The Blood Solution (Approaching Infinity Book 3) Read online

  Raus looked up. He’d felt something, but nothing that would adequately explain what had happened to the desiccated Sarsans lying about.

  “Where is Shiia?” Mills Fantisco, the ghost to Raus’s left, said.

  “Shiia?” said Ilania Buskos in a whimper at Raus’s back. Then in a high, cracked, shrill, “Shiia Elsara!”

  Emis Jesler, to Raus’s right, said, “Acston, she’s gone. The power is still running, but she’s gone. Even if she wanted to flee, there’s been no time.”

  “I-I don’t know,” Acston Mosario said. “Even with the reduction in power from the lost crystals, we should be stable for another several hours. There was trouble with the system in the early days as you know, but we solved the data degradation problem ages ago. One hundred percent transfer has been assured; we’ve had no loss in over four thousand years.”

  “Was it him?” Mills Fantisco said, nodding towards Jav with his chin. “Surely you felt that. I did.”

  Raus started to laugh, taking advantage of his captors’ preoccupation with Shiia Elsara’s disappearance, and yanked free of the spectral grip that had held him prisoner. None of the Bright Ones moved to recapture him. Only Emis Jesler took up his sword and tried to cleave Raus with it, regardless of their previous inability to deal a mortal wound. Raus caught the blade between the steel bolts that lined the backs of his arms, turned it aside. He twisted to jam the blade, further down its length, between the bolts of his other arm, pulled his arms apart, and snapped the blade in two.

  The Mikai Curse boomed again. More of the surrounding Sarsans had fallen prey to its vampiric drain and the radius had expanded to at least double what it had been.

  With sick fascination, Raus watched Jav raise his head and howl as the Curse escalated. He heard Ilania Buskos scream and saw that a chunk of her torso, including her right arm, was gone, and something which might have been like blood, though colorless, was drizzling away into the cold air from her wound. He saw Acston Mosario drop his sword and clutch at his ghostly head with equally ghostly hands. He saw thousands of Sarsans trying to get as far away from them as possible. And the Curse came again. And again and again, spreading out, dropping Sarsans by the hundreds, relieving them of every drop of blood and killing them in an instant. Raus felt it each time, a jolt that threatened to turn him inside out, but somehow it never did.

  The Curse continued to pulse through the valley until not a single Sarsan was left standing. Withered corpses of women and children hung from the openings in the Sarsan lodgings. Some were tangled in ladder rungs, most, though, formed irregular piles of jutting arms and legs at the buildings’ foundations. The snowy plain was dirty with emptied husks that had once been human beings. The curse cycled down and when it was through, Jav, though unchanged physically, seemed to be brimming with sheer presence.

  Jav came down from the rush of the Curse. He saw that of the Bright Ones, only Thars Kohanic, Emis Jesler, and Acston Mosario remained—the rest had become unlikely victims of the Mikai Curse. Jav walked to the machine Kohanic had used to seal the DNA pact between Sarsans, his movements broken at irregular intervals. He placed a splayed hand—strange sparkles surrounding his fingers—atop it and pressed it down, crumpling it to the ground as if it were made of foil, sparks and little explosions barking out along the way but smothered by the machine itself as it collapsed down. Smoke jetted out and rose interminably after Jav left it.

  Jav bent at the waist, lowered his head, and began a kind of loping run towards the Bright Ones, his open hands hanging down at his sides. He reached Acston Mosario first and drove a claw hand, again surrounded by veil of flickering glitter, into the ghost’s gut, calculating closer to infinity than he’d ever dared to before. He was not disappointed by the result.

  Mosario looked down, unable to make sense of the pain he was experiencing. Calculating AI furiously, Jav twisted his hand, reached up inside of Mosario, making him wince, and pulled something out from within. Jav’s hand was empty on exit except for the twinkling lights, but Mosario gasped, threw his head back and came apart, indistinguishable from the once-again pristine white snow flakes falling to the ground.

  Emis Jesler cried out in rage, took up a dropped sword in better condition than his own, and sought to cut Jav down. Jav took hold of Jesler’s spectral wrist, much to the Bright One’s surprise, even after witnessing Mosario’s fall, causing him to cry out again, this time in agony, as Jav, with his other hand, gripped the same arm at the shoulder, and tore it off. The arm fell away and came apart as Mosario had. Jav followed with claw hand to the throat that all but beheaded the former chief security officer. He was gone in seconds.

  Jav turned to Kohanic who stood still, shaking with fury.

  “I will not fall so easily,” Kohanic said. He shouted out to no one in particular now, “Reactors eight, nine, and ten, engage. Divert all power to Bright Protocol, Kohanic Model. Voice print authorization Esfortua Nach Pfan.”

  The hum of power emanating from the Bright Sarsastra intensified. Buried within the hum, though, was a protesting whine that suggested impending mechanical failure.

  Regardless, Kohanic received the power he requested and grew to twice his size to stand now at five meters. He was faster, too, the new square-tipped blade in his hand quick and agile, and for the first time, giving Jav a real challenge. Kohanic was, in fact, a good swordsman—having thousands of years to practice, Jav thought that he certainly ought to be, anyway—but now with the additional resources, temporary as they might be, he was perhaps superior to any Shade. With the Mikai Curse satisfied, Jav knew that the Ritual Mask’s rank doubled to 30 so this was the strongest he’d ever been while in complete command of his senses, and yet Kohanic dogged him, nicking him here, forcing him to slap the blade away there, and each time, even with the slightest contact, the current came, robbing him of control of his muscles for moments at a time.

  Kohanic pressed, made a terrific lurch, and would have beheaded Jav if not for the Ghost Kaiser. The smoke afterimage left Kohanic befuddled, but Jav did not hesitate, having appeared behind the giant and once again pushing his AI skills beyond all previous limits—dangerous more to himself, should he be unable to exceed infinity—he sank both claw hands into what would correspond to Kohanic’s right kidney.

  Kohanic reared and cried out, spinning around, swinging wildly with his blade, but Jav bounced away. In that moment, Jav saw something that confirmed his suspicions about the additional power coming from the Bright Sarsastra. Despite his glowing, monochromatic features, Jav detected desperation in Kohanic’s eyes. The time limit must be severe. Jav started to laugh in spite of himself. He didn’t know where this malicious spirit was coming from. He suddenly knew that he couldn’t lose, and though he had had this feeling many times in the past, he had never mocked an opponent before. The futility of Kohanic’s drive—after all his people were dead, and a large portion of the dead enjoying afterlives had been erased from existence by nuclear fire—was somehow amusing. What did Kohanic think he was going to accomplish even if he was successful?

  Just as quickly as it came, though, Jav stifled the errant thought, realizing that Kohanic was fighting with everything he had. To meet Kohanic, a leader and protector of his people, with anything less would be shameful. Power was a tool, and Jav would not be mastered by it. He fought an urge to apologize and simply renewed his efforts, attempting to give as much as Kohanic. He leapt forward, avoiding the blade and delivering several claw hands up Kohanic’s torso, but for the speed required, he could not bring enough AI to bear to cause significant damage.

  Kohanic whirled the blade, making several cuts, but all of them were superficial. Jav realized that he’d have to get rid of the blade—again. Timing was critical, but Jav had mastered the Eighteen Heavenly Claws and the Approaching Infinity techniques contained within. He was also overflowing with power which he would bend to his will. He sprang back, making Kohanic chase him, but with AI, Jav outdistanced him quickly. When satisfied, he started a stuttered and
hard-to-follow zig-zag pattern, bounding back towards Kohanic. Once close enough, he paused briefly to crouch down to use the full force of his legs, launching himself with all his prodigious strength and adding AI to perform the Kaiser Kick.

  The top of Jav’s foot met the pommel of Kohanic’s sword, and shot the blade like a bullet from the latter’s hand. Kohanic was stunned by the action, glanced briefly after the retreating blade, and back at Jav too late to avoid the trap of Jav’s hands. The calculations were already well underway and Jav could not look away, staring straight into Kohanic’s giant face and accusing eyes. But Kohanic’s fury was gone, replaced with sorrow. Jav thought for a moment that he saw spectral tears begin to stream down Kohanic’s cheeks, just before Kohanic’s head imploded in three punctuated stages. Then, in a whisper so that only he and Kohanic might hear, Jav did apologize before twisting the other’s insubstantial head off and into oblivion.

  • • •

  Raus stared in disbelief. He’d borne witness to horrible deeds in the past, had performed horrible deeds himself, but something about Jav’s savagery—desperate, brutal and vindictive—was somehow sickening. It inspired in Raus a species of dread that wouldn’t go away. Jav had been so different before the events here in the valley and Raus couldn’t help having a new respect for him, but wasn’t afraid to admit to himself that such respect was the clear product of fear. When he thought back to their own contest he shuddered. Jav indeed could have torn off his arms. The disparity between the man he had come to know and the monster that committed what amounted to small-scale genocide over the course of hours was difficult for Raus to get his head around. He knew that their purpose was to accomplish what Jav had, but he had envisioned it going differently—not better, or more cleanly necessarily, just differently.

  Nothing had changed for Raus. He had no real sympathy for the dead here, though he couldn’t overcome a certain degree of shock over how the end had come for them. Before Kohanic had showed up, Raus had no doubts that he and Jav would be successful, now he was simply giddy that they had survived and somehow come out victorious without either of the armies they were counting on.

  “Raus,” Jav’s voice came hoarsely, “We’re not done with this valley.”

  “What are we going to do?” Raus said.

  “Collapse it.”

  Raus watched Jav bow his head slightly and felt everything around them go surreal.

  A loud groaning—of metal straining against an unbearable load—rang out from the Bright Sarsastra. Raus saw the ship sag, would have sworn that its top was bending down to kiss the valley floor, and then a series of loud, reverberant cracks sounded from the same source and the ship ruptured a fourth of the way up where it crumpled and began to fold. A kilometer’s length of steel began what seemed like a slow descent, reaching the ground with a brilliant eruption of fire. Cracks spread out from where the ship hit and the ground fell away in great chunks of rock and frozen soil, into the vast blue-lit cavern below where the sound of shattering crystal mixed with that of the rending metal and succession of explosions that seemed to go on without end. More of the ship slipped from its millennia-old foothold into the growing hole in the valley floor. Blue fire shot up and spilled over the lip of the layer of earth forming the valley floor and the cavern’s roof as crystals shattered one after another. The sun-bright meadows were coming apart bit by bit. The Sarsan afterlife was winking out by degrees so that all would join Kohanic and his fellow Bright Ones in oblivion.

  “The reactors on the ship will go critical soon,” Raus said.

  “I know.”

  They started away from the wreck of the Bright Sarsastra, through a morass of dried up, shrunken corpses, blue fire at their backs. Raus looked at Jav nervously from time to time, not quite sure how to speak to him or of what to say. Finally, he said, “How did you do that? To that machine, to the Bright Ones, to the Bright Sarsastra?”

  “Approaching Infinity,” Jav said. “But it’s not something I could have done without the power afforded by all those lives.”

  “I didn’t realize that the Kaiser Bones had a transformation of their own,” Raus said.

  Jav cocked his head. “They don’t. This is the Ritual Mask. The Kaiser Bones are gone.”

  Raus remembered Jav mentioning the Mikai Curse and mumbled, “Mikaidaa. . .”

  Jav regarded Raus, but said nothing.

  “I thought you said the Ritual Mask expired,” Raus said, mastering his nerves.

  “Clearly I was wrong.”

  Raus nodded uneasily.

  The ground rocked beneath them as the exploding crystals set more crystals off, a chain reaction that radiated out to the extent of the valley floor in every direction. Distant booms shook the surrounding ranges. When Raus looked to where Jav had launched Kohanic’s first sword, he could see blue fires peeking out through the predominant nuclear flame.

  • • •

  They sat atop a stone escarpment, looking down at the blaze which seemed so far away and yet was warming them even now.

  “Jav?” Raus said tentatively. “Are you all right?”

  “No. No, I’m not all right.” Jav paused a moment, considering. “I’ve lost something.”

  “The Kaiser Bones.”

  Jav shook his head. “They’re still far away, but they’re not gone, not anymore. No, what I’ve lost. . . I’ve lost before.”

  “What is it?”

  Jav turned to face Raus and shook his head slowly, the plain, nearly featureless visage of the Ritual Mask surreal and somehow expressive. “I don’t know. I only know that it’s gone.

  “Raus, in the short time that I’ve known you, I’ve come to value your friendship, but I could have killed you today. Something about your blood chemistry or your Artifact or a combination of the two made you immune to the Curse, and for that I’m grateful, but I realized something that I’ve been afraid to admit to myself for the last six or seven years.”

  Raus looked at Jav expectantly when he didn’t continue. “What?” he finally said.

  Jav sighed. “That maybe the Ritual Mask has never been in control, that it just provides the excuse of pure, amoral freedom and the power to exercise it.

  “There may come a time when you will have to stand in my way, to stop me. I’m telling you now, if that time ever comes, do what you have to do and I will never blame you, or fault you, or condemn you for it.”

  Raus stared, tried to laugh, couldn’t. “Jav, I—” He shook his head, frowning. “How do I—how does anyone—respond to something like that?”

  “You don’t.”

  10. A LOST ECHO

  10,689.169

  “So, Jav Holson, the Ritual Mask is intact, functional,” the Emperor hissed.

  “Yes, Lord Emperor,” Jav said to the floor of the Emperor’s chamber. He was dressed in the grays of the Squad, with a gray leather jacket to replace the black one given to him by Salavar Grummel, and wore black cloth shoes in place of boots.

  “How do you account for that?”

  “I can’t. I was just as surprised as I imagine you were, Lord Emperor. I can say that by necessity, in training in the Eighteen Heavenly Claws, I spent more time accustomed to the Ritual Mask’s absence, or at least its inaccessibility, than to its presence or what it could do for me.”

  “I do not blame you, Jav Holson, nor am I judging you. As the Ritual Mask’s creator, I alone should understand its potential and its limitations. I must say that I have been intrigued with the notion of a Shade possessing two Artifacts and what that would do, how the Artifacts would act together. I daresay that anyone in your position would do just about anything to retain two Artifacts and justifiably so. The potential power increase is too great a temptation to ignore. However, in your case, it seems any concerns regarding an increase in power were unwarranted. It pleases me that the Ritual Mask preserved you, though. Losing you would would have been a waste.

  “Do you know why the Kaiser Bones abandoned you?”

  “No.
But Thars Kohanic claimed to have communicated with the Bones. And I’m now quite certain that the sound I started hearing after fighting Ty Karr is a chorus of voices, unintelligible but constant and. . .” Jav thought for a moment. What was it about the voices? He could discern no discrete words or overall purpose, but he could tell that the voices were at least one thing. “Insistent.”

  The Emperor was silent, with triangle eyes revealing a warm, undulating flame and nothing else. Finally, something like a sigh set the Emperor’s flame to flickering. “I’m sure it’s simply your subconscious trying to apply order to chaos. You received quite a shock when Ty Karr was defeated. We all did. The last vengeful act of a dying god. But remember, Jav Holson: you destroyed Bahahm, utterly, while he merely left you with a ringing in your ears. Which is the more noteworthy?”

  “Yes, Lord Emperor.”

  “You have access to both Artifacts now?”

  Jav hesitated, searching for the right words. “I can feel the Ritual Mask, but the Kaiser Bones are in the way.”

  The Emperor seemed to nod without moving.

  “That is all, Jav Holson. You are dismissed.”

  “Thank you, Lord Emperor.”

  10,689.170

  “I’ve never walked across the Black Fields without having to constantly look over my shoulder. It’s a strange feeling.”

  “I’d say you’ll get used to it, Raus, but even this is temporary,” Jav said, his hands jammed into the pockets of his gray jacket.

  “I know. I’ve seen what happens to planets the Emperor has fed on. And I know that we’ll be moving on as soon as we’re able.”