53

  On the ravaged command deck of OS1012, that fated sword simply flickered out of existence. Now V47 Pilot held nothing at all, though his left hand was still threaded with luminous circuitry (all that remained of OVR-Lord). As for the deck’s human officers, their cloudy tanks had been shattered. Strips of pale flesh sizzled and spat on hot metal all over the smoky chamber. They were very much dead and had been for eons. Nor was that all.

  Electrical fires crackled and hissed on the station’s control panel. The crystal array and OVR-Lord’s podium were entirely gone, cratered right into the deck. More security forces swarmed in through the hatch and several holes, bringing repair and rescue equipment. They got right to work, but Pilot ignored them, turning to Foryu, Raine and Right-Left-Top-Flip, instead.

  All three were damaged. Worse, Right-Left-Top-Flip’s small battle mech cradled a broken sphere. The Block-World ambassador sputtered across the short distance between them, almost not making it. Wordlessly, the alien held out the remains of Red-Blue-Gamma, their very bold ally and friend. Pilot reached forward, but…

  “V47 Pilot,” broke in a security bot. Sec 110, according to his heads-up display. “OVR-Lord has ceased to communicate. There has been irreparable core damage, Sir. The master-command crew are all dead, and Cerulean-1 awaits the rest of the fleet. Orders, Sir?”

  “Me?” replied Pilot, startled. “But I’m not the one in…”

  Thankfully, he was relieved of the need to respond by the sudden appearance of all eight digital actors. The cast of Rogue Flight materialized in a ring around Pilot, Foryu, their empress and the two ambassadors. Ace, Dethknell, Boomer, Ravn, Icebox, Brother, Raptor and N00b took shape from the manna that flooded the deck.

  “We got this, Ghost,” said Ace, whose armor now sported a fresh draug-kill decal. “Do what you have to. Take care of your people.”

  Then, he and the other Entertainment Division actors turned sharply around, forming an outward-facing security line with crackling static between them.

  “We’ll catch up and settle things later, Kid,” quipped Icebox, winking over his armored shoulder before turning away.

  Right.

  V47 Pilot took Red-Blue-Gamma’s broken and blackened shell from the hovering Block-Worlder. One of his video drones was outside of the Rogue Flight barrier, still. He lost contact with it, indicating that they were indeed private.

  As Foryu and Raine gathered near, he ran a series of thorough diagnostic scans, only… the news wasn’t good.

  ‘The Long Spar alien is not a machine, Pilot,’ sent V47. ‘Its biological components have ceased intelligent function. There is life, but no cognition. Organic tissues are being maintained by the circuitry you uploaded, but sentience has ended. Instructions?’

  “You can save him, right, Pilot? Right, you can save him?” demanded the young empress. She’d raised her pink mirrored faceplate, revealing tearful brown eyes and a bloodied face. “Bluey and Top are my bodyguards!”

  She wanted a miracle, but V47 was correct. There was no sign of higher cognitive function at all. Right-Left-Top-Flip wobbled through the air to land on Raine’s shoulder, pulsing,

  “Our peoples have been on the brink of war for centuries, Great Alien Construct. We came to new understanding and friendship during our travels with you and the empress. Red-Blue-Gamma cannot go motionless now. Not with lasting peace so near.”

  “There are scans of us all in the transport system,” replied Pilot, thinking fast. “The most recent would be from our arrival, down at the cargo gate. Foryu, once that comm shadow drops…”

  “I’ll access the transport AI and pull up the alien’s file,” said his companion, smiling. She, too, had retracted her faceplate. Looked grubby and bruised, but just as beautiful as he remembered. “Red-Blue-Gamma won’t know what happened in here, but we can return his mind and fill in all the blank spots.”

  Pilot nodded, feeling relieved… and sad. There was something he had to say to them, now. Something important. Taking a final, long look, scanning all four of them thoroughly, he told the absolute truth.

  “I am the original V47 Pilot. Majesty, the one that you knew was my messenger. He was taken away during the battle, and I’m only here because Foryu freed me from the master’s refuge… temporarily. All my data is back there, and I am not able to stay with you.”

  Raine shook her head vehemently, no.

  “Pilot, you promised,” she cried. “You told me you wouldn’t just go away like everyone else!”

  All he could say was,

  “I love you, and I have no other choice.”

  Then, he broke up into pixels and vanished.

  XXXXX

  First, that powerful sword disappeared, and then the looming data-wall broke apart into flickering snow. Next, everyone clattered in through the window. Marget first, because she was fastest and took up most of the space. Then Salem and Hana together, followed by Monkey and (last of all) Zak.

  Gildyr and Erron cried out, rushing to greet the newcomers. Lord Erron embraced his wife, lifting her off the floor, whirling her in a circle. Both were shaken and hurt, but alive. Whatever he first tried to say to her came out as a long and shuddering groan. Just…

  “Over. It’s over,” he whispered, into the top of her dark, tousled hair. “Finished him, Hani.”

  “Then we have something else to do, Love,” replied Hana, healing his wounds with magic and song. “The children and a handful of loyal people are still in danger on Vernax 3, far in the past. There must be a way to reach them!”

  Meanwhile, Marget, Salem, Monkey and Zak hemmed in the witch, who was still very defiant and dangerous.

  “Try to kill me and I’ll curse you with blindness and shriveled, cold loins!” she sneered, looking from one to another, with the stolen green orc-hand once more clamping her throat.

  Marget spat on the ground at Ulnag’s bare, dirty feet.

  “I would not stain my axe with your blood, witch,” grunted the orc. “The light-wall is gone, and you can follow it. Head-first onto the stones, for all I care, with my arm to keep you in line!”

  This close to the witch, Marget could feel and move her lost limb, like some kind of phantom third arm.

  “I will go, too,” announced Zak, in a voice that was all spinning gears and puffed air. “The Dark Cloud has been freed. I can feel it, and I have business with its current management. This one,” he indicated Ulnag with a slight jerk of his brass head. “…will make a fine deck-swab, given a few hundred years of practice.”

  Nobody argued. Not even the witch, who was already making new plans. As for Gildyr, the newly restored wood-elf had been hard at work. He’d summoned a shower of spores to land on the Fallen One’s twitching remains. Cast a short druidic spell then, murmuring,

  “Return to the cycle, both of you. Death begets life, and souls return to the well. That is the will of Nature, whom you’ve balked long enough.”

  At his gesture, pale fungus bloomed and spread through the corpse. With blazing speed, the cadaver first bloated then shriveled, finally disintegrating altogether. A breeze from the window took the last traces of Arvendahl out of the shrine, cleansing Far Keep of dense, ancient evil.

  As the healing spring filled and the lights came on, Gildyr went over to stand near the last place he’d seen Valerian; the spot where they’d made eye contact, before the high-elf vanished.

  “Wherever you are, I wish you good fortune and very glad tidings, my friend,” whispered the druid. “May you find peace and well-being, at last.”

  Salem padded across the floor to stand with him, lashing her gold-banded tail.

  “And what of us, druid?” she asked softly. Monkey was back in tattoo form, already, arms folded behind his gold head, napping. “Are we doomed to remain in this ptah place forever? Exiled, until we join Mrowr in that haunted wreck of a ship?”

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  Gildyr turned from his thoughts and gave her a smile, his brown eyes beginning to sparkle again.

  “I’d like to return to Lobum and see if the trees are still petrified, or if anything’s started to sprout. After that… Well, we could look for the tanglewood dryad, then find your oasis.”

  “Distant Sands,” supplied the tabaxi. Her face couldn’t smile, but her ears swiveled forward, and her whiskers fanned out. “Yes. I would like that.”

  It was a fresh start. Something to do while the Dark Realm came back to life. A place to venture, as creatures and people long gone emerged from storage to find their world utterly changed.

  XXX

  In the heart of a giant, time-locked machine, the fated sword struck its blow and then shattered. Even its hilt crumbled to powder, leaving Valerian armed with nothing at all but magic and alternate selves. He’d reached in with the blade and severed the link that bound his villainous former master to Chaos. And yes, judging by all that thrashing, it hurt.

  Sherazedan’s many thin cross-sections rotated sharply, then blinked out of sight. Maybe dead, maybe removed from this plane of reality. Val didn’t have time to react, though. The young elf started to turn, looking for Alfea, but a crushing pressure seized hold of him. Bands of crackling force shot out of that giant machine. They locked onto Valerian, dragging him into the center of an enormous void. He gasped in white-hot, blinding pain as the machine resumed motion, but then…

  “No,” ordered Firelord. He left the protection of Val/ Miche/ Pilot, shining like a beacon in front of the shackled elf. “That is enough. I will serve in the stead of My follower. There is no place in this world now for gods. Why should I linger, when all of the others are gone?”

  “My lord,” Val objected, feeling first Miche, then Pilot drain out of him, too. “You don’t have to do this. I knew what would happen. I accepted the burden.”

  Alaryn Firelord smiled at him.

  “You were My shelter, in a place where I had no power. I will serve in your stead, giving you back what you gave to Me. The wheel turns, Valerian, and gods live a very long time. There is hope, and perhaps you will find it. Now, go.”

  That awful, grinding weight shifted, letting him breathe again. Fiery bands detached from Valerian, moving to fasten themselves on the Lord of Battles, instead. The young elf lunged forward, summoning weapons.

  And reality blinked. Suddenly there was no machine. Just a dusty and cluttered shop with tottering shelves that seemed to stretch on forever. His form reverted to normal between one breath and the next: batwings and tail entirely gone. His hands were no longer clawed, Val noticed. Also, he wasn’t alone.

  Just ahead, on a very long counter, sat an elderly mostly bald gnome. There was a sour look on her withered face, and no other customers. Val thrust Nightshade back into its scabbard, then felt around in his faerie pockets for objects of value. Came up with a few hoarded treasures, inhaled sharply and went to the counter.

  “You, again!” snapped the gnome, pursing her lips till she looked like a walnut.

  Right.

  Valerian set his few things on that dusty glass counter. Plink, Click, Tock. Then, rearranging them just a bit, he gave the gnome a sharp look and said,

  “I think you are Fate, hiding herself in the guise of a gnome… and perhaps I have earned some more credit, Shopkeeper.”

  The eldress snorted.

  “You’ve barely paid off the last tab, elfling,” she scoffed. “Having a god take your place in the heart of reality was cheating.”

  Val shook his blond head, clenching both fists. His eyes stung and he had to blink furiously, glaring hard at that blurred and wavering gnome.

  “The Shining One took my place out of love, not through trickery or deceit. I would save him if I could. These…” he shoved forward that small pile of childhood treasures and favored mementos.

  “Keep your trash and your coins,” said the gnome. “I have no need of either. But… if you would be willing to try your hand at a vexing conundrum…?”

  Uh-huh. What else did he have to lose? Valerian folded his arms on his chest with a slight rattle and clash of armor.

  “Yes. I will answer your riddle as well as I can. What is the question, Shopkeeper?”

  Her face softened a little, smoothing out a few thousand years of wrinkles.

  “Just this: Which matters more? The needs and fate of the many, or those of a single person? Think carefully, elfling, then give me your answer.”

  Val hesitated, surprised. He had expected some fiendish puzzle, like the one that was posed to the hero Damara, in epic fifteen. This, though…

  He pondered a while, paying small heed to the gnome, who drummed her fingers impatiently on the glass countertop. Finally,

  “I don’t believe that there is a good answer, Shopkeeper,” he said to her. “The ‘many’ are made up of individuals and they don’t all want or need the same things. Often, what is best for one will conflict with another. But… nearly anybody would choose to save those they love over some faceless ‘everyone’. I would give anything to return Miche and Pilot to those they care about… to have Alfea and Bean, Cinda and Filimar back… to free my god… but all that I’ve got left to offer is myself, which… is not of much value, it seems.”

  The gnome rocked back on her spindly haunches.

  “That is your answer?” she probed, narrowing eyes that burned like a couple of embers. “Think carefully, elfling. Is that your response to the question?”

  The machine, he thought. That engine of Fate had been stuck on a problem it couldn’t resolve. Had recycled over and over, trying to find a solution. Val took a deep breath.

  “There is no perfect answer,” he repeated stubbornly. “Only what seems best at the time. Is… that what shattered the One God into many? The question that caused your machine to get stuck? Trying to balance All against so many Ones?”

  The gnome didn’t answer directly. Just smoothed her few strands of white hair.

  “You have chosen. The Answer is now recorded,” she told him, adding, “Credit will be allotted, and you’ve wasted enough of my time.”

  She waved a gnarled hand and then…

  Valerian stumbled once, recovered his balance and looked around, blinking. He was back outside at the wreckage of Five Points in Karellon, near sunset. Guards and healers scurried around him like ants, saving whoever they could. A chilly wind stirred the fires that burned up the last of Serrio’s tents. Of the magister himself, though, there was no sign. The air had darkened with smoke and patrolling quetzali. One of them dropped from the sky like a thunderbolt, winding herself in long, feathered coils around Valerian. Alfea it was, with little Bean cradled in a cloth sling.

  “Van!” cried his wife, dropping her spear to embrace him with arms and wings, both. “You’re alive!”

  He hugged Alfea, gasping for air between warm, eager kisses.

  “Alive and free, thanks to Firelord and maybe Lady Fate, who drives a hard bargain… but, what of the others? Has anyone else returned? Also, how long have you been a quetzali?”

  “All my life, Van,” she laughed, taking a short break from kissing and healing him. “There, now, we’ve made the baby fuss. Shh, little one. Shh, little pet… Papa’s come back, just as I promised he would.”

  Val took Bean from her arms, just as another quetzali warrior… this one a big, dark-feathered male… plunged out of the sky with a thump, landing to grin at them.

  “Hey-oh!” he bellowed. “Introduce me, Alfie! High time I met the scoundrel who’s stolen my sister!”

  Alfea rolled her blue eyes, then transformed back into elf-form to make more room.

  “Prince Valerian,” she sighed, “This lout is my brother. His safe, public name is Roderyk… and he’s free of the ban, now. All of us are. We may mingle with elves and mortals, since the gods have lost all their power. There,” she finished tartly. “You’ve met.”

  Roderyk looked him up and down once, then chuckled.

  “Doesn’t seem like much to me,” scoffed the quetzali, shaking his head till the plumage fluffed out. Then, “You any good with a spear, fledgling?” he teased.

  “I bow-fish,” hedged Val, draping an arm around Alfea. Bean was shoving his long, golden hair in her toothless mouth. “I use a spear for the hunt or in battle… but it isn’t really my weapon.”

  Their conversation ended abruptly when a bandaged Alexion strode over, along with Vernax and Sawyer. Everyone started to kneel, but the returned prince prevented them, using a headshake and magical force.

  “No. I want no one’s obeisance. Nothing at all but away from this place, with Her, my people… and this wretched, besotted lizard, who seems to have pasted himself to my side.”

  True, for Vernax was steaming and, well… purring. The dragon was free but unwilling to leave Alexion. Not so Sawyer the griffin, who leapt forward to push his beaked head into Val’s chest, nearly squashing the baby. Alfea shot her husband a look, which he pretended not to notice, focusing on Sawyer and his scowling great-grandfather, instead.

  “You just got here, Sir,” he objected, scratching behind Sawyer’s ears. “Also, I think you’re the emperor now.”

  Alexion shook his head.

  “I officially abdicate, in favor of my daughter Alyanara. Or, if she doesn’t turn up, I’m palming the throne off on you, since you’re present, related and handy.”

  Blood pounded in Valerian’s ears and his vision darkened. Like an awful prophecy, his own joking words came back to him: It would take a terrible catastrophe, indeed, to put me on the Dragon Throne.

  Right. Hah, very hah.

  He saw his great-grandmother then, in her new, elfin shape. She-Once-a-Goddess left off healing the wounded to join her life-mate Alexion. She was impossibly beautiful, still, seeming to shine through the gathering dusk.

  “The gods are no more,” she said simply, reaching out to caress Valerian’s face. “There is still manna, however. That much we saved at great cost.”

  Alfea took the baby as two more people came forward. One was reasonably familiar. An auburn-haired, smiling elf strolled over, carrying a tabaxi kitten in wedding finery that was too big for her. She sat in the crook of his arm in her nest of satin and lace, a banshee no longer. Mandor looked mostly the same; less pale and somewhat less dangerous. He bowed first to Alexion and then to Valerian, saying,

  “Whatever you did in that place was quite effective, youngster… and Fallon and I are out of a job. Perhaps there is a spot in your retinue for a couple of skilled assassins?”

  “I don’t have a retinue,” snapped Val. He was distracted briefly by the spectacle of three paladins hugging and pounding each other, a few yards away. Noisy. Then a young, red-haired elf dragged someone forward to meet him.

  “Your highness!” laughed Hallan (who’d had faith enough to hand him that sword, back when it really mattered). “This is my big brother Varric! He is Falcon’s captain and… and he’s returned! He’s back…”

  Varric bowed low, first to Alexion (who grunted something halfway polite). Next, the aerrior bowed to Val. Hallan’s brother was tall, red-haired and weather-tanned, with a wide, friendly smile.

  “This splinter boasts that he took care of my ship and wielded an epic sword,” said Varric, affectionately mussing his brother’s hair. “But I have my doubts. He always did like stretching a story.”

  And elsewhere?

  XX

  In a distant, healed world, perhaps a wandering elf stepped out of a portal in Far Keep, to be pounded half-dead by those who’d been mourning him.

  X

  Far in the future, maybe a lowly simulacrum took shape once again; V47 Pilot in reality, now. Possibly he scooped up a weeping small girl and then hugged his cyborg companion, using magic and data to repair two tiny and very brave aliens.

  X’

  And, somewhere else entirely, a certain grad student shot bolt-upright, the print of her keyboard pressed into the side of her face. Her swivel chair creaked wildly backward as she lurched to her feet, full of pins and needles, eyes on the glowing computer screen.

  Delete: y/n blinked a glowing cursor and prompt.