Auric Gods

Chapter One City of Vorganthian, Kobor, within Terra’s light

Pain was an old friend. Meroved kept this in mind as he worked through the last of the sword and spear disciplines. Thrust, turn, parry, thrust, turn, parry. The regimen was nece­ssarily rigorous, the pace increasing with each rotation, and it showed in the finest sheen of sweat across his body. His muscles burned as he completed the final kata, his spear-tip blurring with sheer ferocity.

Meroved held his stance for several minutes at the end, his skin trembling with the effort, his breath even and controlled to siphon the pain.

He looked into the eyes of the man in the mirror before him. They were weary and the colour of creamy jade. It was not for vanity that the entire north wall of the training arena had been replaced with this silver reflective pane. He studied with it. Form mattered, so did speed and precision.

An old man, at least to Meroved’s eyes, looked back. Barefoot, naked but for the short-legged training fatigues he wore. Sweating and weary from exertion. More grey than black in his beard. The skin looser than it had been before, the ink proclaiming his many deeds and many names faded, scars that had soured with age. Even the bionics, the metal that had replaced shattered bone and destroyed tissue, appeared to have lost some of their Martian solidity. Centuries take a toll. He had lessened. To mortal eyes he would appear quite different. But their senses were not so attuned, and more awestruck.

‘End session,’ he said with barely a discernible hint of fatigue, but Meroved heard it. He knew.

The chrono confirmed it. Three-tenths of a second slower.

‘I am dying…’ he said to himself, and set down the spear. It touched the ground with heavy metallic resonance. ‘As all things must. As all things should.’

He turned from his reflection, tired of seeing it and being reminded of everything he was not, and everything he used to be in his mind’s eye, and padded out of the room.

‘Zatu…’ he said, pulling a black robe from the rack in the arming chamber.

‘My lord.’ Relayed through a vox-speaker built into the wall, the voice of his major-domo sounded cold and metallic.

Meroved cast his eye across the many weapons shackled behind stasis fields.

‘I am resuming vigil,’ he said.

‘As you wish, my lord.’

The various armaments took up most of the south wall in a vaulted room that stretched fifty feet above where he was standing. It had taken several centuries to curate those weapons and the other pieces of armour and battle ephemera that he stored alongside them. Many remained unused, for he had his favourites, though they all paled in comparison to the trappings of his former calling.

Except for one. The misericordia was a knife of rare provenance and still rarer craftsmanship. Its beauty and significance eclipsed everything else in Meroved’s vast arsenal and yet he had not drawn it from its scabbard in many centuries. Before he had exiled himself.

In any case, in this place he was no longer a spear-bearer. He had left behind the life of auric gods. He had embraced shadows and alchemy.

‘I am His eyes,’ he reminded himself, and tried very hard to believe that was still enough.

He walked out onto a metal promontory that resembled a gangplank. Below his feet, the chamber plummeted into a deep shaft not unlike a large well. At the end of the gangplank an iron cage hung from a cable bolted to the ceiling, turning slightly with the movement of the air.

Meroved crossed the rest of the promontory and entered the cage.

‘Ascend,’ he uttered, and the cage began to rise. ‘Any items of import, Zatu?’ he asked during the ascent.

‘The Vexen Cage has been found, my lord. Awaiting confirmation.’

A tremor of unease and excitement warred ambivalently within Meroved at this news. His tone betrayed none of this inner conflict, however.

‘Where?’

‘Within the city districts.’

‘Active?’

‘Unknown.’

‘Exact location?’

‘Unknown.’

The cage finished its ascent and came to a halt. The soft glow of another room beckoned through an archway. Meroved heard the low susurrus of the machine within. Its activity hum had become like music.

‘Then let’s rectify that, Zatu.’

‘As you wish, my lord,’ the major-domo replied, welcoming Meroved to the nexus chamber, the dwelling place of the machine.

Zatu bowed as Meroved entered beneath the archway, retreating on the wheeled trackbed he possessed in place of legs. His arm ports were currently vacant, having been slaved to the machine. The light in the vision slit of his helm turned from red to green as he surrendered operation to Meroved.

‘And the other matter, my lord?’

‘Make contact,’ Meroved answered, taking up position in the command throne of the machine and allowing the mechadendrite frame to attach to his back. A twitch of pain recognition registered in his cheek as synaptic pins entered his flesh. ‘Bring her here to me. Events are transpiring more quickly than I anticipated, Zatu. We must be swift to ascertain the nature of the threat.’

‘I can reach the Unsighted for you, my lord, and petition the Aegis.’

Meroved considered it. Much was still unknown.

‘That won’t be necessary. Not yet.’