Heights of the Depths Read online

  “Really.”

  “If it had, would you tell me?”

  “No.”

  “I do not find that to be particularly reassuring.”

  “Just do it, Pavan. I tire of this and I tire of your cowardice.”

  Pavan bristled, the fur on the back of his neck standing up. “I am not a coward.”

  “There! Right there: The emotion you displayed there. That is what you need to do in order to have a proper Communion.”

  “I need to be annoyed with you?”

  “You need to take all your strongest emotions—all of them—and focus them. They will be both the sustenance for the Zeffers, and your shield lest they take too much from you.”

  “But annoyance isn’t really a strong emotion. What if…what if I don’t have any?”

  “When the time comes, I assure you that you will. But that is an issue for another time. For now, do as you have trained to do.”

  Displaying an assertiveness that he did not feel, but hoping that he would draw actual inspiration from acting as if he did feel it, Pavan strode right to the edge of Zeffer Point, opened his mouth, and began to sing. His voice wavered at first, but then he found his proper pitch, and his training and practice took over. His song began to build. The words were ancient, so much so that their original meaning had been lost and were the subject of spirited debate among many tribal elders. But Akasha had told him that it was less about the specific meaning of the words so much as it was firmly believing in the sincerity of one’s intentions. Zeffers thrived on sincerity.

  The wind took Pavan’s song and caused it to rebound throughout the High Place. He heard his own words, his own chant, coming back to him. They sounded pure and good and wonderful, and Pavan stretched wide his arms as if welcoming his wandering spirit back to himself. It grew colder and colder, but Pavan took no notice of it. He sang with growing confidence, as if it was something that he had been doing not only for the entirety of his life, but since before he was born. He had practiced his songs repeatedly throughout his training, but never before had he felt connected to those Keepers who had preceded him.

  For the first time in his life, he did not feel alone.

  The wind began to shift and at first he didn’t realize why. He thought it was simply a natural turn of the weather. Then he realized that something was coming, rising from below. The realization excited him so much that it almost threw him off his song, but he managed to keep himself together and maintain the steady strength of his tune.

  Slowly, majestically, a Zeffer rose in front of him. Its surface undulated and the tentacles dangling beneath it swayed in the wind. It was massive, as Zeffers always were, taking up the entirety of Pavan’s field of vision.

  A second Zeffer appeared behind it, and then a third.

  And they sang back to him.

  No one was sure exactly how it was that Zeffers managed to accomplish their songs. They had no vocal apparatus that anyone was aware of. Then again, there was much about Zeffers that remained cloaked in mystery. No one knew how they mated or reproduced, or how long they lived. The only thing that anyone knew for certain was how they derived sustenance, and from whom.

  His voice slid up the scale and he was fascinated to see that the Zeffers responded physically. They titled on an invisible axis, first one direction and then the other as he shifted the tones almost playfully. On one sustained note he even got them to turn completely over, which he had not thought Zeffers were capable of doing.

  For the first time, however, he began to feel that he was capable of shouldering the responsibility that was to be thrust upon him, once he had reached the proper age and circumstances dictated that it was time.

  An arm rested gently around his shoulder. Akasha was at his side, and was smiling in approval. “Well done, young Pavan. Well done,” he said. It was the first time in ages that Pavan could recall receiving unqualified praise from his mentor.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Then Akasha cuffed him in the back of the head and said, “Do not become overconfident. That can lead you to ruin.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The Zeffers were swaying with much more agitation than they had previously been displaying. Akasha looked at them and then back to Pavan. “Why did you stop singing?”

  “Because you were talking to me, Master.”

  “And you let yourself be distracted by someone else?” He cuffed him once more and then said, “Get back to it.”

  Pavan did as he was instructed, and the Zeffers and he serenaded each other with songs that were ancient. They did not Commune, for Communion was only for the Zeffers and the Keeper. But this was a first and necessary step toward that time when the Keeper would be the sole means of sustenance for the Zeffers, and the survival of not only the magnificent creatures, but the Serabim themselves, would depend upon him.

  For the first time in his life, Pavan began to believe that he might well be up for the task.

  the spires

  I.

  Nicrominus could scarcely believe what he was looking at. The face of a human being was staring back at him from within the armor of the Overseer. It seemed ridiculous, a grand joke somehow, as if a human had found the armor lying around and had climbed into it, commandeering it. And that human would most certainly die for such effrontery, because the Overseer would never tolerate such an action, never…

  “Never wondered?” said the Overseer. “Never wondered which member race of those who sent you into exile would be the one overseeing you all?”

  “Of course I have wondered, Overseer,” said Nicrominus uncertainly, still trying to process the warped reality being presented him. “Of course I have. We all have. The, uh…the most oft repeated theory was that it was one of the Magisters. They are the oldest known race, and so it was assumed by many that—”

  “I’m sure there were a lot of theories, Nicrominus. Out of curiosity, how many theorized that it was a human being?”

  Nicrominus didn’t even have to think about it. “None.”

  “That’s the beauty of it, isn’t it.”

  “I do not understand. I have some familiarity with the life spans of Morts…”

  “I hate that term.”

  “Humans,” Nicrominus quickly corrected himself. “The Third Wave was long enough ago that any humans who might have survived it would most certainly have succumbed to the ravages of old age.”

  “Do I look like a spring chicken to you?”

  “I…do not know what that is.” Nicrominus was weighing every word, eager not to give offense. “So I cannot accurately state whether you look like one or not.”

  The Overseer didn’t appear to be listening. Instead he was staring at the helmet he held in his armored hands. “Been a long time,” he said, “since I breathed the fresh air. Or at least what passes for fresh air in Manhattan.”

  “Man—?”

  “—hattan. New York City. The Big Apple.”

  “Big Apple?”

  “It’s a nickname.”

  Nicrominus looked around and saw no indication of any sort of fruit. “Why is it called that?”

  The Overseer considered that and then shrugged. “You know, I have absolutely no idea. Maybe there used to be orchards around here. I honestly couldn’t tell you.”

  “Were any other cities referred to as ‘big’ anything?”

  “New Orleans was the Big Easy.”

  The name “Orleans” sounded familiar to Nicrominus. In his readings of human history back in Perriz, he had seen myriad mentions of a “Maid of Orleans” and thought they might be related somehow. “Why the ‘Big Easy?’”

  “Not sure. Perhaps the women were all sluts. Actually, I was stationed there for a few months, during Mardi Gras, and they damned sure were easy then.” He studied Nicrominus’s reaction. “You have no blessed idea what I’m talking about, do you.”

  “I am afraid not, Overseer.”

  “Stop calling me that. It’s a stupid name. Stupid title. Never
much cared for it. The Travelers call me that, but you’re not a Traveler and it sounds ridiculous coming from you.”

  “Very well. How would you prefer I address you then?”

  The Overseer appeared to ponder that. “I haven’t been one for a long time, but I kind of miss ‘Colonel.’ ‘Colonel’ would be nice.”

  “Colonel is your name?”

  “Colonel is my rank. Colonel Elijah Dunn. I won’t bore you with my serial number. Can scarcely remember it, actually.” He frowned. “Lot of things I have trouble remembering from my previous life. Would you like to see the best view of the city there is, Nicrominus?”

  “Very much so, Colonel.”

  “Right this way, then. It’s a bit of a hike, but worth it.”

  Nicrominus was having trouble believing that all of this was happening. It was like living a very strange dream. The Overseer was taking great strides but then appeared to notice that Nicrominus was having trouble keeping up with him, and so slowed, allowing Nicrominus to catch up.

  “You should have seen this in its heyday, Nicrominus. So many people. So much life. Although frankly I’m still not certain if it was a good thing or a bad thing.”

  “Overs—Colonel. My apologies. You sound rather ambivalent over the status of your own race.”

  “You picked up on that, did you?” The Colonel smiled ruefully. “I’m not even sure I think of them as my own race anymore. In many ways, I feel as if they were just this aspect of me that I’ve since outgrown.”

  “You said that ‘Colonel’ was a rank. A rank in what?”

  “United States Army. Special forces. I could go into greater detail, but it wouldn’t mean much of anything to you.”

  “I suppose not. If I may ask…”

  “How did I get this way?” The Colonel tapped his armor. “How did I wind up in this tin can? In charge of everyone and everything on Earth?”

  “That was more or less what I was wondering, yes.”

  “Can’t say as I blame you. Frankly, it’s all a bit of a blur to me as well. The last thing I remember was facing off against the assembled forces of the Third Wave. And I shouted at them, well, pretty much what everyone says I shouted. Told them to get off my damned world. Obviously I had no idea that I had just dubbed the entirety of the planet with a brand new name.”

  He stopped walking. Nicrominus looked at him questioningly and then the Colonel shook his head, appearing abashed. “Sorry. Red light. Force of habit, really. Stupid habit, too. Nobody in New York gave a damn about red lights even when there were people and cars here.” Nicrominus had no idea what he was talking about, but then a glowing red circle set above the intersection caught his attention. As the Colonel walked under it, the red circle was extinguished, only to be replaced by a green one. Nicrominus had no idea what significance that might hold, but resolved to ask the Colonel about it at some later point.

  “And then the hordes descended upon me and I figured, you know, that was it. I was done. And the next thing I knew, I was gone.”

  “Gone?”

  The Colonel nodded. “There was just nothingness around me. Blackness. And a distant glow, except I couldn’t make out the source. I wasn’t in a room or anything like that. It was more like hanging in a void. I was sure I was dead. A goner. And then I heard this voice.”

  “What did it sound like?”

  “Like not one voice. It sounded like a chorus of them, actually. A dozen, a hundred. Hard to say. But they were all talking together using exactly the same words. And they told me what was going on. See, I was thinking like an army man. I just assumed—as everybody else did, really—that this had been an invasion. An attempt to conquer us. Except that wasn’t what the Third Wave was at all. You know what it was? Australia.”

  “Aus…tralia? What is—?”

  “It’s a country. Or a continent. I’m a little hazy on that. We’ll say a country.”

  “All right,” said Nicrominus, wanting to be reasonable.

  “And it had plenty of indigenous life. People who had been living there for thousands of years. And then, in the eighteenth century, the British decided to set up shop there and began dumping their criminals into newly created colonies.”

  “The ‘British’—?”

  The Colonel waved off the question. “Don’t worry about the specifics. Basically one nation decided to send its cast offs and unwanted to Australia so they wouldn’t have to deal with them. And this practice continued for, oh, seventy-five years or so. The result was that the people who were already there, the natives, found their population dropping thanks to diseases and such that they weren’t prepared to deal with. For that matter, the history of this country right here isn’t all that much different, except in our case it was unwanted religious elements as opposed to criminal elements. As far as the natives were concerned, it was all the same, I suppose.”

  “I suppose,” Nicrominus said, doing his best to keep up with the conversation.

  “So basically you lot were criminals and we were Australia.”

  “With all respect…Colonel,” he said, trying to remember the new, preferred means of address, “we were not criminals. There was a war for the hearts and minds of the residents of the Elserealms, and the Twelve Races sent here lost.”

  “Again, the specifics don’t really matter, do they? All that matters is that you got sent here, and we were already here, and so you had to get rid of us.”

  “It was not the desire of the Firedraques to dispense with those who were already residing in this sphere. We would have been perfectly content to craft treaties that would have guaranteed our living in peace with humans.”

  “I can believe that. My ancestors upon arriving here crafted treaties with the natives to ensure that all would live in harmony.”

  “There, you see—?”

  “We broke all the treaties, took their land, and nearly obliterated them all.”

  “Ah,” was all Nicrominus could think of to say.

  By that point they were approaching a building so tall that Nicrominus could not even begin to make out the uppermost reaches. “This is it,” the Colonel said. “This is what I wanted to show you. It’s called the Empire State Building. Constructed back when skyscrapers had a modicum of style. This way,” and he walked in through wide glass doors, bending slightly to avoid banging his head since the armor built up his height beyond normal human proportions. Nicrominus followed him.

  “Anyway,” said the Colonel as he pushed a small button inset into a wall, “once I understood what was going on, well…I couldn’t say I was happy about it, but at least it made sense. It was sort of a vast symmetry. That which members of my race had done to others throughout our history was now being done to us. I’m a big believer in actions generating consequences, and having to live with those consequences. And the Third Wave was the ultimate extension of that.

  “So there I was, hanging in this sort of void between life and death, being made to understand the vastness of the situation, and this voice—these voices—offered me an opportunity. A chance to be put in charge of the entire world. To oversee it all. Act as a sort of ultimate power who was designed mostly as a figurehead to keep the Twelve Races in a state of fear.”

  “Fear of what?”

  “Of each other. Of the Banishers. As long as the Twelve Races continued to focus their attentions elsewhere, they could not mount any sort of counterattack against the Elserealms.”

  “Was that ever truly a possibility?”

  The Colonel gave him an amused look. “Of course it was.”

  There was a faint “ding” noise and the doors opened. Nicrominus looked at it suspiciously. “I rode in this earlier. I am not entirely sure I understood its function.”

  “It’s called an elevator. It’s perfectly safe. Well…as safe as a small room suspended by cables over a drop of hundreds of feet can be, I suppose. Come.” He entered the elevator and gestured for Nicrominus to follow him. The Firedraque did as he was bidden, although he was
nervous as the doors closed him in. The room began to move and Nicrominus staggered slightly as it did so.

  “How was it a possiblility? That we could mount a counter-attack? From this realm, of all places? Does it have something to do with the hotstars?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “With respect, Colonel, it does to me.”

  “This is your home, Nicrominus. All your homes. The sooner you come to terms with that, the better. I know I did. Just as, when I was floating in that void,” he said, “I came to terms with what my role in life was to be. I’ll tell you, those moments as I was just drifting, helplessly, in the darkness…they were the happiest of my life. And then the voices made me an offer, and I debated for a long time what to do. Well…it seemed like a long time. Probably just seconds, subjectively speaking.”

  “You accepted their offer.”

  “Obviously. And I wound up here, in this armor that they provided me, that keeps me alive long past the time when I should be worm food. And with the Travelers to aid me as the long arm of the Overseer to help keep the Twelve Races in line.”

  “And what are the Travelers?”

  “They are what I need them to be.”

  “Meaning?”

  He did not answer.

  They stepped out of the elevator and switched to another. Nicrominus experienced that same momentary disorientation and fluttering of his stomach before settling in.

  “You have to understand something, Nicrominus,” said the Colonel wistfully. “I was never any great fan of the human race to begin with. I didn’t wish death on them. Hell, I swore to defend them, and I kept that oath for as long as I could. But it reaches a point where you just wind up saying to yourself that maybe it all turns out the way it does because we have it coming. That we don’t deserve to survive. And if that’s really the case…if we don’t deserve to…then who am I to get in the way of our deserved extinction?”

  “I do not understand how you can have such a dim opinion of your own race.”

  “Why not? Do your kind hold that much higher an opinion of humanity? Hunting us near to extinction, keeping the few remaining of us as slaves. It must be staggering for your frame of reference to know that a pathetic human being is the dreaded Overseer.”