Spires of Infinity (9 page)

“Kinda ungrateful of them,” Michael said.

“My people,” Marce’s voice cracked as she said it, eyes welling with tears. “My poor, poor people. They’ve been led astray and they don’t remember that if I die, so does their world. They will kill me because this Apostle teaches that I am evil and false, and then their world will begin to crumble again. They will cry to their new god to save them, but no salvation will come. Any repentance they offer then will be too little too late.”

Marce, goddess of the World Tower, the Empress Oracle, burst out into tears,

burying her face in her hands as she wept.

Moving to her side, Kari knelt and put her arm around the small, weeping

goddess. “I’m so very sorry.”

“My people,” Marce sobbed. “My beautiful, wonderful, precious people. Who

will look after them when I am gone? Who will make the land fertile and keep the unbroken peace? Oh, my poor, poor people. How could they have let themselves be led astray so easily?”

“We’ll take you with us,” Kari said. “We’ll take you away from this tower and the army until things blow over. We’ll protect you from the Apostle.”

“No,” Marce cried. “No! I can’t leave. If I stray very far from this tower the land will begin to die again. If I were to run away, those that are still faithful to me will suffer with the unfaithful. So long as even one person believes in me, I must stay. Even though they have turned against me, I cannot leave them to the destruction that will follow my departure. I love them too much. Even if I die for it, I cannot leave. I must give them as much time as I am able. Can you understand how much I love them? It is not their fault that they were misled. I can’t let them rot in their mistakes just to save myself. Long ago, I gave my life and happiness that they might have a chance to survive.

I will stay until they find a way in and kill me, because I wish them to survive for as long as is possible.”

Marce began sobbing so hard that whatever more she had to say was

unintelligible. Kari held her tightly, rocking her back and forth, doing what she could to comfort her in her anguish.

“How could anyone be so evil, selfish and ungrateful as to want to kill this

selfless, caring child,” Michael said in an odd way, as if he wanted every syllable to be heard perfectly by everyone in the room. “Anyone that thinks to kill her because some stranger showed up and told them she is a false goddess should be ashamed of

themselves. She has given them everything that they have. She has imprisoned herself here just so that they can have peace and happiness, and this is how they repay her for it?

How could anyone possibly want to kill her?”

Kari gave him a quizzical look and he shot her an exaggerated wink and a broad, toothy grin.

“Mistress,” Markus cried from where he’d seated himself at a computer. “The

army! It’s dispersing!”

Marce choked off in mid sob, rigid in Kari’s arms with shock.

“W-what,” she managed.

“They’re all packing up and leaving,” Markus cried triumphantly.

“
Oops
,” Michael said with an extremely satisfied look on his face. “So
that’s
what that button does. I seem to have broadcast our entire conversation to the army camping on your doorstep. Clumsy me.”

Marce wiped at her eyes and nose with her sleeve and stood, a look of disbelief on her face.

“But my vision,” she said uncomprehendingly. “I saw my death. Nothing could

avert it. Markus, I need to see!”

An image of the base of the tower appeared in the air before them. All of the people, mostly farmers by their clothing and improvised weapons of pitchforks and axes, were picking up their things, taking down tents, and leaving in a slow trickle. A figure in a hooded black cloak and mask ran around wildly waving his arms, trying to make them stay.

“Looks like the Apostle just lost any sway he had over your people,” Michael

said. “The least I could do for such a pretty little goddess as yourself.”

Marce stood, looking at the image with utter disbelief on her face. “But I saw the end of the world. It was so certain.”

“If there’s one thing we’ve learned living with the greatest seer in the universe,”

Jonathan said, “it’s that you can never get away with
any
sort of prank around him. If there’s two things we’ve learned, it’s that no matter how certain a future may seem, nothing’s ever set in stone.
You
make the future, not your visions.”

“Oh thank you,” Marce cried. She ran to Michael and threw her arms around his waist, hugging him tightly.

Michael patted Marce’s back comfortingly and shot a grin at Kari. “Tell me I did good, little sister.”

“Oh you did
more
than good,” Kari said with a grin of her own. “You were
brilliant
! How did you even think to do that?”

Michael shrugged. “When you’ve spent as long as I have learning how best to

annoy people and make trouble, it just comes naturally.”

“Amen to that,” Jonathan agreed, looking slightly put out that he hadn’t thought of it first.

“Look at him,” Michael said with a laugh. “Poor little Apostle. Lost all his friends.”

Alone at the base of the tower, the black cloaked figure hunched over and hugged himself. Kari couldn’t tell for sure, but she thought that he might be crying, or at least shaking with rage. Straightening, he kicked at the ground, throwing what looked like one hell of a tantrum.

Ruffling Marce’s hair, Michael smiled warmly down at her. “The tears of a

goddess wash away all false teachings from the minds of her people. No one as selfless as you deserves to die. I think your people will remember what their goddess does for them for a very long time now.”

“But I’m not a goddess. I just got caught in an accident.”

“You don’t need to be born in divinity to find it somewhere along the way. You
are
a goddess to these people, so don’t you forget it.”

“I can never repay you for this.”

“Let’s see that beautiful smile of yours. That’s payment enough.”

And Marce did smile at that, beaming up at him, her entire countenance seeming to shine with it.

*****

The Apostle of Cain marched twenty paces, turned on her heel and marched back.

Words could not express the anger and frustration that filled her. After the life she’d led, one might expect her to have more patience, but her temper had always been very short.

She’d been so
close
! This world had technology to bore holes through space and, more importantly, time. That was
exactly
what she needed. How could people who believed so fervently in Cain possibly turn on her after just a few words from their false goddess?

It was so ridiculously improbable that she wanted to scream.

The strong space-time anomaly that sustained the life of this world was exactly what the Apostle needed. If she’d just been able to kill the false goddess and take it for her own, the ability to travel through time, as well as space, would have been hers. With that, she could go back to the time before the Council made her slaughter the other Subjects, and slaughter
them
instead.

Everything had all been so easy. The power granted her as Cain’s Apostle had

twisted the hearts of all that heard her words. How could everything have gone so wrong!

Recovering this world would be impossible. She knew that she was beaten, and

would have to start again on a different world. Though trained for centuries to do battle, the Apostle did not harbor any delusions of being able to storm that tower alone. Who knew what sort of security systems it had on the inside. The thought of exercising her newly earned powers again sent a thrill through her that was not quite enough to dampen her rage at how easily she’d been foiled.

Stirring in her mind, Cain was always there now. After her baptism in the Eye of Perdition, the only thing that caused him to flee her skull was pain. Sometimes she deliberately cut herself just to be free of him for a time, but her body healed far too rapidly for that to last very long. He saw everything that she saw, felt everything that she felt, and knew everything that she thought. It was both humiliating and a violation of the highest degree. None of her most private thoughts and desires escaped his notice.

Her desire for revenge amused him, and he even seemed willing to help her

avenge the Subjects. Cain’s presence within her mind had come with the power to twist people’s hearts, see into their souls, and force them into mental confrontations with their worst fears. She could drag out every impurity and lay it bare for them to see now, whether she understood them or not. How she longed to use this ability on the Council.

“I will begin again,” the Apostle said aloud. “Another world, another chance for revenge.”

She grasped the crystal that hung from her neck and felt reality bend around her.

She would serve Cain as diligently and faithfully as she had to. And when she finally set him free, and they stood face to face, she would destroy him.

In the back of her mind Cain laughed.

*****

“What just happened,” Kari asked.

The Apostle had stopped pacing, grabbed something around his neck and

vanished.

“He’s gone,” Jonathan said. “Did you see that purple flash?”

“Like when we jumped to this world,” Michael agreed.

“He has a shard of the Gate too,” Kari said, touching her own crystal shard

hanging between her breasts.

“How’s that possible,” Jonathan asked. “Dad has complete control of the Gate.

How did the Apostle get a piece of it?”

“Now we come to the part that concerns you three,” Marce said as she seated

herself again, gesturing to Markus. The image from outside disappeared. “Please, be seated.”

“You know something about our future,” Kari asked as she sat.

“Yes,” Marce nodded, looking each of them in the eye in turn. “I have seen a

great darkness descending upon all of creation. This darkness threatens not only my world, but every other as well. I see the stars going out one by one. I see life extinguished and chaos ruling over all. Something is coming. I do not know what it is, but I do know that if it ever arrives here it will bring about the end of time itself. I have foreseen that the only people that have a chance to stop it, are you three, and some others that you will meet along the way. Most important of them all will be one like you.”

“Like me,” Kari asked, pointing at one of her fox ears, “you mean like this? A Heretic?”

“Yes,” Marce nodded. “I do not know if he is male or female, what he looks like, or where you might find him. I only know that if you do not have this person with you when you face the coming darkness, you will fail, and all will be lost. This person will make a great sacrifice that only he can make, and it will take quite a bit of convincing for him to see the necessity of it, then, and only then, will the darkness be averted.”

“That sounds very ominous,” Michael said.

“Very ominous indeed,” Jonathan nodded.

“Can’t someone else do it,” they said together. “We hate anything that resembles work.”

“Thank you for telling us these things,” Kari said

“I wish that I could tell you more,” Marce sighed, “but such is not the way of my sight. I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Kari said. “We’ll keep our eyes out for

another Heretic.”

“Well,” Michael said. “I think we’ve done well for our first adventure.”

“Indeed,” Jonathan agreed. “We really should be getting on to the next. We

wouldn’t want to keep the looming, formless darkness threatening to bring about the end of time itself waiting would we?”

“You two are such idiots,” Kari said with a laugh.

“But you just called me brilliant not ten minutes ago,” Michael protested.

“Fine,” Kari smiled. “You’re a brilliant idiot.”

“Won’t you stay for the night at least,” Marce asked. “After all that you’ve done for me, I have done little to show my gratitude. At least let me give you a feast to see you on your journey.”

Kari didn’t need to look at the twins to know that they were practically drooling with the mention of a feast. For beings that did not need to eat very regularly to maintain their strength they sure could pack it away given the opportunity.

“I think we can stay one night at least,” she nodded.

Chapter 9: Half Night

There were many things to trouble Gabriel as he and his guides rode deeper into the wasteland, but for some reason, the most troubling of them was the fact that he still had his watch. None of his other possessions had turned up, only the watch. There had to be
some
reason for it. Or perhaps the Northern Sage had only left it to him in order to taunt him. The man seemed sadistic that way. It was useless on this world anyway, and that did not speak well to how any of his other electronics might have fared. He kept it anyway, unable to bring himself to throw away the only link he had to his old life.

Despite the fact that his watch was currently running backwards at varying

speeds, as near as Gabriel could tell, the day and night cycle of this strange new world lasted about forty hours.

Beginning the day off with ten hours of light, the red giant sun rose in the east and the massive, colorful planet rose in the west. The planet eclipsed the sun at midday for four hours of relative darkness, and then the sun would reemerge for another ten hours of daylight. Then came six hours of dark night, followed by four that were lit up as bright as day by several moons in the sky catching the light of the unseen sun. Then there were six more hours of dark night before the sun and planet rose again in the east and west. It was an astronomer’s wet dream, but it made for a very strange sleeping schedule.

Sam called the midday eclipse half night, and insisted that they stop and sleep for a few hours during this time. And the time in the middle of the night when the moons shone brightly was called half day and she insisted that they use the time for traveling.