18
Phantoms
Uurz was a great circle of flame and rubble. The bodies of Men and Giants were cinders scattered across its blackened interior. A host of winged lizards spiraled above the flames like black vultures, searching for the wounded and dying. Above the flocking Trills the ranks of dreadnoughts floated among columns of black smoke.
North of the inferno Zyung the Conqueror lay salted and dwindling, sinking swiftly into the stomachs and souls of his most powerful slaves. Yet they were slaves no more. Word of the High Seraphim’s betrayal had not yet reached the armada, but like the rising smokes it would soon engulf the dreadnoughts.
Khama soared into the clouds east of the Holy Armada and then sped south across the unspoiled grassland. When the burning city seemed no larger than a bonfire on the north horizon, he opened his great maw and bellowed a roar that shook the plain. His Serpent body coiled and flashed sun-bright above the flatland, the second part of his prearranged signal.
As if some cosmic sleeper had awakened from a dream of flaming death, two things happened at once. First, the walls of the flaming city on the north horizon vanished, along with its toppled towers, shattered palace, and the charred bones of its Men and Giants. Second, the granite ramparts of the true Uurz appeared below the Feathered Serpent, its golden spires gleaming in the purple dusk. Like a desert mirage it shimmered into existence, along with the surrounding roads and plantations that had remained unseen.
Before the city’s double gate stood thirteen armored legions of Men, with a fourteenth legion of Giants. Dahrima and her spear-sisters stood among the ranks of anxious Udvorg. D’zan of Yaskatha sat upon a mailed warhorse at the front of the Uurzian vanguard. Vaazhia the Lizardess stood tall as a Giant at his side. Her crimson eyes were vivid with sorcery.
The Holy Armada of Zyung floated now above a great, burning ring of grassland north of Uurz. The phantom city conjured by Vaazhia had faded into nothingness, along with the phantoms of the six sorcerers defeated by Zyung. The false city and its defending legions had been as real as the Nameless Folk that served the lizardess during her isolation, yet also entirely unreal. Conjurings of dust and vapor, shadows and light given substance by Vaazhia’s willpower, guided by her imagination. While the armada had set the phantom city aflame, the real Uurz and its legions had stayed hidden beneath a cloak of sorcery a league to the south.
Until Khama’s signal, when the lizardess dropped her great mantle of phantasms.
Of the seven who battled the God-King before the gates of the phantom Uurz, only Iardu had been more than a clever apparition. “There must be some truth at the heart of any good lie,” the Shaper had insisted. “Zyung knows me better than any of you. When he sees my own reality, he will believe these phantoms to be my true allies. And when they are all vanquished, he will relish his victory over me. In that moment, when I claim the whole of his attention, Lyrilan must strike.”
The ruse had succeeded. Now, while the devouring of Zyung’s corpse claimed the attention of his sorcerers, the true battle for Uurz must begin.
D’zan raised a war horn to his lips and blew a mighty note. The true Men and Giants of Uurz charged across the steppe between them and the burning field. By the time they reached the outskirts of the conflagration, there must be foes upon the ground for them to slay.
Khama swept downward and Vaazhia leaped upon his back. He swung about and flew ahead of the charging legions. Their massed battle cries echoed his roar.
As the burning patch of earth grew nearer, Vireon grew once more to the height of a mountain, his greatsword raised high as both salute and beacon to the advancing legions. Khama sensed terror spreading across the decks of the dreadnoughts. Two thousand sky-ships hovered still above the flames in their concentric pattern of assault, yet Vireon’s head and shoulders rose far above them. The point of his blade pierced the clouds, sending a heavy rain to douse the flames at his feet. The befuddled Trills glided about the columns of his legs, a cloud of gnats caught in the tempest.
Vireon wore a crown of stormclouds now, aglow with crimson lightning.
In the moment before Khama reached the outermost ring of ships, Vireon swept his greatsword across the sky. Thunderbolts leaped across the blue blade, and a great wind rushed before it, tearing sails and masts from their moorings. The gleaming razor’s edge of the blade sliced through the first rank of dreadnoughts as a scythe reaps stalks of wheat. Golden hulls burst apart like cloven melons, spilling their silvery contents toward the plain. Vireon’s arc continued, shearing through the second rank of dreadnoughts, and the innermost third. A single stroke of the behemoth blade slashed half the armada to splinters. A sea of warriors and wreckage fell upon the blackened, muddy steppe. A great number of Trills were caught in the plummeting debris and torn from the sky.
A few motes of light, Lesser Seraphim trained to fly in their crystalline orbs of power, darted between the falling debris, casting deathlights at Vireon. They were less than stinging wasps to him. The Giant-King’s arm had reached the end of its arc, pausing before a reverse sweep that would split the rest of the fleet to kindling.
In the moment of that pause, Khama belched lightning toward the first dreadnought in his path, while Vaazhia tossed a bolt of crimson flame. The ship exploded, sending more of the horde plummeting to earth. Khama swung about as Vireon’s right arm began its dreadful backstroke. Yet many of the dreadnought captains were swift thinkers. Their unbroken ships dropped downward, as if the invisible strings holding them airborne had been cut. The blade roared past above them, taking down another hundred vessels that were not fast enough to avoid it. A second rain of bodies, splintered beams, and cloven Ethus Trees fell upon the first.
Several hundred ships had reached the smoking plain unharmed, hovering just above the ground. Broad ramps sprouted from their hulls, and ranks of shouting Manslayers poured from their decks. Their commanders had spotted the charging Legions of Uurz, and now the ranks of Manslayers rushed to meet them. The sky was clear of dreadnoughts, but the plain swarmed with the unleashed legions of Zyung. They flooded in thousands from the surviving ships.
The Men of the Stormlands and their Giants were still outnumbered forty to one.
Never was there a salt such as this…
Sungui filled her mouth with a handful of Zyung’s essence, her head spinning, the light of his power streaming from her eyes. She was drunk on his Almighty potency, as were they all. They crawled across the last of his white mound, slurping the salt of divinity and moaning their pleasure. Heedless of those who watched them with silent condemnation, they devoured the one who had Diminished them for so many ages, sick with the boundless pleasure of it.
Her eyes caught Ianthe, spilling a stream of the pale grains into her own mouth, and, beyond her, Gammir biting into a congealed fragment. And there was fat Durangshara, who would not spare a single grain, and mighty Eshad, sweet Myrinhama, the alchemists Darisha and Gulzarr, and the triplets Johaar and Mezviit and Aldreka. And seven hundred more devourers of the High Lord Celestial’s immortal essence. The coven had swiftly salted and devoured those High Seraphim who refused to heed Ianthe’s call, yet two hundred more had joined the rebels this day rather than face destruction. Consuming the essence of their fellow Diminished ones while Iardu and his allies battled Zyung was nothing compared to ingesting the Almighty himself.
It was almost too much power.
The coven’s cries of ecstasy rose like glorious songs of shame and debauchery. They gloried in this consumption. If there had been any less of them, Sungui doubted they could have contained the power coursing through their bodies.
Her mind reeled, and she swayed atop the salt-mound. Soon the last of Zyung would be gone. Great thunders broke overhead, and the flames of Uurz were quenched by a torrential downpour, yet the coven paid attention to none of it. They rolled on their backs among the flattened grasses, caught in the terrible, transcendent rush of Zyung’s ingested essence. Sungui struggled to keep her feet. The Emperor of Uurz stood nearby with his sorcerer allies, watching as the seven hundred slurped up the remaining salt, which had mingled with the mud and rain.
Visions fell upon Sungui like waking dreams, fragments of Zyung’s scattered consciousness. An abyss of stars, seething with stellar eruptions. A primordial sphere of swamps and volcanoes. The dark temples of forgotten ages. A sea of blood and flame. Multitudes of tiny lives, flickering into existence and fading into nothing, numerous as the stars themselves. A continent teeming with savage life, endless wars, rivers of red and collapsing spires of crystalline wonder. Shapes and forms without name…
Memories.
She did not want Zyung’s memories. Only his power. Only freedom from his long rule, the opportunity to roam this world and beyond as she desired. The shattering of his empire, the death of his great dream. The untold power of her primal self.
Yet there was something else in the salt. Iardu had placed it there.
In the depths of the dark dreams spinning like stormwinds inside her head, there blossomed a deep and abiding warmth. A calm eye in the hurricane of thought and sensation. It grew like a golden lotus, spreading petals across the garden of her mind.
She saw unborn infants sleeping in the wombs of their mothers, like the world itself held in the embrace of the cosmos. The tears of lovers fell like sweet rains across her altering mind. The strong arms of Men building high walls and proud towers, the breath of mercy bestowed from one brother to the next. The innocence of children found in every soul that manifests into the living world. A boundless ocean of light containing all that lives, all that is yet to live, and all that has lived.
A sense of undeniable unity, heavy as the gravity of stars.
Oneness.
I will never be the same…
She wept tears bright as quicksilver. Those reeling in the salt about her did the same.
Iardu has poisoned us.
No.
He has enlightened us.
Sungui was on her knees now. Ianthe and Gammir stood over her. They grasped her hands, pulling her up. There were no tears in their eyes, yet they grinned as well-fed wolves must grin over the corpse of their kill. The rest of the seven hundred still lay senseless and dreaming in the rain, intoxicated by the power of guzzled divinity. Lost in the throes of an unexpected enlightenment.
“Is it not wonderful?” the Panther said. “Never have I had such a feast!”
Gammir howled at the storming sky.
Iardu lay nearby in the arms of a weeping girl. Lyrilan stood before them, his crown of emeralds slickened by rain. Thunder and lightning tore the sky where ruined Uurz no longer stood. Only now did Sungui realize that the conquered city had disappeared. Dreadnoughts were falling from the sky like dead birds. A dark mountain in the shape of a Man stood with its back to the coven’s feast. A steely whirlwind soared across the sky beyond the titan.
“I have delivered my side of the bargain,” said the Emperor of Uurz. “Will you honor yours? Or stay and be salted like your God-King? Make your choice now: Retreat or Annihilation.”
Before Sungui could find her own voice, Ianthe spoke for her. “We may do what we please, Scholar King. These seven hundred no longer serve a God-King; they rule the Living Empire now. If we decide to remain and devour Uurz as we have devoured Zyung, then that is what we will do.”
Lyrilan’s dark eyes flashed. “Then I will send you all to salt.”
“No!” Sungui shouted. She raised a trembling hand to stay the sorcerer who was also Scholar and Emperor. “We will honor the words of the scroll, as you have honored them. Ianthe does not speak for us, only for herself. We will take our surviving ships and go now.”
Ianthe turned upon her. “You are weak, Sungui. The essence of Zyung should have made you strong. You need not fawn before this overproud boy.”
“Leave us in peace,” said Lyrilan. “I care not what you do with Zyung’s lands, but this land belongs to us. You must never return here.”
“Ianthe,” said Sungui, “we, too, have an agreement. If you wish to conquer the Land of the Five Cities you must do it without the Seraphim. We will return to our side of the world.”
Ianthe laughed. “Your honor is above reproach, Sungui the Venomous. They should rename you Sungui the Honorable. I would return with you now to witness the death of Zyung’s dream, and to revel in the red chaos of its dissolution.”
Sungui was ambivalent. She would enjoy more of Ianthe’s burning passion, yet she would have to endure the icy presence of Gammir. There was no separating the two. Still, the Panther and Wolf were inconsequential in the light of Sungui’s newfound state of being.
It does not matter. We have changed, even if these two have not.
“Your decision is most wise,” Lyrilan said to the Panther. “For if you remain here, it will be as salt in the bellies of Vireon and the Feathered Serpent. Go with these Eaters of Zyung, or hear me speak your true name as you die.”
Suddenly Ianthe was the White Panther again. She roared and snapped at Lyrilan but did not move against him. The dark-haired girl arose to stand at the Emperor’s side. The corpse of Iardu had dissolved into blue smoke behind her.
“Go!” the girl shouted at the Panther and the Black Wolf. Hate swam in her green eyes. “Go and never return!” A blade of starlight appeared in her fist. She struggled to resist using the weapon. How she must loathe Ianthe and Gammir. Sungui felt it pouring off her like a raw heat. Lyrilan put his arm around her shoulders. The Scholar King spoke an ancient word, and he was gone from the plain along with the girl.
Sungui turned to the salty-mouthed figures of the New Seraphim. She raised her white palms to them in a sign of victory. Their eyes met her own. Fresh understanding gleamed there. They had shared her dream of change, seen the eye of the storm inside. Even cruel Durangshara was altered. Only the Panther and Wolf remained the same.
“Let us return!” Sungui rose into the sky and the seven hundred followed her. Panther and Wolf sprouted black wings and joined them. Sungui had promised to leave the Land of the Five Cities to Ianthe, and to give the Living Empire over to her brethren.
She had promised Lyrilan an end to this invasion if his power could send Zyung to salt.
Now she promised herself something new.
We will never be the same.
Alua hovered among the darting figures of the Lesser Seraphim, cracking their spheres with blasts of her white flame. They fell dying to join the piles of wrecked dreadnoughts and bodies below. Vireon snatched them from the air in handfuls, crushing them in his great fists, tiny globes of glass popping into red shards. He waded across the heaps of devastation, his feet smashing dreadnoughts and Manslayers to pulp.
Khama glided between the low-hovering dreadnoughts like an eel, belching lightning and splitting hulls. Vaazhia laughed upon his back, casting spears of flame at the vessels. Khama was pleased to see that they burned far more easily without the protection of their silver-robes.
The Legions of Uurz and Zyung met in a wave of hammering blades and shields. The Giants ripped diving Trills from the sky or hurled spears to impale them. Now Lyrilan and Sharadza appeared above the battlefield, standing on a platform of solid air. Sharadza swelled to the size of an Uduri and leaped to join Dahrima in tearing through the deep ranks of Manslayers. Khama had not guessed Iardu’s apprentice capable of such savage fury. Yet Sharadza had Giantsblood in her veins. To see her wading through a sea of bloodied foes was to understand that she was truly the Daughter of Vod.
A chorus of long, wavering notes rang across the battlefield from a thousand war horns at once. The Manslayer legions, whose vast numbers had already encircled the Uurzian forces, paused and broke away from their foes. The Trills turned back toward the waiting dreadnoughts. The Hordes of Zyung retreated now, as the remnants of Udurum and Uurzian legions had retreated from the Sharrian valley.
Men and Giants rushed to pursue the receding tide of enemies, but now it was Lyrilan’s voice that rang across the sky. “Let them flee! There has been enough death this day! We have won!” His magic ensured that every warrior heard and understood his words.
The land battle had not lasted long, and the Uurzian forces had not suffered greatly from it. The legions erupted into cheers at the words of their new Emperor. Khama watched the horde of Zyungians streaming toward the hills of smoking rubble and corpses. A million foreign lives and a thousand ships had been lost to the sky-reaping blade of Vireon. As the Manslayers had poured from the few hundred intact dreadnoughts, so they flooded back into them now. The glowing forms of Seraphim floated patiently above the last of the boarding legions.
Vireon no longer towered above the heaps of debris. Alua had also disappeared. Khama imagined them somewhere on the other side of the devastation, sharing a private moment of triumph. Then a pillar of Alua’s white flame sprang up and gushed like a torrent across the mounds of bodies and the splintered husks of dreadnoughts. Where the phantom city had stood earlier, there now burned a funeral pyre larger than any in history.
The irony was not lost on Khama: The Zyungians had come to burn Uurz alive, but instead it was their own multitudes of dead who burned.
D’zan sounded his own war horn again. The Uurzians turned away from the rising airships and marched toward their golden city. Floating above the triumphant legions, Khama wondered where the Shaper had gone. Iardu was not among the returning host. Sharadza walked with Dahrima and her spearsisters. The faces of the Uduri were agleam with the thrill of victory, yet the Vodsdaughter’s face was grave, her eyes reddened by tears.
Rain and wind had ceased. A bright moon rose over the horizon. Stars glistened as the calm of night fell upon the world.
Lyrilan rode beside D’zan on a steed made of swirling smokes. Perhaps he had learned the art of weaving phantoms from Vaazhia. The lad was a quick student.
Khama flew toward the walls of Uurz, Vaazhia hugging his great neck.
“Does this bold young Emperor have a Queen?” she asked in the rushing wind.