to live in eternal agony. Had he been a fool to ally himself with his companions and the wraithly girl with the tantalizingly familiar face? Had he even considered what it meant for him—a constructed man whose mind had never truly been his own—to trust his instinct?

The future was a depthless abyss, a limitless ocean.

And he had leapt into it without a map or compass.

‡

Motionless, he waited most of the morning for Churls and Vedas to return. By the time they wheeled their steel and brass mounts before him, the sun was near its zenith and he had recovered much of his energy—but could he run for four days alongside the construct horses? Forty, fifty miles a day? He did not know, but resolved to test it. Unless it became obvious, neither of his companions would know the full extent of his limitations. He would not burden them with such concerns.

Undoubtedly, they would soon discover he no longer had access to the map. He had been providing Vedas with daily updates on the movements of men in Danoor. The city itself remained peaceable, but several groups of Tomen had gathered in the foothills of Usveet Mesa, west of the city. While Berun and Churls doubted they could rouse the kind of numbers needed to threaten the city, Vedas thought otherwise.

The man would be disappointed, probably angry to discover he could no longer monitor their activity. The knowledge served as a calmative. Perhaps he believed keeping an eye on the situation kept disaster from unfolding.

Having only just won a small measure of freedom, Berun could sympathize with Vedas’s frustration. His master had commissioned him with a task he no longer quite believed in. His faith bound him, as did his love for the brothers and sisters of the Thirteenth. He had not spoken of the speech in some time, though Berun had seen him scribbling notes on occasion.

Thankfully, Vedas did not ask for an update upon returning from the city. He and Churls secured their packs quietly, obviously preoccupied. She dropped her pack twice while securing it to her horse, and her angry gaze returned to Vedas again and again. In turn, he kept his back to her, far more attentive to his task than necessary.

To keep from staring at them, Berun examined the constructs, which were beautiful, sleek and seamless and overmuscled. Though not without a certain gaudy grace, the utilitarian touches incorporated into their bodies offended Berun. Saddles had been integrated into their backs, metal luggage loops into their rumps, and in Churls’s construct’s case, a crossbow holster into the neck. Riderless, they stood perfectly still.

“What’s so fascinating?” Vedas asked. As he mounted, his horse twitched its head away from Berun, who had been staring directly into its glass bead eye.

It stamped once, twice, glaring at Berun—more of a reaction than he had expected. The construct probably possessed something of the animal from which it had been modeled: a slice of preserved horse brain or heart. Nothing so exotic as the transferred essence of its creator, of course. In this regard, Berun was unique.

He straightened. “Were they expensive?”

Vedas began turning his head toward Churls, stopped himself. “Yes.” Churls spurred her mount forward. Her face betrayed nothing. “Tell Berun how much, Vedas. Tell him how much we could’ve had the horses for.”

Vedas looked into the sky, shook his head. “Leave it.”

“No,” Churls said. She nodded to Berun. “Stable owner recognized Vedas’s suit. Got stares everywhere we went, in fact. Offers for sex, potions, you name it for the Black Suit. But this stable owner offered two for one. A huge discount, but Vedas here doesn’t want it. It’s not right, he tells me.
My faith’s not for sale
.”