In the Shadow of Lightning

EPILOGUE

Professor Sumala Volos lifted her head to the northwest, feeling on edge ever since that horrific sound had blasted through the early-afternoon sky. Everyone for hundreds of miles must have heard it. The birds had only just now started to sing again. Was it man-made? Perhaps an exploding ammunition depot? Or was it natural, like a volcano or a shifting of the continental plates?

She would have to search for answers later.

Volos’s ox-drawn wagon, packed with books and experiments and spare lightning rods to sell to Ossan architects, pulled up in front of the Zorlian Mansion. She had never liked the mansion back when the Zorlian guild-family practically owned Ossa, and she liked it even less now that it was an overgrown, dilapidated ruin. She paused at that thought, allowing herself a snort of derisive laughter. Actually, it was rather nice to see the Zorlian legacy laid so low. They certainly deserved it.

But she hadn’t come here to sightsee or relive bygone memories. She parked her wagon in front of the mansion beside several carriages, noting that two of them were still hitched up to horses. She deduced that one wagon had recently arrived. The other was preparing to leave, and yet there was no one to be seen – no minders, drivers, or servants. The mansion was occupied, that much was obvious by the trodden grass and half-hearted repairs to the structure itself. So where was everyone?

She opened her mouth to taste the air. Death. Anger. Decay. She stretched out her tongue, letting the flavors roll around on it before deciding that the decay of the old mansion was hiding something else, something much harder to describe. It was hiding the taste of eons. She had, she decided, come to the right place.

Volos hopped down and checked the two wagons. One was unmarked. The other – the one that had recently arrived – had cushions marked with the Grappo silic sigil. Fascinating. Clasping her hands behind her back, Volos strolled through the open front door and followed the taste of death.

What she found surprised even her. There were dozens of fresh corpses lying where they’d fallen, their warm blood still spreading across the cracked marble floors. They were human bodies of diverse ages, all of them marked with a small tattoo of a razorglass knife on their right hand. It took her only a few moments to determine that they’d died fighting someone much faster than themselves.

The puzzle grew more interesting as she continued. A path of destruction wound through the middle of the mansion – walls destroyed, doors recently ripped from their hinges. There was blood everywhere, both red and black, and it was the latter that caused her to proceed with greater caution. She stepped lightly, her senses stretched to their limits, pausing to listen at every distant sound.

It was a moan of a dying woman that attracted her attention, and Volos cut through a small, collapsing concert hall and into a new hallway to find even more slaughter. There were another nine human bodies as well as a tenth – massive and alien, gray skin covered in black blood. A tentacled head lay a few feet away, sawed off brutally and discarded.

Volos stared at that head dispassionately for a few moments as she got her bearings, deducing everything that had happened. She dismissed the knife-tattooed acolytes and crouched briefly beside the gray-skinned alien body, touching the skin gently. “I warned you that this wasn’t going to end well,” she said, “but you never did listen to anyone but him.” She lifted her gaze to the human that had killed him; a massive man, practically cut to ribbons, lying slumped in a pool of blood.

She peered harder, surprised that she recognized him. No wonder. It was Baby Montego.

Another moan finally brought her around, and Volos picked her way through the pools of blood over to a woman with a Vorcien silic sigil. The woman had tried to walk away from the fight but hadn’t gotten more than a dozen paces. Her eyes fluttered open as Volos approached and knelt down next to her.

“I…” she rasped, “have to go … for help.”

Volos looked her over. “You have acute resonance poisoning,” she said. Severe glassrot, in layman’s terms. The woman must know this, and yet she still clutched a piece of forgeglass in one hand, no doubt trying to get some extra strength to go for that help she wanted. Volos gently knocked the forgeglass away. “You’ll recover,” she diagnosed, “but you’ll want to go at least a week without any contact with godglass whatsoever and perhaps a month or two after that to feel yourself again.”

“My name … is Kizzie Vorcien. Help me, please. I … will repay … you.”

Volos sat back on her haunches, considering the small silic sigil on Kizzie’s hand. “You’re one of Stutd’s bastards, aren’t you?”

“Yes. Please.” It seemed to take her a monumental effort to speak, and yet she soldiered on. “Baby needs me.”

“Montego?” Volos answered in surprise. “Montego is dead.”

Kizzie’s eyes closed and she shuddered. “No. He can’t be. He was just standing … minutes … ago.”

Volos almost ignored her. The butchered slab of meat that used to be Baby Montego was certainly dead, and yet … when Volos turned toward him, tasting the air, something rolled across her tongue. Life. Willpower. It was tenuous but definitely still there.

Volos returned to Montego and checked his pulse. Incredible. No wonder he had bested the Angry One. She checked Montego’s neck, then under his arms, seeing a mix of both permanent and temporary glassrot scales. The scales were yellow with an orange tinge. “He appears to have an allergy to godglass,” she said, glancing at Kizzie. “Giving him cureglass won’t be enough. He needs surgery immediately.”

“Please,” Kizzie said, “anything you can … do to help.”

Volos sighed. This was not what she’d expected when she followed rumors to this place. She wasn’t ready to get involved yet, and certainly not with the Vorcien. She glanced among all the bodies, considering her options, her thoughts distant enough that she only just heard the sound of approaching footsteps.

“Don’t bother with them,” a voice called. “I intend to dispatch them posthaste.”

She turned to look down the hall toward an older human with short black hair and olive skin who had appeared in a nearby doorway. Volos tasted the air. That sensation she’d touched earlier – the taste of eons passing – came from him. She tensed. “Hello Schemer,” she said.

“Thinking One,” he answered, using her formal name. “It’s been a long time.”

“Not long enough,” Volos sniffed. “What name are you going by these days?”

“Aristanes,” he said, bowing at the waist. “You?”

“Professor Volos.” She returned his bow.

“Ah! I suspected that might have been you. I read your book on lightning rods. Very interesting research. I was not expecting you, otherwise I would have dealt with all this quicker.”

Volos glanced over at Kizzie. The Vorcien’s eyes were half open, attention shifting quickly from Volos to Aristanes and back again. She trembled, but there was fight in her yet. Volos could taste it. “It wasn’t meant to be a formal visit. My publisher asked me to come to Ossa and sign books. I thought I’d search you out and see if you were still trying to kill everyone. I see that hasn’t changed, even if your face has.”

Aristanes glanced distastefully at all the bodies and then touched his chest. “You wound me. I’m the Schemer, not the Conquering One.”

At the mention of another of their kind, Volos felt her eyes narrow. “She’s around here somewhere, isn’t she? I’m surprised you convinced her to help you. I thought better of her than becoming one of your lackeys.”

“She came around.” Aristanes grinned. “Many have. I take it by your tone that you, however, have not.”

“Your grudges bore me,” Volos told him. Even among the Yuglid she was considered distant and dispassionate, and yet Aristanes’s presence stirred feelings inside of her – anger, fear, consternation. She was not surprised to find him sitting just outside the capital of the world’s greatest empire, but it did cause her trepidation. What plans did he have in motion this time? How many millions would die? “You need a hobby.”

“Destroying human civilization isn’t a hobby?” he asked in surprise.

“I meant something like stamp collecting.”

“Ah. You still think I should be like you. That I should assimilate.” A dark gleam touched Aristanes’s eyes. “It’s me or them, Thinker, and the humans never stood a chance.”

Volos nudged Montego with her boot. “This one did. He killed the Angry One in single combat. When’s the last time one of us fell in single combat to a human?”

“An aberration. And soon to be dealt with.”

Volos cursed herself silently and stepped around Montego to stand between him and Aristanes. The Willow always told her she had a soft heart when it came to humans. “I think not.”

Aristanes snorted. “Battle lines have already been drawn. I don’t mind if you watch from the arena walls – I’m not a zealot, after all – but if you get involved I won’t give you a second chance.”

“The Angry One would have wanted his bester spared,” Volos reasoned.

“The Angry One is dead. He failed, so he doesn’t get any final wishes.”

Volos rolled up her sleeves. “I’m taking both of these with me,” she said, reaching down for Montego. She moved casually, as if everything was right in the world, but she watched Aristanes carefully for any sudden moves.

“If you save them, they’ll know what you are.”

“As if we’ve never revealed ourselves to humans before – either of us,” Volos snorted. “They keep secrets better than one might expect.”

Aristanes’s expression grew genuinely annoyed. “Why aid them?”

“Because I like humans, Schemer. They’re infinitely interesting.”

“They usurped our world. I only work to take back what is rightfully ours.”

“As I said, your grudges bore me,” Volos responded. She hovered just over Montego, waiting for Aristanes to either make his move or leave.

“I could kill you now,” Aristanes warned.

It wasn’t a bluff. Aristanes was much older and more experienced, but Volos shook her head all the same. “How long would it take you to grow back your human disguise after I rip it up? How many centuries will it set back your schemes when my sister comes looking for me? I’m not declaring war. I’m not attacking you. I’m just … leaving with a couple of half-dead humans. That’s not a killing offense, and we still live by some codes.”

They stared at each other for several moments before Aristanes finally huffed. “Fine,” he spat. “Take your new pets and get out of my house.” He turned and strode away, not even sparing a glance for the Angry One’s corpse. It was that tiny insult toward a departed Yuglid that made Volos decide she’d made the right choice. She’d always thought Aristanes too cruel, but if he couldn’t even say a few words in passing then he had truly lost his way.

“Schemer,” she called after him.

He paused, his back still toward her.

She gestured at the crumbling, dilapidated mansion surrounding them. “You chose your house well. It is an apt metaphor.”

“Go sign books,” Aristanes replied. “Soon there will be no one to sign them for.” He strode away, his footsteps echoing through the massive halls.

Volos sighed once more, gritting her teeth. What a sad, sad thought. Could he make good on that threat? He’d certainly brought down empires before. What about humanity itself? She did not have enough data to calculate his chances. She slid her hands underneath Montego’s body, leveraging it onto her shoulder. The weight was little more than an awkward inconvenience to the eldritch body hidden within her human skin, and she whistled quietly to herself as she finally got him situated. She paused briefly beside the Angry One’s body.

“Sleep well, poor soul,” she said to him, then proceeded on to Kizzie. Volos scooped the Vorcien up with her other hand, ignoring the way Kizzie shuddered with fear.

“What are you?” Kizzie asked in a strained whisper.

Volos smiled down at her. “I,” she said, “am a gentlewoman scientist. Now come, let’s get your friend to somewhere I can perform surgery.”