The Creators Ch. 16

Brandon cleared his throat. "Willowbud and I have decided that we know nothing about battle planning, and will open the discussion to the group."

"How do you even plan a battle against a weapon of mass destruction?" Justina asked.

"War is psychological, and Julia is but a woman," Bianca said.

Astrid nodded. "She has raised an army for a purpose. She will not lay waste to her soldiers just to kill the enemy."

"Unless she thinks that is the only path to victory," Nona said.

Bianca walked to the center of the floor. "Your Holiness, please produce a map of the eastern Gratoran Desert."

Brandon touched his big toe to the wood floor, and the rings of the baobab tree rose in shape until a perfect topographical map of the Gratoran Wall, Droktin's Pass, Iona, and the desert leading to Droktinar was formed. Bianca stood in the breadth of Droktin's Pass and worked her strong jaw contemplatively.

"The Pass will be a choke point, and so it will be the killing field. Our reports tell us that Julia leads her army at the front." Bianca looked up at me. "A great opportunity presents itself, Your Holiness, but there is something we must know. Everyone in the world believes you were slain by the Heat Bringer, but does the Heat Bringer herself believe it?"

I nodded. "No one should've survived her parting attack. If Astrid hadn't stepped in front of the fire, I would be dead."

"Julia must remain ignorant until her last moment." Bianca touched the sides of Droktin's Pass. "We will never get a better opportunity than when she is here, surrounded on all sides by rock. The pass is miles long; well out of Tera's range to detect you. Once Julia is beyond the point of escape, you slam the pass shut."

"It's a good plan," Gloria said, "but it's contingent on Julia walking through the pass in a timely manner. We don't know how long she'll stay in Droktinar, and every day that passes increases the likelihood of Tera selling us out."

"Tera isn't loyal to Julia," Angela said. "She still hasn't told her about Brandon and me, or we'd all be dead."

"Tera is a cunning opportunist; Corruption would only magnify that in her. She will use that information when she deems it necessary, and it's more likely than not that she'll use it to gain Julia's favor, not to help us."

"My mother's not a religious fanatic," Justina said. "Once Mom's done with her fun, she'll look to cut and run."

"Unless she feels that her life is on the line."

"Maybe we can give her an opportunity," Angela said and looked at Gloria. "You're right that Tera won't help Brandon—no offense, Brandon, but Tera thinks you're kind of a pussy." Angela turned to me. "But if Tera hears that Night Eyes is back..."

"No," I said flatly.

"Hear her out," Brandon said.

"If Tera hears that you're back, she might consider changing sides. She'll at least think there will be enough havoc caused between the two of you that she can slip away when everyone's distracted."

"You're putting all your eggs into one very precarious basket," I said. "Tera's loyalties are to herself, and herself alone now. Believe me; I know what it's like."

"So do I," Angela narrowed her eyes at me. "You breathed Corruption into me when Julia was torturing Lucilla. Don't you remember?"

"What are you..." I narrowed my eyes back at Angela, "...why can't you just stay in one body?"

"Her Holiness is right," Nona said. "We cannot trust so much valuable information to one treacherous succubus."

"That's my mom you're talking about!"

"I knew her for hundreds of years, and Tera was never anything but self-serving," Gloria said. "Before we deal with Julia, we must deal with her."

Justina stared daggers at Gloria, her jaw working. "And what do you mean by 'deal with her?'"

"Kill her, of course."

Astrid snatched Justina before she could rush the vampire, and struggled to hold the thrashing succubus in her arms.

"Gloria!" Brandon yelled.

"There is no cure for Corruption's sickness. If the Sentient is not in the host, then there is nothing to exercise from the mind. A strong-minded person can withstand the decay for a while—maybe even months, but the disease will lead inevitably to madness. Tera is lost, and it would be a mercy to relieve her of her mind's cage before it crumbles completely."

"I'll relieve you of your fucking face, you pale cunt!" Justina hollered.

"The vampire is right," Bianca said.

Justina whirled in Astrid's arms and swung at Bianca. "You always hated her!" Justina snarled. "Now you want to—"

"I admired your mother, Your Eminence. Perhaps I was laden with prejudice when I met her, but I never denied her ability. Do you truly think I am speaking from hatred when I say that she must die? Do you think I want to hurt you?"

"Fuck you!"

"We cannot plan for the future with such a great unknown," Nona said. "His Holiness and his Ofanians were frozen into inaction for weeks because they could not think around the conundrum Tera Autumnsong posed. Now we reach the same impasse."

"No one asked you, Nona!"

"Your Eminence—"

"Enough!" Brandon yelled. "I won't be a party to any plans that involve killing Tera, and that's final!"

"Agreed," Astrid said. "Enough mothers have been lost already. Justina, Brandon can surely remove the ailment of Corruption from Tera."

"He can't, Astrid," Gloria said. "The Life Giver has no power over Sentients."

"That doesn't mean she deserves to die."

"Deserves' has nothing to do with it," I muttered. "She needs to die because we all want to live."

All faces turned to me.

"What?!" Justina hissed.

It was hard for me to look at her, but I managed to do so from the corner of my eye. "You should've killed me when you had the chance." I turned to Angela. "Same with you." I turned to Brandon. "You too. Julia had all the chances in the world, and she never took her shot until it was too late. All of it was too late. How many millions of people did it cost to save me? How many millions more will it cost to save Tera?"

"You of all people..." Justina hissed, "...you have no right! NO RIGHT AT ALL! You keep your fucking mouth shut, you miserable shit!"

"Willowbud?" Astrid queried softly, looking at me with a confused expression. I hated to see it. God, I hated it.

"Maybe I'm a coward," I said softly. "I know I don't deserve to be here right now, but 'deserve' has nothing to do with it. None of you deserved any of this, but here we are. If we keep trying to hold onto what we've lost, we'll be dragged down with it."

"You're right, Willowbud," Angela said. "I should've killed you when I had the chance."

"Enough, everybody," Brandon said. "This is not something we are going to discuss. We came here to strategize against Julia, and we have enough great minds in this room to plan for every contingency." He stood up and walked toward the wooden depiction of Droktin's Pass. "I like Bianca's idea. Julia has to walk through this pass no matter what. This is the inevitability we need to plan for, not a hypothetical about what Tera might do."

I snapped my fingers. "That's how long it will take for Tera to decide to give you up, Brandon. It won't take much longer than that for Julia to get here. Maybe a half an hour. Your scouts won't see her coming. She would just be the blackest point in the night sky. A shadow moving across the stars, and then..." I snapped my fingers again, "...she's here."

"Tera needs to die," Nona said.

"Someone does," Justina snarled, staring a hole through me.

"There is another option, Your Holiness," Bianca said. "One that would remove Tera from the equation without killing her."

"What?"

"Neutralize the threat she poses. Reveal yourself."

Angela gaped at Bianca. "Bitch, have you lost your goddamn mind?"

Brandon looked just as bewildered as his sister, but then he scratched his chin and nodded. "Set a trap," he said.

"As I said before, Your Holiness, war is a game of psychology," Bianca took her reforged blade out and slipped it into the gates of Droktinar. "Yes, Tera can sniff out a shape-shifter, but that will be of very little use if thousands of them have infiltrated the horde. Once you transform the Ionans—"

"We would never!" Nona exclaimed.

Bianca rolled her eyes. "Once you bless the Ionans with this gift, we will have a force so large that it cannot be extracted from the horde. We will sew chaos into their ranks, we will hit them hard, fast, and viciously, and we will drive them to the pass."

"It's not that easy," Justina said.

"Nothing about it will be easy," Astrid said. "Many of us will die by the Heat Bringer's hands. Some of us will be captured by her." She twisted her lips. "It was unwise of us to reveal ourselves to so many, Willowbud."

"There is no torture that will make a valkyrie betray her god," Nona said.

"You say that now, High Guard," Astrid replied darkly.

"The first thing we'll need to do is extract Tera," Brandon said. "Get her as far away from this as possible; that's number one." He turned to Justina. "You, me, and Angela will take care of that personally."

"You cannot put yourself at such risk!" Nona objected. Bianca gave a concurrent nod, but she said nothing.

Brandon held up his hand. "I'm not asking for suggestions, High Guards. The only way we're getting Tera out is if we can lure her out, and there are only two people here who are worth her time. Willowbud has to remain a secret, but I'm the bait anyway. Yes, it's a gamble, but we have to bet on ourselves." He looked at me. "What do you think?"

I chewed on my lip, decidedly not voicing my objection. I knew Brandon well enough to know that his heart was even bigger than his dick, and there was no changing his mind about my doomed aunt. "How long do we have?" I asked.

Bianca worked her jaw contemplatively. "We need at least two days to train the Ionans in the basics of shifting. We should wait no longer than that." Bianca looked up at me. "Three days from now, we make our move."

"Exit strategy?" Gloria asked.

"Our best chance of survival is to stay embedded into Julia's ranks. If we are apart, she need not be cautious with her flame. There will be no exit strategy. We will harry her all the way to Droktin's Pass."

"That could be days—weeks even," I said.

Bianca just smiled thinly. "We may have ample opportunity to get a kill-shot on the Heat Bringer during this time. Every warrior here can hit a deer's eye from a hundred yards. Perhaps all of our attempts will be in vain, but a shot not taken is a shot missed all the same."

"A shot taken and missed means a great deal when you're trying to kill a god," I said. "Brandon's first idea was for me to throw a mountain at Julia, but that plan doesn't account for what happens when she catches it."

Bianca shrugged. "You are too important to risk, but every valkyrie here is a weapon, and we must be used."

"Only if you have a clean shot," Brandon said sternly. "I don't want any martyrs in my army."

Bianca bowed her head, stepped away from the contoured map on the floor and sat in her chair, leaving Brandon alone in the center of the room.

"Why do we have to wait until Droktin's Pass?" Angela asked, and looked up at me. "Can't you just kill her in the desert? Sand is just a bunch of little rocks; it should be a cakewalk."

"I uh..." I shifted uncomfortably, "...I can't really do anything with sand."

Angela gave me a frank look. "You're fucking joking."

"It's kind of a singular focus thing. I can move a mountain because it's one big piece, but if I want to build a sandcastle, I'm gonna need some water and a bucket."

"Willowbud is our secret weapon," Brandon reiterated. "We can't reveal her until the end. If we get lucky with a bowshot from a valkyrie, we get lucky, but this plan isn't based on luck. We're setting a trap."

"A bear trap," I muttered with a smile.

Brandon touched his toe to the floor, and the wooden Droktin's Pass slammed shut.

JULIA

Through great annals of stone, I walked. My feet burned a path down thousands of steps, and each imprint carried the impression of darkness that surrounded me, giving shape to the vaulted obsidian ceiling that cascaded along great gothic pillars which descended into the swallowing depths below, a throat to the bowels of the earth where God's creatures scuttled and squirmed upon the black plane, devouring and writhing in a primal contest for the scraps they tore off each other. There was a singular torch on the far wall. It shone like a dark orange twinkle in the air and reflected off the millions of writhing carapaces, centipedal legs, and bulbous arachnid bodies that shimmered together in an orgy of death. They had not heeded my warning.

"Please," I called to them, "go now!"

I could feel them turning toward me. Millions of little beedi eyes searching for the inkling of radiance in the darkness, millions of pincers clicking, millions of spiny legs shifting into position. I could see all of the monsters beneath the earth through the ancient molten rock, but I felt no repulsion.

"Please," I whispered, "don't make me do this."

They came for me. Upon their millions of legs, they charged over each other to feast upon soft flesh, their feet clicking against the stone floor in a percussive chorus of horror. A tear fell down my cheek. I opened my palms and erupted. The torchlight vanished. The world was black and infernal. I felt their bodies crisp and pop, I felt their carapaces crack and snap, I felt their soft insides burst and bubble. They evaporated from the planar floor of Droktinar, becoming ash, and then becoming nothing. The great convective winds of my flame blew the remnants into the immense void of the atrium, sending it high into the lightless heavens above. But the heavens above were not a void. There were no heavens above me. With my infernal winds carrying my heat upward through the columnal space, I sensed an immense blockage. It was a shape larger than any other in this chasm, but it was not of smooth walls, ornate balconies, or winding staircases. I opened my palm and dimmed my fire. A white aura appeared around the blackness of my flame and revealed a gargantuan arachnid body suspended above me in a web that spanned the entire atrium. Its legs spanned thousands of feet, its abdomen was larger than the largest ship, its mandibles were longer than a house, and they clicked above me before a great multitude of blind compound eyes that reflected me in their pale milky mirrors.

"That's why I couldn't see you," I gasped, admiring the network of webbing.

The Guardian clicked its mandibles, and slowly descended toward me. This is not a place for you, Heat Bringer. A female voice whispered in the back of my mind. This is the tomb of a people you murdered, of an empire you laid waste to in your fear of its majesty. In your fear of the truth.

"That wasn't me."

The Destroyer is the Destroyer, the immense spider said, settling into her web. It matters not whose name you carry. You are the descendent of Hatred, and so you must kill Joy. It is your nature. She gestured to me with one of her great spiny legs. You have burned your footsteps into this rock and besmirched this temple. You know naught of your insult.

"You are mistaken," I said. "I bring the people of Droktin, Furok, Hektin and Gratora back here."

Those people are dead, Destroyer, she hissed. Those people were titans of mankind. They could make marvels that would rival even the creations of divinity, instruments that could see worlds beyond this one, cities so magnificent they would bring tears to the eyes of the beholder. They captured lightning within metal, built horses of fire, moved water into spires that touched the heavens. They were true disciples of Vitanimus, chosen by him to carry the burden of knowledge into the great beyond, and the jealous men of lesser lands found their champion in you to destroy them. No, Heat Bringer, the people you have brought here are not the children of those names you blasphemy; the last of those people died between the walls of Droktin's Pass in their final moment of defiance against the hordes of ignorance.

I cocked my head. "Who is Vitanimus?"

You know him by a different name. The spider crawled with surprising fluidity down a thick strand of webbing. She stopped just above my head, her thick pincers nearly grazing my hair. Her head was so massive that it encompassed my entire field of vision, and my reflected visage seemed to be magnified in her many eyes. Before your ancestor melted Hektinar to the ground, there stood within the city, a great university. Within that university, there was a magnificent library, and within that library, there was the truth. Only a few students were ever allowed there, and only after swearing themselves to secrecy on pain of death. I was one such student by virtue of being Furok's sister. Arbitrus Gen was another such student by virtue of being a god.

"There is only one god."

The spider clicked her pincers. That was what Arbitrus thought as well. So entrenched was he in that perception, that even when shown the naked truth, he still denied what his eyes and mind could see plainly, and was so terrified of it that he tried to erase it from memory. He melted Hektinar. He scorched those truths to ash, and he killed all who knew of them. All but me.

"Arbitrus melted Hektinar because the orc empire was too powerful."

Arbitrus will say anything to justify his atrocity. Even the ruins of Hektinar are a grander display of civilization than the hovel his people climbed from. Jealousy and fear governed him, and so it governs you.

I narrowed my eyes at her. "You're a tethered one, aren't you? Just like Passion. Only God should have the power of life. You are an abomination made by the devil. That's who Vitanimus was, wasn't he? Just some devil like Brandon. Arbitrus was right to burn those satanic lies, along with all of those who would spread them!"

The spider bristled, and the sound carried down her immense body to echo in the annals above us. Do you know why I am here, Heat Bringer?

"To rot in darkness."

This darkness is the tomb of my people, and within it, dwells our ghost. Only those who survive the horrors of this tomb are allowed entrance to his realm, for only a warrior fit to survive such horrors is fit for his audience. I called him 'brother' once, but now he is the embodiment of our dying rage. He is entertaining a guest now—a very special guest. The great spider's blind eyes seemed to focus on me somehow. You have been touched by her—I suppose you think that means you have been touched by God, and I suppose you are right. Perhaps if you see the naked truth for yourself, you will believe it, but I know in my heart of hearts that you are just like your ancestor, and your faith blindfolds you.

The spider pointed one long leg across the expanse of the atrium and gestured to a door. It was so far away that I could hardly discern it with my eyes, and yet my mind had not seen its heat trapped within the stone. Unlike the rest of Droktinar, this door was not made of obsidian. It was not made of anything. I could sense the frozen molten rock that should've encompassed its threshold, but there was no void there. The wall of obsidian continued right through the plane of the door like the door was an apparition. The only reason I could see it with my naked eye, was because it was wreathed in a garish crimson aura.

"Wrath," I whispered.

You have proven yourself worthy, and so I must let you pass, the spider said. I could have killed you a hundred times along your descent to this place, but some of us still know honor. Honor is my name, after all.