Mordecai by Michael G. Manning
He didn’t try to halt the greatsword after his first swing; instead he followed it, while at the same time darting forward and to the right, twisting his body full circle as he went. Thorn’s second arc cut deeply, severing limbs, ribs, weapons—anything that interfered with its path. Several fell dead, becoming obstacles in the path of those coming from behind, and while it was tempting to stay there, where his presence had begun to slow the enemy, Gram kept moving, heading toward the forest side of the road.
His intent was to cross as much of the front line as possible, to leave enough bodies to stop the overall rush of the Ungol. He made it twenty feet before he was inevitably forced to a halt. Gram was surrounded, and the Ungol were too fierce to give him the room he needed to continue. Dancing with the great blade in his hands, he killed ten, then fifteen, but he couldn’t kill enough to gain the room he needed.
Stepping back to dodge an axe swung at his face, he stepped on the arm of a man he had already slain. That momentary loss of balance was enough. One of them managed to grab him from behind, wrapping thick hands around his right arm.
He released the hilt, and leaving Thorn in his left hand, he picked up the stout warrior with his right and tossed him toward the Ungol in front of him. As he did, he managed a sideswipe with Thorn that killed another on that side, but two more managed to grapple him from the right side.
Gram ripped his right arm free, but the two became four, and then six as the heavyset warriors swarmed over him. They couldn’t compete with his strength—even two or three couldn’t bind his movement—but they bore him down with sheer mass. Soon he was at the bottom of a pile of men, his sword all but useless.
On the ground, they kicked and punched at him, and occasionally one managed to find enough of an opening to slam an axe into him, but his armor held. Gram gave better than he got, though, his steel-clad punches breaking jaws, ribs, and cracking a few skulls. If the fight had stayed like that, a simple brawl, he might have still broken them all, one punch at a time, but then something that felt like a battering ram slammed into his head.
Probably an axe, he thought, struggling to organize his limbs. Dazed, more blows rained down on him as his opponents made room for others to bring their weapons to bear.
Gram’s armor was virtually impenetrable, at least against anything a man might do with two arms and a piece of metal, but he was still flesh and blood beneath the enchanted steel. Heavy impacts, for example, those from axes and maces, could still bruise and batter him. Too many blows to the head might even kill him.
But then his body was lifted into the air, and the grasping hands fell away. He found himself suspended, face down, six feet in the air. Looking around, Gram could see one of the Ungol standing close by, but this one was dressed differently, in robes. The newcomer carried a long spear in one hand, its head sharp and dripping with green fire.
Slowly, the Ungol mage lifted the spear, taking it in both hands and pointing it at Gram’s shoulder as though he would drive it through. There was a smile on his broad face.
Where was Matthew? Where were the dragons? Those thoughts flashed through Gram’s mind, but the thought that stayed was the memory of his father. Was this how he felt, unable to stop what was killing him? No, Dorian had died protecting his family. I’m just going to be spitted like a pig. It wasn’t fair. He had earned a better death than this. Sorry, Alyssa…
And then the world exploded.
The sound and light crashed over him, over all of them. It was so immense that it didn’t even register as a sound; it was more like a punch in the gut that erased all hearing, and the light was so intense it left the world a smeared blob of orange, as though he was staring at the sun through his eyelids.
Deaf and blind, the Ungol couldn’t see the fire that followed, falling on them from the sky like a searing rain—but they felt it. They screamed at the agony, but even that sound was denied their wounded ears.
Are you alright? It was Grace, her voice echoing in his mind.
I think I’m dead, replied Gram mentally. He tried to lift himself from the ground, though he had no memory of landing on it.
Stay down, cautioned Grace. I’m standing over you and I don’t want you to poke me with that sword.
You were supposed to strafe them, not land in the middle of it, Gram complained.
I changed the plan when we got close enough to see what was happening, answered his dragon.
Where’s Matthew?
***
Matthew stood about ten feet to the left of Grace, who was crouched protectively over her fallen rider. Fifty feet behind him, their soldiers, along with some of those who had previously been running, were fighting with the Ungol. Most of those in front of him were burning and dying, a result of Grace and Zephyr’s dragonfire. A hundred feet above him, an artificial sun burned in the sky, turning the night into day.
But there were still hundreds left, and once the flash blindness wore off, the fight would get nasty. He didn’t intend to let things go that long, though. Raising his left hand—the metal one—above his head, he clenched his fist and sent a command to it with a thought and a whisper of power. Some of the runes etched into the metal glowed briefly, and two metal triangles appeared in the air above him, summoned from the pocket dimension he kept them safely housed in.
Reaching out with two tendrils of finely wrought aythar, he grasped them, holding them in place and activating the enchantment built into them. Shimmering planes of absolute black sprang outward, until the two triangles were each three feet wide, from point to point.
And then they began to spin.
With a thought, he sent them flying in two different directions, racing outward, only two feet above the ground. Unerringly, the dimensional blades cut through the air, and they found the Ungol mages first, before they could recover from their shock. After those targets, the weapons continued on, sweeping across the field, back and forth, according to Matthew’s will.
Some of the warriors were recovering, stumbling toward him, half-blind, but a withering blast of dragonfire from Grace put an end to most of those. Several from the end that hadn’t suffered as badly from his flashbangs lifted massive crossbows, but Matthew sidestepped just before each bolt was fired. He didn’t bother with a shield. The Illeniel gift alone was enough. Nothing could touch him.
He was careful to keep the dimensional blades away from the active fighting behind him, lest he inadvertently kill or maim his own men, but the rest of the field was fair game. The Ungol died, and the earth became a thick, red mud, saturated with their blood. Matthew stared over the battlefield with cold, passionless eyes.
Without warning, a highly focused beam of green power lanced toward him, but again, Matthew simply leaned to one side. More attacks followed, and he realized he had somehow missed one of the enemy mages. The short man was standing some fifty yards away, near the forest’s edge, surrounded by a knot of Ungol warriors.
Calling his spinning blades back, Matthew advanced toward the mage, taking long strides punctuated by sudden jigs as he dodged crossbow bolts and magical attacks.
His enemy was powerful, stronger than any wizard Matthew had met before, save for his father. The Ungol mage was taller than his guards, standing slightly over five feet in height, with a grey beard and an elaborately embroidered stole across his shoulders.
At ten yards, Matthew stopped and then sent a broadly branching web of lightning bolts forth to clear away the enemy wizard’s defenders. His opponent was quick, however, and a wide shield appeared around the entire group, protecting them.
Matthew’s lips curled into a faint smile. He had hoped for that response. With a thought, his spinning dimensional blades flashed forward, cutting through the shield and the men behind it. The Ungol wizard reeled as his shield was destroyed, and he struggled to hold onto consciousness. Matthew called back his dimensional blades and dismissed them before finishing off the remaining guards around the dwarf with a series of precise bolts of force. He didn’t want to
The Ungol wizard tried to defend himself, but the feedback sickness from his broken shield had robbed him of his strength. He was knocked flat, and then Matthew seized him with his will.
“Shibal!” shouted the young man, driving the force of his power against the Ungol’s dazed mind.
In general, attempting to put another wizard to sleep was a futile exercise, unless they were already greatly weakened. After a brief struggle, Matthew’s spell won out, and he smothered the Ungol’s consciousness, sending him into a deep and dreamless sleep.
The battle was over.
Chapter 29
Oddly, I didn’t have anything urgent to do. Oh sure, the kingdom was under threat of war from a strange new enemy, the She’Har might have turned against us, and ANSIS was hiding somewhere, plotting to remake all of humanity, but I didn’t have anything to do myself, not today.
The Queen was back in the capital, sending out the orders to call up the levies to every noble landholder, and Egan was presumably drawing up a list of candidates for Harold to consider for knighthood. Gary was working on his antennae. Penny was checking the granaries with Peter, and Moira was overseeing our prisoner.
Matthew and Gram were dealing with the danger in Cantley—and me, I was sitting at home, pondering my existence. In the middle of so many urgent matters it was an unusual feeling for me.
Even Irene and Conall had something to do. They were out in the yard, where Conall was giving Irene some instruction on how to manage her newly acquired power. Lynaralla had gone with them, though whether as a spectator or as an advisor, I wasn’t sure.
There would probably be a lot of decisions to be made soon. Calling up the levies and preparing them for war was no small task, but Captain Draper knew his work and my chamberlain, Peter, knew the ins and outs of Castle Cameron and its doings better than I did. Penny had been the sole ruler of my estate for a year back when everyone thought I was dead and gone. She knew the right decisions to make as well as I did.
In fact, it might be better to leave most of it in her hands. Having lost her arm, she was dealing with a lot of internal turmoil. If I felt useless, she probably felt the same by a factor of ten. Rather than push her aside and handle everything, I figured it would do her more good if I let her bury her self-doubt in the work of running the castle.
But what should I do?
“Something brilliant,” I said, answering my own question with more enthusiasm than I truly felt. Except, I have no idea what that is.
My thoughts returned to Penny. I could solve her arm problem—probably—but my recent vision of her dwindling aystrylin had put the seeds of doubt in me. I had seen something like it once before, in my best friend, Marcus. He had died a year later.
Using my power as an archmage to meld with her might put a considerable strain on Penny’s aystrylin. It might kill her outright.
But she expected me to do it. I had told her I could.
“Time to lie,” I said with a sigh. Perhaps I could put her off by claiming it would take longer than it really would, or by exaggerating the danger. Well, it is dangerous, I reminded myself. One or both of us could be lost entirely during the merger. In honesty, though, that wasn’t my greatest fear. Now that I had seen how weak her aystrylin was, my fear was that I would succeed, and she would promptly die after.
Then I realized what I should do. Matthew suggested it already. Make her an arm. Once she had a functional solution, the urgency would be gone. Penny might even refuse to let me attempt to replace her natural arm simply on the grounds that it wasn’t worth the risk.
Getting to my feet, I started for my workshop. As I passed the kitchen I yelled at Alyssa, “Go find Moira. Tell her to meet me in my shop.”
Things were coming together in my mind too rapidly for me to put words to them. I had assisted Matthew with some of his work creating his artificial hand, so I already had a good feel for the complexities of articulation that went into such a task. More importantly, I knew what the biggest problem would be.
Creating a functional arm wasn’t enough. The user had to be able to control it. In my son’s case, this wasn’t a big problem. He was a mage. With time and practice, he was able to control his new hand with just his aythar and his thoughts. He didn’t even think about it consciously anymore.
But Penny wasn’t a wizard. Her new arm would have to move itself in accordance with her thoughts.
My drafting desk was in front of me now. I pulled out a large sheet of parchment and began sketching. “Long and slender,” I muttered as I outlined a female arm. “Slightly smaller than her real arm, of course, to allow for a covering.”
I’d need her present, so I could match the dimensions of her remaining arm, but it wouldn’t take me long to shape the metal. As an archmage I had a considerable advantage over Matthew in that regard.
Along the bottom of the sheet I began listing the functional requirements for the enchantment. Each point of articulation would need a separate enchantment, and each of those enchantments would need to be functional across a gradient, to allow Penny to use her arm with precision and delicacy. Those separate enchantments would need to be coordinated to make the movements smooth and natural.
“I should include one to warm the metal as well,” I muttered. With a soft doeskin covering, the entire thing it would feel almost human. The leather would also serve to hide the runes engraved into the metal. There will need to be sensory feedback as well, I thought to myself. Pressure and gross mechanical force can be reported by the metal structure, while temperature, texture, and pain can be reported by the leather covering.
Lost in thought, the sheet of parchment was soon covered in runes and designs. An hour, perhaps two, passed without notice, until a voice called to me. “Dad?”
I turned around. Moira stood a few feet away. “Oh! There you are! I need your help.”
Looking over my shoulder, she took in the drawings. “You’re making an arm for Mom?”
I nodded. “Something like your brother’s hand, but with a more artistic touch,” I replied.
She smiled approvingly. “What do you need me for?”
“Your mother isn’t a wizard,” I began, before explaining the need for her new arm to communicate directly with Penny’s brain. I finished by telling her what I hoped she could do. “You created a sort of spell-mind to translate for our Ungol prisoner. Can you do the same for this?”
“Built into metal?” asked Moira uncertainly.
“Yes. I need it to translate her mental impulses into motive commands for the arm’s enchantments, as well as provide sensory feed back from these enchantments.” I pointed to indicate the enchantments I was referring to.
She pursed her lips, thinking for a moment. “I think so. What is this part for? It’s not connected to the rest.”
“A permanent illusion,” I explained. “If everything works properly, it will feel a lot like a real arm, to her, but it won’t look like one. This will cover it in an illusion, so it will appear to be a normal arm to everyone else. It won’t make it feel completely normal to someone else touching it, but with the warmth and the soft leather, it shouldn’t feel too strange.”
“That’s a nice touch,” said Moira, “but it will still need to be connected so she can turn the illusion off sometimes.”
I frowned. “Why?”
“So she can clean it. It’s hard to clean something if you can’t see what it actually looks like.”
“Oh.” That hadn’t occurred to me. Two minds were definitely better than one.
***
I had almost finished my plans when another presence appeared in my shop. This one had no living aythar, just a moving body. It was Gary. I looked up as he entered. “How are things going?”
He shrugged, making a passable imitation of the eminently human gesture. “The array should be ready to test in a week or two.”
“I’ve been thinking,” said Gary, pausing at the end of an obviously open-ended statement.
I said nothing for a moment, letting the silence drag out. “About something other than ANSIS, I presume.”
He smiled. “That’s what I like about you.”
I lifted my brows. “Hmm?”
“You’re more perceptive than most organics, whether from my world or yours. No, let me correct that. You’re more perceptive than most humans, organic or digital.”
Despite being a machine, Gary obviously enjoyed conversation. Otherwise he wouldn’t have bothered dragging out the conversation, so I played along. “Is that a compliment?”
“You should take it as one,” answered the android.
“Talk to Lady Rose. You’ll find she’s even more interesting—if you’re looking for clever conversation.” I winced inwardly as I said it. It wasn’t a fair statement. Rose was more than just a conversationalist.
Gary stopped beating around the bush. “The measurement you helped me with a few days ago, the curvature of the world…”
“Yes?”
“It wasn’t what I expected,” he finished.
I could make a lot of different assumptions based on that one statement, but I wasn’t in the mood to speculate. So I simply asked, “What did you expect?”
“Your world’s gravity is identical to mine,” said Gary. “Assuming they have a similar density, they should be roughly the same size. If so, they should have a similar curvature, since they would be spheres of almost the same size.”
Our worlds were analogues in different dimensions. From what Matthew had told me, they should probably be nearly identical in almost every respect. “They aren’t?” I asked.