Ignacio and the remaining members of the Order of the Swords of Dawn began to sing hymns. For Silus, it was the last straw.
“You know what? You can take that elsewhere. I mean it.” Silus backed up his words by drawing his sword. He didn’t care that he and Ignacio had been through so much together, that they had once fought side by side; if he didn’t stop with the ‘Holy Holys’ and ‘Most Blessed on Highs’ right now, he was going to get a sword in the guts.
“But He has come to show us the way,” Ignacio said, a beatific smile on his face. “He has come to bring judgement to this godless world.”
“Ignacio, if you do anything to make matters worse I will stand by these people and I will fight you.”
Silus stared into Ignacio’s eyes, trying to find some remnant of his old friend, but the ex-smuggler’s gaze remained curiously blank.
Shaking his head, Silus went back to helping look after the wounded and the dying.
The Swords had gone through the settlement like a whirlwind, killing virtually everything in their path. No wonder Vos had prevailed against Pontaine in the last war, Silus considered, when Katherine Makennon had such men at her disposal. The Pontaine army, as organised and well-equipped as it had been, just didn’t have a chance against an enemy with such a capacity for cruelty and a lust for slaughter.
He found Katya tending to a little boy with a nasty head wound. His right eye had been gouged out; Silus tried not to wince when he looked at the bloody cavity. Zac was sitting on the ground nearby, smiling to himself as he ran sand through his fingers, seemingly oblivious to the suffering around him. Sometimes Silus worried about his son’s emotional health.
“Do you know where your parents are?” Katya was asking. “When did you last see them?”
“They ran,” the boy said. “I couldn’t keep up. And then they were gone, cut down.”
Silus could see the anger on Katya’s face, the desire to turn on the people who had done this and make them pay, but for the sake of the boy she remained calm as she sponged blood from his brow.
Above them, on the crest of a dune, Bestion was praying, facing the direction of the risen god, his forehead to the sand in submission. He’d been crouched in this manner for several hours. Silus was saddened to see the priest abasing himself in this way. He could remember a man with dignity and compassion, a man whose faith bound him to the community he served, but all that had gone. Now Bestion blindly looked to Kerberos for answers.
Bestion finally rose and brushed off his robes. Silus raised his hand when the priest looked his way, but he didn’t respond. Instead, he headed in the direction of Ignacio and the Swords, there to confer with them in a huddle. Silus was horrified when Ignacio shook hands with Bestion, welcoming him in amongst the fanatics.
This had not gone unnoticed by Kelos.
“That,” said the mage, sitting down next to Silus, “is not good.”
“Looks like they’re recruiting,” Silus said.
“Think we should stop him?”
“I don’t think we can.”
“What are we going to do, Silus? We can’t just stay here. We certainly can’t hang around with the Swords for much longer. Do you think that if we asked nicely they’d just let us go? Though, now I come to think of it, it’s not like there’s even anywhere to go on this godforsaken world.”
Dunsany wandered over. His arms were stained red to the elbows, and Silus couldn’t remember ever having seen him look so tired.
“You know what?” he said. “I’m beginning to regret that we ever stole the Llothriall in the first place.”
“No regrets, Dunsany,” Katya said. “If we had stayed in Nurn when the Chadassa attacked, our son would never have been born. Trust me, I don’t blame you for what has happened.”
“As ever, Katya,” Dunsany said, “were I differently inclined, I’d gladly steal you from this brute.”
“Hey!” Silus protested. “May I remind you that this brute has saved you on several occasions, thank you very much.”
“By the way,” Kelos said, “has anyone seen Illiun?”
“I think he retreated into the ship,” Silus said. “No doubt he’s on board somewhere, having a nervous breakdown. I’ll give him another hour and then I’ll go and have a word, try to make him see some sense about the ‘entity.’”
“And how do you feel about it?” Katya asked.
“I don’t know,” Silus said, looking up at Kerberos.
He thought that he would be pleased, that it would give him hope to see his god again. Yet he had reached out to Kerberos and felt nothing. “I don’t think I understand Kerberos anymore.”
There was the clash of metal on metal and Silus looked up to see a commotion amongst the Swords. The group parted as a blade flashed, revealing two figures engaged in combat. One was Ignacio, the sword in his hand dancing with consummate skill; the other was one of the silver-eyed men, handling his weapon as though he wasn’t entirely sure as to its use. Someone had armed the artificial man, Silus was sure of it. The sentinel wouldn’t have done this of his own volition; otherwise, surely, he would have attempted to block the blow that sheared away much of his left arm.
There was a cheer as the sentinel finally managed to land a blow, though it was more through random flailing than intent. A group of settlers had gathered to egg the sentinel on. The loudest of them was Shalim, who stood at the head of the rabble, his fists bunched at his sides, his face scarlet with anger. No matter how loud he shouted, however, the silver-eyed man was not built for this manner of combat. When the sentinel tripped over his own feet, Ignacio dispatched him by removing his head from his shoulders.
As viscous blue blood pumped over Ignacio’s boots, Shalim and his comrades fell silent.
“Which one of you is responsible for this?” Ignacio said. There was no reply. “Perhaps you didn’t hear me. I said, which one of you is responsible for this? Which one of you blasphemers would stand against the Swords?”
There was still no response.
“Brother Auden, kill the gentleman with the blond hair. Perhaps that will encourage someone to speak.”
“Ignacio, no!” Silus was on his feet and racing towards them. “Stop this, now!”
“Silus, perhaps you have forgotten that as a fugitive from the Final Faith you have no say in this matter. Brother Auden, you may continue.”
“And I said no!” Silus unsheathed his sword and forced the acolyte’s blade to the ground. Brother Auden looked back at Ignacio, not quite sure how he should respond.
“Ignacio, where exactly is this getting us?” Silus said. “We’re all stranded on this world. There’s nowhere for any of us to go, and, thanks to the Sword’s actions on the ship, Illiun and his people have lost everything. How do you hope to punish them any more than they already have been? Just let them be.”
“The Lord of All has spoken, Silus. These godless people must be punished.”
“Really, Ignacio? I mean, reall y? When you first joined the crew of the Llothriall you were one of the most godless men I’d ever met. You’d often rail against the Final Faith and how they used to make you and your brother’s lives as smugglers so difficult. Yet here you now stand, wearing the symbol of the crossed circle. What did they do to you, Ignacio, to make you change your heart so radically?”
“I saw the light. The Lord of All spoke to me.”
“No, I’m almost certain that He didn’t. Trust me, you don’t know the first thing about the deity.”
“It is true that Silus has a great affinity with the Allfather,” Bestion said, stepping into the quarrel. “I have witnessed it myself.”
“Ignacio, you were there when I channelled the power of Kerberos to destroy the Chadassa,” Silus said. “I know the Lord of All, and I know that He wouldn’t want you punish Illiun and his people in His name.”
“But they reject God,” Ignacio said.
“That is their choice. It doesn’t mean they are a threat to the Final Faith. Are you sure that Makennon would be so concerned about this lifeless place when she has more than enough on Twilight to worry about? Besides, we have bigger concerns ourselves. Like how to get home.”
“The Lord of All will guide us home.”
“And He told you that, did he?”
Ignacio’s silence was answer enough.
“Then why don’t you talk to Him? ’ It was the black-haired woman Silus had seen conversing with Ignacio earlier. “Perhaps you can succeed where we, His most devout soldiers, have failed?”
Though the woman clearly meant this as an attack on Silus, he realised that she did have a point.
“Bestion, you once helped me leave my body and commune with Kerberos,” he said. “Do you think you can do that again?”
The priest twisted his robes in his hands as he looked at the ground. “Without the sacred spices and incense it will be difficult. To leave one’s body takes a great deal of preparation.”
“Incense, did you say?” Kelos said, joining them. “Now that I believe I actually have. Spell components I can do, just don’t ask me to perform any sorcery.”
“Bestion, can you help me talk to our god?” Silus asked again.
“It may take many hours.”
“We’re not going anywhere.”
“Ignacio,” said the dark-haired woman. “Is this not blasphemy, presuming to let this unbeliever speak for us?”
“Oh, trust me,” Silus said. “I believe. Ignacio knows.”
“He’s right, Susannah,” Ignacio said. “At least let him try. It can do no harm.”
“Thank you. And when we get back home, I will be more than happy for you to take me to Makennon herself. I’ve a few things that I’d like to talk to her about.”
The quietest place that Bestion could find to conduct the ceremony was a small room deep within the bowels of Illiun’s broken ship, reached via a rickety iron spiral staircase that swayed and creaked as they descended. At the bottom, Bestion opened a door that lead into a bare room constructed entirely from sheets of black metal. There was a grille in the ceiling that let in a faint breeze, bringing with it the odour of raw sewage.
As the priest prepared for the ritual, Silus sat on the floor. He had never felt so far from his god. Despite this, he tried settle his mind as Bestion lit the cones of incense that Kelos had provided for the ceremony.
Bestion began to chant. The sound echoed from the walls, creating a resonance that Silus felt deep in his chest. He remembered the breathing exercises the priest had taught him, and his chest rose and fell to the rhythm of Bestion’s words. The room became uncomfortably warm and the smoke of the incense stifling, but still Silus drew it deep into his lungs, even as his body fought against him.
He blinked and Bestion was no longer before him. He thought that he saw the priest moving through the mist that had obliterated the boundaries of the room. Other things roamed there, too, some of them not entirely human. Though they drew close, they never fully revealed themselves. Like Bestion, they were chanting, adding to the litany with guttural, alien sounds.
Something brushed Silus’s forehead very lightly, but even this gentlest of touches was enough to send him tumbling into darkness. For a moment he panicked, thinking that the priest had severed his hold on his body only to send him into the eternal night of death. When the light of stars began to pierce the darkness, however, he relaxed.
Below Silus now turned the dry, dead world from which he had been sent. Even without moving, he knew what hung above him; he could sense its call. He reached out and found himself deep within the clouds of Kerberos. He’d gladly stay here forever, abandoning his body for the embrace of the god. Silus was surprised to find that this thought caused him no guilt, and it was this realisation that made him aware of the dangers he faced here. He had to focus, and so he asked the question that had been on his mind ever since they had come to the settlement.
“Who is Illiun? Where do his people come from?”
The azure clouds surrounding him darkened, the rumble of thunder preceding a flicker of lightning.
Again Silus travelled without moving. He found himself hanging before a new world: a blue-green planet. For a moment he thought that it was Twilight itself, but it couldn’t be. Vast continents dominated the globe, bejewelled with the lights of hundreds of cities. A small grey moon orbited the planet, and here, too, he could see the lights of civilisation. He watched, astonished, as ships rose and fell between the planet and its satellite.
When Kerberos spoke, its voice seemed to come from within himself.
Twilight is not the only world that hangs in the eternal void; there are others, worlds long dead, the discarded toys of youthful deities. The planet that turns before you now is one such world. With this creation, I thought that I had finally realised the full potential of my power. Millennia before your time, Silus, a faithful people thrived here, dedicating their lives to the advancement of their own kind, all the while worshipping the being that had given them life.
Silus’s perspective shifted and now he was looking down on a huge, shining city at the centre of which, like a needle thrusting into the heavens, stood an impossibly slim tower.
My churches were architectural marvels, the likes of which have not been seen on any world since. Here there was no theological dissonance, no separate creeds or offshoot cults to stir up conflict amongst the populace; when the hymns were sung and the prayers chanted, it was with one voice, and to one god.
Inside the tower, in a church bathed in the light of a hundred stained-glass windows, priests wearing robes of myriad colours administered to the largest congregation Silus had ever seen.
Not one man, woman or child was without faith. The sermons and prayers of the priesthood drew the people closer to me. Each new church and cathedral erected in my name drew the faithful’s eyes heavenward to gaze in wonder as I slowly turned above them. I welcomed their adoration, but I should have known when to keep them at a distance. For in being drawn closer to a god, does not humankind find the desire to be more like gods themselves?
As you can see, Silus, this civilisation was far in advance of your own. Instead of magic, they had technology. They discovered the way to the stars, though their disappointment was great when they found that the cold stretches of space open to them were without life. Their cities spanned whole continents and not one person wanted for anything.
But the spirit of humankind is to always strive for better, and this they did, and in so doing they committed a blasphemy so great that it would lead to their destruction.
Silus fell through the city, tumbling so far that he thought he would pass right through the planet’s core. Instead, he came to rest hanging over another city, this one easily as big as the metropolis above it, though here, far beneath the ground, there were none of the usual sounds of life. When Silus looked more closely, he saw that no vehicles or people moved on the city’s thoroughfares; it was as though the place was deserted.
Not deserted, Silus, merely waiting for its citizens to be born.
Within these buildings they slept, cradled in artificial wombs, dreaming in amniotic slumber. In striving to be closer to their god, the people of the world that I had created claimed a right that only a deity should wield; the right to create life. This world’s scientists were the midwives to a new race, engineered to be the servants of their creators. Artificial men and women emerged from the womb fully grown, ready to serve their masters. Though this disturbed me greatly, I did not intervene. I had given my creations free will and I had learned hard lessons — across many worlds created and destroyed — of the perils of taking that away, once given.
Silus was inside one of the buildings now, in a hall that seemed to stretch on forever. Within were ranked an endless succession of smooth round objects, like huge pearls. There was a muggy heat coming from them that reminded him of the cow-sheds during calving on his uncle’s farm. He watched in astonishment, and horror, as the perfectly smooth surface of each pearl began to wrinkle and split; fully formed adult humans pulled themselves out of the slime in which they were immersed, and stepped forth.
The children of my creations were, like their parents, utterly brilliant. Their minds were incisive and focused. Yet still they were willing to serve, using their gifts for the betterment of the world to which they had been born.
Silus watched as the artificial humans integrated themselves into the civilisation above. So like their creators were they, so convincingly human, that soon it was impossible to distinguish between those of natural birth and those who were the product of science.
Their integration into society was seamless. However, in one area this new race was very different to their creators; they were godless. They soon came to reason that as they themselves had not been created by a deity, then what use was there for such a thing? They observed none of the rituals and ceremonies of the faithful, although, for a time, they tolerated the religion of their masters. But unlike the minds that had created them, they were evolving. Soon their intellects were beyond those of their creators, and the servants quickly became the masters. So dependent on their artificial people had my children become that they did not realise that they had been usurped, happy, as they were, for their every need to be administered to, all the while sinking into comfortable complacency. The artificial race came to control every aspect of their lives.
Then came the first blasphemous act of this new race. Religion was banned and the churches and cathedrals — any place of worship, no matter how small — were shut down. Such beliefs were backward, the artificial race argued, and did nothing to advance the cause of humankind; spirituality was the reserve of the superstitious and the frightened. That these beliefs be entirely eradicated over time, a programme of enforced sterilisation of those who stubbornly held to their faith was put into practice. This, finally, shook my people out of their slumber, though not before the majority of them had succumbed to this tyranny. Those who had avoided the needles of the doctors took up arms, only to be brutally put down. They knew nothing of war, but their creations learned the art quickly. Once the populace had been subdued, seeing that their actions would not be universally embraced, the artificial race decided to drop the facade of progressive rationality entirely.
I had given my people free will. I had decided not to interfere in the world that I had created, and which they had shaped. I had tried a rule of absolute power before, on other worlds, and it had led to a people who only praised me because they were afraid. But when the artificial race triggered a terrible weapon, destroying an area much larger even than the peninsula you call home, Silus, the wrath of old returned.
Silus was hanging above the planet once more and he shuddered in horror as flames took a whole continent in their grip and turned it into wasteland in less than the blink of an eye.
I was too late to intervene. My people were eradicated. My beautiful world, which had been created and populated entirely by my will, was ruined, now ruled over by an alien race that paid me no heed. Only when I rained down fire, unleashing a destructive force more powerful than their own, only then did they truly hear me, and for a moment some of them actually believed.
In my rage, however, I had missed something.
Silus’s perspective shifted again, pulling him away from the inferno raging below, the continents sinking into seas of lava before being obscured entirely by globe-spanning clouds of smoke. Now he was staring past the burning world into space, and for a moment he didn’t realise what it was that he was supposed to be seeing. But then Silus saw it — a brilliant streak of light burning into the heavens, rising from the planet below like a meteor in reverse.
That was a ship carrying Illiun’s ancestors, the last remnants of the artificial race. When my destruction of the planet began, some of the usurpers acted quickly, throwing themselves into the void to escape my wrath. And for millennia they have evaded me, using their technology and their growing knowledge of the void to seek out the places where time and reality are at their weakest, punching holes through space and putting whole universes between us.
But now their means of escape lies in ruins, and it will be you, Silus, who will now be the agent of my judgement.
S ILUS AND HIS companions had grown close to Illiun and his people during the time they had spent together. Katya had helped Rosalind and Shalim look after Hannah, and Zac had become firm friends with the small girl, integrating with the family just as if they’d been neighbours back in Nurn. Not once had these people threatened them. Granted, the silver-eyed men had attacked Kelos and Shalim, but that had been nobody’s fault but the savage world on which they found themselves. In fact, the people of the settlement simply did not have a violent bone in their body, as evidenced by their inability to defend themselves against the Order of the Swords of Dawn. Yet Kerberos was now telling him that they were of a people that had been responsible for the death of an entire race, killing them merely because their philosophy differed from their own. Was it right to finish what Kerberos had started, and kill the few surviving remnants of that ancient civilisation? Silus couldn’t believe that they posed a threat to anybody in their present state.
He could feel the god’s displeasure at this thought even before it spoke. The clouds that enfolded him darkened again and, for a moment, Silus got the sensation that he was being drawn deeper into Kerberos. He fought against the pull, fearful that the deity’s displeasure would mean his dissolution.
Illiun and his people are not just a threat to yourselves, but the whole of Twilight. This dead world that you have come to will one day be your home. You are on Twilight, Silus, but far in your past.
Silus’s mind reeled. The idea was almost beyond belief. Where was the vast ocean that he knew so well? Would this dead place one day be far beneath the waves?
The sorcery that saw the wrecking of the Llothriall clashed with the energies unleashed by Illiun’s ship when it punched its way into this realm, pulling you and your companions back through time to a Twilight not yet begun. If Illiun and his people are allowed to remain here, to breed and grow on this young world, then the life you know, the people you love, will never have been. Katya and Zac will blink out of existence. Everything will unravel into oblivion. There will never have been a Twilight as you know it. These people are not a part of my plan for your world, Silus, and, really, what are the lives of this few, compared with the countless millions? Would you let this handful of usurpers live, at the expense of your own race? They are not human. Remember what I have shown you.
I am sending a creature to this world, one which can remove the usurpers from existence, just as their existence threatens your own. Seek this being out, bring Illiun and his people to justice for what they have done. If you fail, you and all those you love will be consigned to oblivion.
“But why me?” Silus said. “Why can’t you eradicate them yourself, or use the Swords to enact your wrath?”
Because they trust you. I would rather they walk to their deaths voluntarily, unknowing, than fight against me again. They have escaped me far too many times for me to take that risk. This is where it must end, Silus. You must be the agent of my wrath.
Silus was blinded by a flash of light as a storm raged in the heart of his god. A wave of nausea washed over him and he realised that he was back in his body, his heavy flesh anchoring him to the floor. He could hear Bestion crawling around him, still chanting the words that had sent him into the presence of Kerberos. He tried to call the priest’s name, but his throat was too dry and he couldn’t make his lips work. Silus reached out and grabbed Bestion’s arm as he shuffled past, and the priest looked up with a startled expression, before realising that Silus had returned. Bestion brought him water then, and helped him to sit upright. The priest looked as ravaged as Silus felt, his robes soaked with sweat and his face pale.
“Has the Allfather spoken?” he asked, the desperation for any news of his god writ large on his face. “Will He lead us to safety?”
There was a knock on the door then and Katya stepped into the room, holding Zac; Silus noticed that his son had been crying.
“I’m sorry,” Katya said. “You were such a long time and we were getting worried. Is everything okay?”
“Well, Silus?” Bestion said, ignoring the interruption.
Silus looked at his wife and child and realised then what truly mattered; the only thing that mattered.
“Kerberos has spoken,” he said. “Help me to my feet so that I can tell everybody the good news.”