Changeling

(109): The Great Filters

The Child felt the ground shake first. At first, he believed it was only a tremor. Those sometimes happened when strong Earth users like the guard trained or sparred. He knew something unusual was happening when the Master entered the room at a brisk pace. It was not the time. They were scheduled for history training next, then lunch. He also never walked this fast. The stomp of heavy boots told him the guard was here as well, another anomaly. He heard them pause in front of a neighbor’s door. The one who often cried at night.

“That one is too unstable,” the master said. “He will not serve Kuru-Sen.”

The creak of poor hinges led to a meaty sound, then silence. The master’s steps came closer. They stopped in front of his room.

“This one is on the edge.”

“No risks,” the guard said.

“Then hurry.”

Light invaded the room like a violation. The guard was there. The guard was right in front of him. Knuckles appeared an armspan away from his eyes, then stopped. Just the air from the aborted blow made his eyes tear up. The third ascent guard had tried to strike him and failed and the reason for that was unbelievable to his mind, yet his eyes stubbornly refused to look away. The guard, the invincible hand of the Master, was locked in a struggle with a demon: a skinned wraith from children's tales, stripped of bark and head roots, with long white filaments straining down her head like so much spider silk. She had come from the wall! Exposed bones covered her body, shifting as she moved, and on her back was a large blade waiting for her fingers. The strangest thing about what was happening was how unafraid the Child had become. He hadn’t had the time to accept the Master had ordered his death before the wraith saved him, then she and the guard were gone before he could fear for himself again. The traces of their passage were darkness, scars on the walls and a missing gate torn off its hinges. It still left the Master exposed against the wall, unharmed. The Child looked at him with some measure of curiosity because this was the first time in history the stern man looked anything less than in absolute control. The sight of him, surprised and confused, felt uncanny and seeing it, sacrilegious. Like watching a god defecate. It didn’t last, and by then, the Child was still more curious than scared. Someone else was coming on agile feet.

The one who approached were halfway between the skinned demon and a normal person: taller, darker, and with strange new hair roots but still recognizably one of them. It resembled the form the master said they would have when they awakened. The Master recognized him too.

“You... you are alive after all.”The demon approached.“I made you,” the Master insisted as if it would matter.

The demon didn’t reply. He grabbed the man by the head and pressed it like a ripe gourd. The Child had never witnessed such blind, pure hatred on his species’ features before. The Master may have screamed at some point but the Child was too mesmerized to tell. And then it was over. The Master was dead. The world didn’t turn upside down. The sky didn’t crash on his head, or else it was taking its time. The soil didn’t open to swallow him. The Master was dead and the world kept going.

Just like that.

“You almost broke us,” the demon allowed with a soft voice. Then he grabbed the keys from the Master, the strange ones he never took off. The demon approached the Child who, again, failed to feel any terror coming from the nightmarish figure.

“Time to spread your leaves, little brother,” the demon whispered.

And the collar fell off.

***

The center of a compound was no longer a building, but a large open air stone circle that had cut through the walls and rooms like one scoops flesh from a vegetable. The missing chunk of material had been used to build a circle with the same careless power the Child associated with third ascents. There were three people waiting for the lost column of alien-born now approaching its center, while around them the sounds of battle spoke of a wider conflict. There was something wrong with the sky, too.

The first was the guard, his massive stone armor peeled off near the head. He was standing dazzled and lost, eyes distant with his helmet discarded.

The second was another demon, this one from the depths. Roots jutted out of his mouth instead of his head, giving him a grotesque appearance not unlike the skinned female one. One of those tentacles, or roots, was attached to the guard’s neck. The Child was still unsure as to how he knew they were male and female, respectively. Much like everything that was happening now, he hadn’t had the time to digest that piece of information.

The third was the skinned demon kneeling in meditation. As they came close, she opened her abyssal eyes.

The female demon addressed the familiar demon in a hissy language the Child could almost understand but not quite — like adults speaking in the next room while the door was closed. He only caught the name Kuru-Sen which was the name of the city and its leader for they were one and the same. The demons were, all three of them, very powerful, but there was something about the female demon that made even the Child want to follow, something buried deep for now. A moment later, the skinned demon breathed out.

A portal opened nearby. The Child had been near portals before, though he had not yet awakened so he could not enter. The strange aperture brought a measure of comfort in this very confusing time. Most of his brethren walked through, but of course, he and the other kids could not follow.

***

Nestra hadn’t felt this fucking stupid in ages. Of course there would be many youths if the project was ongoing, and of course those kids would be too young to be awakened and thus couldn’t cross portals! Fucking stupid idiot Nestra not thinking about proper extraction methods, Riel!

“Aaaaaah.”

Mr. Tentacle turned to her, his thrall following obediently.

“It’s fine,” she said. “There is a solution, but first we need to make the city forget about the children. It’s time for maximum chaos.”

***

The Slave watched the city go to hell. It had been a bright morning like every other morning under the protection of Kuru-Sen. Then the earth shook, the skies roiled, and the faraway heart of the palace collapsed. The sounds of titanic combat echoed through the high clouds that were the mark of Kuru-Sen’s power and mastery over the sky. The fact the battle still raged was telling. The leader had met their match.

They were under attack. The Slave’s strongest emotion was curiosity while the free soldiers around him expressed their fear by pushing their anger out and parading those emotions like bloody flags. The invaders would pay. The Slave would have cared if he still believed in the order of Kuru-Sen, in the way the city ought to function. He didn’t. So he was just feeling a mild interest. Reports were screamed by messengers and spells alike, speaking of demons and fires and other outlandish rumors. In the distance, another landmark of Kuru-Sen collapsed in a wave of earth mana to the cries of nearby fleeing citizens. A moment later, the rest of the edifice caught fire.

“By the ancestors...” one of the soldiers whispered before being admonished.

The Slave believed he might learn more as soon as a squad appeared from a corner. The Slave watched them approach wearing blank or focused expressions, like men on a mission. Their uniforms were dirty, signs they’d seen combat The officer of his 50-odd detachment of gate guards hailed them.

The figures blurred.

The Slave had been trained in the arts of war for almost two decades now. He had fought in a skirmish battle against another city chief to the north. His role had been the same as now: to cast the only fire spell he was allowed to use again and again, wearing down the enemy and hopefully buying the mages time should the frontline be breached. Two formations would collide and then it would be a fast dance between two peers to see who was the best competitor. One side won when the other tripped, and an opening formed. This was what he’d been trained for and what he’d experienced in the war before.

This wasn’t like that at all. The demons who charged them didn’t come in lines or rows. They appeared where comrades had just been. They emerged from the ground, jumped out from walls where no window had ever existed. Some of them fell from the roof which would have been suicide in any other situation with half a dozen sharpshooters like the Slave but things were moving so fast that it didn’t matter. The Slave managed to fire three spells, all dodged by an agile, sinuous demon as focused as he was. The storm of monsters bypassed, murdered, or avoided the frontlines. Hastily raised shields failed to stop those who could teleport through space, mages falling left and right. A storm of sights, sounds, and mana overwhelmed the slave when things moved faster than he could conceive, with third ascent veterans being cut to ribbons in seconds all the while. It was impossible, yet it was happening anyway. It was the end. The end of everything. The city was going to fall.

The Slave felt his officer die because the collar stopped pushing him to fight harder. A ghost of terror caught his heart with the memory of snapping neck bones and dead slaves. In the previous war, Kuru-Sen collars had been designed to strangle slaves who had allowed their masters to fall, but that practice had been abandoned after the northerners started to assassinate the officers to neutralize entire squads. He had no more orders though, so he did nothing. The serpentine demon ignored him.

The Slave was honestly surprised to still be alive. His squad had been completely overwhelmed and now Kuru-Sen’s main gate was breached. Like a ravening band, the demons started to make bodies... disappear. They moved their hands and the corpses were gone. One of the most malicious ones kneeled by his officer’s body and retrieved the collar of command. The Slave’s blood froze. He had been fine with dying. The collar allowed much worse than that, and the demon realized it because the other six slaves of the detachment had been spared.

With cautious, hesitant gestures, the demon manipulated the device under the glare of a massive demon beast who moved on all fours. Eventually, the Slave heard it.

Click.

His collar fell off. The Slave felt nothing but emptiness as his gaze found the open item at his feet. He picked it up with awkward fingers.

It felt so light, still warm from his body heat, and dirty. He watched it. He watched it for a very, very long time. When he looked up, it was already late afternoon.

The Free One moved forward. There were a lot of people running around, crying, fighting, not warriors but laborers and slaves many of whom were the ones now exacting violence on those who had owned them. The streets were pure chaos and strange in the way only the familiar could be when altered to such a degree. Because he was armed and strong, the others left him alone. The free slaves recognized him as one of them. The masters feared him, now that he was free and could turn his might against them. There was a sound over the chaos. A part of him knew he should go through the unprotected gates to escape, or better yet, rally people like him and gather supplies to start a village somewhere east or north, where the old world had not been reclaimed. He didn’t. He wanted to know what the sound was. It was coming from the plaza in front of the palace. He walked, past all the chaos, barely paying attention to the defaced normalcy. There was a bakery where he had smelled such good smells earlier. Now it was empty, the door demolished. Fewer people rushed past him as he went on and they all looked panicked. The sun was starting to set.

The silence had returned once again except for a low leitmotif coming from the distant plaza. He recognized words in his own language. He heard chain, and control. The rest was garbled by distance. Morbid fascination needled him on despite so many other better options. His mind would not allow him to escape. He had to see. The words were clearer now that he finally reached the plaza.

The newly-free man had been permitted to go through the plaza once during Kuru-Sen’s triumph at the end of the war. The white stone had filled him with the dread of power under the revealing gaze of the sun, with steep steps leading up to the solemn columns of the palace not unlike the sacred ascent to a temple, but now that path was blocked, obstructed from end to end by an object the free man first struggled to process. Like the city, the object was made of two familiar yet incompatible elements. The first was a wall: it stood as tall as three men and it blocked the approach and the view from one end of the esplanade to the other. The second element were corpses. The wall was made of corpses. It was not a corpse pile, mind, as he’d seen those discarded bodies before after a battle was done. It was a wall. A carefully built wall made of thousands of soldiers, merchants, officers, dignitaries, nobles and powerful raiders stacked with macabre design. It was a thousand pairs of empty eyes glaring up and down to killers that had long since left, or closed in agony. That many blackened limbs, bodies frozen in rictus with gnashing teeth caught in a forever instant seemed to wail in the silence, and silent it was, as no insects dare buzz over the macabre show as if still sensing the dread of its fallen majesty. All the corpses still wore the stained regalia of their previous offices, fingers still gripping the batons, keys, staves and weapons of their meaningless authorities. The most prominent corpse of all stood on display at the center and top of the grotesque edifice: Kuru-Sen himself. The city was dead, and its heart and mind had been left on the sum of its shattered might, vanquished, ribs cracked open like the shell of a crab.

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Of the demons there was no trace. Not a single body, not a discarded weapon.

The free man stopped. The voice registered clearly now, spoken in his tongue and coming from a weird manaless black tool left on the side, disturbingly fragile in appearance for such an incomprehensible artifact.

“We cannot be chained,” the female voice said. “We cannot be controlled. Remember well, or we will return.”

The sentence went on a loop over the silent wall, cool and stained with soot in the dying embers of the twilight sun, a warning for those who would come to investigate the death of Kuru-Sen. Remember. Remember... or we do it again.

***

“I think we got the point across, no?” Nestra asked Kitten for confirmation.

Tigress’ protege managed to convey a shrug which was really impressive coming from a quadruped. The children's group was moving quickly, now joined by the awakened teenagers returning from the nearby world where they’d left with Solstice. They’d decided to go under the city wall rather than risk being spotted near the main gate or any of the smaller passages. The abundance of B-class meant carving a tunnel wasn’t remotely a problem. Ita the harpy finding them wasn’t much of one either, more of a question of timing. Ita had missed her portal but she’d landed close to Kuru-Sen’s main barracks, outside of the world, and decided to just go for it which had worked well to throw the defenders in disarray. Honestly, and with her limited military experience, Nestra was pretty sure the city was totalled. She’d killed most of the leadership that didn’t run, smashed their coms, captured or burnt their supplies, demolished their centers of power and all at minimum cost of civilian lives. The little show at the end was just psychological warfare and also a little bit of a war crime because remains were not supposed to be used that way but they were dead, so there. Better scared now than having Agathon come in person next time. They’d even destroyed most of the control tools! Truly she was a merciful reaver.

“What now?” Ita asked, landing at her side with her group close behind. They were currently taking shelter in an oasis previously defended by some sort of giant rhinoceros thing now slowly cooking over several campfires. Sereth had just landed too, looking much more relaxed, not a surprise considering he must have savored that fight based on how long he ended up dragging it out.

“We need to bring Solstice to a secure spot. He already agreed to take care of the little ones while they grow. Many of the other freed brothers agreed to share in the burden.”

“A responsible male!” Kitten chuffed. “What an auspicious start. Nezhra, you are the covens. You must free the males from their service if you deem the mission complete.”

Nestra gave the distant black clouds rising from the fallen city one last look. Before she could decide, a heavenly male respectfully made his way to her. He was holding a package delicately folded in a beautiful paper. He didn’t dare meet her eyes.

“I am guessing you speak for Agathon?” she hazarded.

“Father will be pleased with this result, sister,” he said, hesitating with that last word as it was verging on the presumptuous.

In the distance, Sereth flexed his mana — and his displeasure.

“He bids me give you payment,” the male hurriedly finished. “This will lead you to your prize.”

Nestra disappeared the packet in her dimensional pocket which she couldn’t wait to load up back on Earth now that it was much larger.

“And... I will let father know of your ruthless cunning,” he added respectfully.

Nestra didn’t react though her mind went ‘huh’? The male took her silence for offense.

“That wall will strike fear in their hearts for generations. The People will know of the malice of the covens, warleader. Hmm. By your leave?”

Well that worked, whatever.

“Listen up everyone, the task is complete!” she bellowed. “Whoever wants to leave, can, thank you all for your help!”

There were a few nods and hoots and the children cowered a little, still probably incapable of understanding Aszhii. Few of the males moved though, because the meat was still cooking.

“You wish to return to your homeworld before the coven joins you, yes?” Kitten asked.

“Yes,” Nestra confirmed.

“You may leave the rest to me. I will shelter the young ones, and guide Solstice to a new haven. He has earned my favor.”

“I’ll head out to hunt, seed the males on my way,” Ita added.

Nestra looked at her two raid sisters.

“Thank you both, I really appreciate it.”

“I think you can bring much to the covens, so I offer my help with a pure heart, however...” Kitten said, leaving the sentence hanging.

Nestra frowned.

“However?”

“You gifted the Elder with something, a... a bed of sorts?”

“Oh, yes! The ah...”

Neither dared use the word ‘box’.

“With your current dimensions?” Nestra asked to confirm.

“Yes.”

“I’ll get one while back home. I’ll grab pillows as well. Promise.”

“I appreciate it.”

Ita squawked a short laugh.

Nestra turned to Sereth. Sensing her gaze, he gestured for her to sit by his side.

“Do you need help getting to the heavenly court?”

“We are not far in terms of jumps so I will manage. I will greet my sister then join you by asking one of the covens for passage. I promised Stibbs I would not leave her for a year but in truth, I intend to shorten that time as much as possible. Makihel will understand. She knows time will no longer set us apart.”

“Ok.”

“So, are you returning to Earth?”

“One last stop, then we’re good to go. Hopefully things will have settled down enough that I can just quietly prepare Threshold’s government for the diplomatic challenge ahead.”

“Not the others?”

“Yeah nah, I mean I’ll have the Threshold diplomats do all this. I can barely navigate my own culture, do you really want me in charge of talks with the Saudis?”

“I applaud your wisdom.”

Nestra glanced up to see if Sereth was taking the piss. He had this bland, himbo pleasant smile on.

“I’ll never understand why Stibbs fell for you.”

“Oi.”

***

Nestra walked into a lush world of lilac grass, the rays of the sun caressing the top of low hills with the last heat of the day. She could hear the sound of the surf some distance to her right. Quadrupedal creatures not unlike deer looked up from their grazing in the far distance, probably unsure on how to process her presence. The ambient mana was very low, ever lower than Earth’s.

It was a peaceful place. She departed at a brisk pace with a silver eight-pointed star in her hand, one of those blinking a cerulean blue. It led her to a heavenly-made beacon buried some distance away from a brook.

“Alright. Now...”

The next direction was simple: follow the brook to its origin. The exhaustion that came with trekking through unperturbed nature was gone, but the pleasure was there and Nestra could see why people would do it as a hobby before the risk of getting your face gnawed off by a mana ape became too serious. There was peace and a simple pleasure in putting one foot in front of the other without distraction. It felt almost as zen as her favorite sword form. It also helped her get spotted, as it would be a bad idea to get the jump on her would-be host.

Someone had restored a house near the top of the hill, where the brook started. Flowers and plants grew in orderly rows, clearly designed for form rather than function since the homeowner didn’t need to be too concerned with food. Nestra made sure to flash her mana with reasonable frequency. There was indeed someone standing near the limit of the cultivated land. Nestra stopped at a distance. She had decided to use her true form because... well, because of honesty and because she couldn’t take the risk. If someone could feel her dimension pocket at a distance, it would be him.

He wasn’t what she expected. The vids back home did show him as a large individual, and the simple clothes he wore did show off a physique like a bear, but he was also quite soft from the curls of his hair, and of his long beard, sorrowful brown eyes and tan skin. If he didn’t radiate carefully controlled mana of a taste Nestra had never experienced from a human before, she would have taken him from the kind of musicians who taught groups of poor kids for free, distributing printed flutes like candies in the hope one of them would find their path. She almost had to smile at this.

“Hello, Riel,” she greeted.

He really looked like the kind of person who would sacrifice —

Nestra’s thoughts were interrupted by the man flicking his hand with a sigh. She was tossed into a funnel that felt much like what she opened between worlds but this one was ‘horizontal’ as in it would send her a continent away, and also she wasn’t given a choice. Space warped around her to move her without her consent. Or it was moving itself while she wasn’t. Not that it mattered. She was Aszhii. Nestra grabbed the edges of the spell like a guild enforcer with a foot in the door before it could snap shut. With a few grunts and quite a bit of energy, she crawled and bullied her way past the distortion.

“You uppity cunt do you have any notion how fucking hard it was to find you, you fucking dog!”

Her outrage was so intense she almost forgot he was an A-class who could puree her in an instant, and that sending her away had been a bit of a mercy. Fortunately, he looked more surprised than offended. Shock, then recognition shifted his features. His mouth moved, tasting the words she’d said.

Nestra flopped on the ground with all the dignity of a banana slice escaping a chocolate crepe. She nodded very enthusiastically when his lips formed the word ‘cunt’.

“Al’ama. English. You... are speaking English. English... I remember.”

His voice was soft and oddly comforting just like in the archive files, though it was also harsh from disuse. He looked down at her, knees visibly trembling. His large, hairy hand gripped a small tree’s trunk for support.

“But... how?”

“Well I wasn’t always an alien. Or rather, I was an alien but I didn’t know.”

She put on her human mask. After so long, it felt a little weird. Riel looked at her with clear disbelief.

“Clytemnestra Palladian of Threshold, at your service!” she said with a wave.

“It... it can’t be. How? How did you find me?”

“Well it’s a bit complicated but the short version is that there is a species of aliens that can mimic humans and I am one of their children, the only human one for now, and basically my species is very good at space magic and good at crossing planes and that’s how I managed to find you. We are called the Aszhii. I am a human-born Aszhii and I like humans very much so I knew I had to find you if you were still alive... and I did!”

“Aszhii. Alien? I... see? So you are here...”

“I suppose you’ll have plenty of questions but after... let’s go home, Riel!”

“No. You come in. We talk. I... I need a moment. And I need to pack.”

“Ok!”

Nestra followed him into a cozy homestead that felt entirely too crowded with just him inside — Riel really was a large man. It had clearly been built for a shorter species, but otherwise felt like it had been taken from some Bavarian folk tale with children getting eaten at some point — little shits probably deserved it. The bearish figure hesitated, then turned to her again as if making sure she were real.

“We can leave whenever but it will take quite a few jumps before we return. Take your time!” Nestra assured him with a winning smile.

“Ah. Yes.”

Not very loquacious for a fucking living legend. Riel! In the flesh. Holy shit she was going to rack some good lass points back home with this stunt.

“You’re so famous!” she blurted while he hesitated.

He smiled for the first time, though it was a little bitter.

“Am I? It is good to be remembered.”

“You’re more than remembered! You’re... a legend. Like King Arthur. Or Steve Irwin! In my city people use your name as a swear word!”

Riel winced which made Nestra feel like a bit of an idiot. Yeah. A bit awkward.

“I am not sure I approve, as a man is worthy of respect but never of worship. More importantly, I wondered if Earth still stood. I hoped, of course. After... the battle.”

“Yes! What happened after you teleported? Wait...”

Riel was shoving entire pieces of furniture, racks, pots and all into a bag that felt very strange in her space sense.

“Wait, you invented dimensional storage?”

“I had a lot of time,” Riel replied ever softly.

He was smiling more freely now. Rather than continuing to pack, he instead went for a heating stone clearly pilfered from some dungeon. The entire home was like that: an eclectic mix of stuff covering every possible stratum of wealth and technology. The pillow on his squat bed looked like it had been taken from some sultan’s bedroom while there were clay mugs and glasses made by, she assumed, a clumsily enthusiastic toddler.

“You’re going to be so loaded when you return. Researchers have been trying to solve this riddle for years!”

Just imagining the royalties made her head float.

“How is mankind?” Riel asked.

“Recovering. Adapting. Learning. When I left, we... sorry, that is, the humans were expanding into a bridge world, a sort of permanent, uhhh.”

“I am familiar,” Riel gently interrupted when she floundered. “After I dumped us all on a volcanic planet, it took me some time but I did find another passage. And I tried teleporting again, but without the proper coordinates...”

Nestra wasn’t sure how it worked for him. There would be time to compare notes later.

“So you tried to find Earth?”

“Yes. I did,” Riel replied with a choking voice.

“Sorry. Of course you did.”

“After... after twenty jumps or so and no obvious answer. I... stopped. I just stopped. How long have I been gone?”

“Over sixty years.”

He breathed hard.

“Right. One more... urgent question. How is Beirut?”

“The Beirut Enclave? Well...”

She searched her memories for something nice to say. There had been the great Sunni Shia war of 33, the Mediterranean kaiju incident of 42, or was it 43? And then the great Eid tide in 59...

Riel studied her expression as her face progressively fell off.

“Errr it’s, uh, it’s still standing. And the food is delicious.”

“And if you had told me some tale of wonder, I would have known you for a liar,” Riel joked without much humor.

“So... you’re from there? Originally. I never asked. Actually, people don’t know.”

“My closest allies know, but I told them not to share anything about me. I knew it would be used for politics if people survived and I didn’t. An unknown was a better rallying point for many of us, especially back then. Since you found me, however, I will tell you that yes, I am Lebanese. My name is Malik Najm. I am Riel, the first human A-class. Do they still call us A-class?”

“Yes. For now.”

He smiled once more. It really illuminated his large face and made him almost jolly.

“It is a big world out there. And I will ask you to tell me about it. There is much I need to catch up on.”

He planted two ugly mugs of hot tea and a plate of candied fruit in front of her. His plate-sized, hairy hand gently offered her a seat. She was surprised he even had two chairs.

“Please. I offer my hospitality.”

“I appreciate it. I just thought, you know, you’d want to go to Earth as soon as possible?”

“I waited for sixty years and I can wait for another day, young... Palladian, was it?”

“Nestra.”

“Nestra then. My return will make for a very busy time. I expect lots of talks and tests, so I would rather be prepared, and besides, I have not had the chance to speak to another ‘human’ for such a long time.”

The joy he radiated and the purposeful use of ‘human’ made Nestra’s little black heart melt with fan happiness.

“Ok then!”

“Good. Now, start from the beginning...”