Paul Kemp - The Godborn

Brennus cursed in frustration. Even with the rose holy symbol in his hand, his scrying spells could not pick up Vasen Cale.

He was about to start another divination when Sakkors lurched to a stop, causing him to stagger. His scrying cube shifted position, its weight causing it to score the stone floor as it slid, the sound of its movement like a scream. Through his windows, he heard stone crack outside, the rumble of a collapsing building, the shouts of citizens. His homunculi, sent skittering across the polished stone floor, loosed a string of expletives.

“What just happened?” he asked, but there was no one in the room to answer him.

Without warning, the city started moving again, to the southeast, and fast, faster than it had ever moved before.

More cracking and rumbling from outside, more shouts. The city’s structures were not built to withstand such movement.

Brennus ran to a window, trailed by his homunculi. He saw nothing to indicate an attack, nothing to. .

And then he realized what must have happened. Something was wrong with the mythallar that powered the city. He knew it was sentient, unlike the mythallar that powered Thultanthar. Had it gone mad? Was it being controlled?

And then he realized something else.

Sakkors was moving directly toward Ordulin, toward Rivalen. He cursed, hurriedly composed a sending to his father.

Something is wrong with Sakkors’s mythallar. The city is speeding toward Ordulin. Rivalen may have control. Come if you can.

“Stay here,” Brennus said to his homunculi. He renewed the various magical wards that protected him, drew the shadows about him, pictured in his mind’s eye the chamber in which the Source floated, and moved himself there.

The moment he arrived in the chamber, a knife stab of pain in his skull sent him to his knees. He groaned and the shadows around him whirled.

“Rivalen!” he said through gritted teeth. Somehow his brother must have. .

He felt a consciousness sifting through his brains, sorting through his thoughts. Not Rivalen, then.

“Prince Brennus,” said a voice. “I wonder if you remember me.”

The voice sounded familiar to Brennus, but he could not quite place it.

“You and your brother took me prisoner and tortured me. Long ago. Forced me to awaken the Source.”

“The Source?” At first Brennus did not understand the reference. “You mean the mythallar?” Realization dawned. “You’re the mindmage. Magadon Kest.”

A spike of pain in his temples made him wince. His head felt as if a hot poker had been driven through his skull. He could not organize his thoughts enough to raise a defense. His wards were useless against mind magic.

“The mindmage,” Magadon said. “Yes.”

Shadows roiled angrily around Brennus. He tried to section off a part of his mind to give him a moment to raise a mental screen or shadow step from the room, then. .

“I can’t allow that,” Magadon said.

“Get. . out. . of. . my. . head,” Brennus said.

“I can’t do that, either,” Magadon said.

“Why are you. . here?” Brennus said. Blood dripped from his nose, spattered the floor. He lifted his head. “What are you doing?”

The mindmage sat cross-legged in the center of the chamber, directly under the mythallar. Long horns jutted from his head. He regarded Brennus with his unusual eyes, the dots of his black pupils floating on otherwise colorless orbs. His face looked entirely at peace. Above him, the huge, glowing crystal pulsed with power, tremulous lines of energy moving along its length at regular intervals.

“I’m here to stop you and your brother.”

The words sounded sincere but made little sense. Brennus endured the pain in his head and slowly climbed to his feet. “My. . brother? Rivalen?”

“Of course, Rivalen,” Magadon answered, and another stab of pain drove Brennus back to his knees. He felt warmth in his ears. Blood.

“Stop. . us. . from. . what? I want. . Rivalen. . dead!” Brennus said.

“Liar.”

“Look for yourself! See if I’m lying! Look!”

Magadon’s brow creased in a question.

Brennus felt mental hands moving through his mind, examining, probing. He did not resist. He let Magadon see everything, feel the depths of Brennus’s hate.

“He murdered your mother,” Magadon said softly.

“I saw him do it,” Brennus said.

“I know,” said Magadon, his voice surprisingly sympathetic.

The polished reflective planes in the chamber showed the meadow where Rivalen had murdered Alashar. She lay among the flowers, a hand outstretched.

“Hold my hand,” she gasped.

Brennus averted his gaze. “Please, I don’t want to see it!”

The images vanished.

“He showed that to you, your brother. And you showed it to me.”

The pain in Brennus’s head subsided. He could only nod.

“I’m sorry,” Magadon said. “You have to leave now, Prince Brennus. . ”

Hope lodged in Brennus’s chest. “No, let me help-”

The shadows deepened to Brennus’s right and the Most High stepped through them, his platinum eyes ablaze, darkness swirling around him. Magical wards sheathed him, so powerful they distorted the air around him. He took in the scene at a glance, leveled his staff at Magadon, and loosed a bolt of black energy that would have withered an archangel.

The energy slammed into Magadon’s chest and drove him across the chamber. He hit the far wall with enough force to audibly drive the breath from his lungs. But it didn’t kill him. His eyes focused on the Most High and a violet light glowed around his head.

The Most High groaned, staggered, put a finger to his temple. The shadows around him spun rapidly. Lines of blood trickled from his nose. He leveled his staff once more at the mindmage.

“Stop!” Brennus said, stepping between them and holding up his arms. He stood directly under the Source. The polished panels showed their reflections over and over again, the three of them repeated to infinity.

Magadon stood, wobbly. The Most High held his ground, keeping his staff at the ready.

“What is this, Brennus?” the Most High asked.

“Show him,” Brennus said to Magadon. “Show him what you saw in my head. Show him.”

And the mindmage did. The walls of the mythallar’s chamber showed Brennus’s memory of the image Rivalen had shown him: Rivalen’s murder of his mother amid a field of flowers, her extended hand, his refusal to take it even as she died, her final wish, that she be the instrument of his downfall.

Telemont watched it unfold in silence, the shadows roiling around him the only indicator of his inner turmoil. When it was done, Telemont looked to Brennus, and the light in his platinum eyes had dimmed.

“That is what you accepted all these years. That is what you were willing to compromise over. Your wife, Most High. My mother. Rivalen did that. Rivalen. He must pay for it, whatever the cost to us, to the empire.”

“How?” Telemont said.

He sounded so strange to Brennus, his voice less commanding, more like the father Brennus remembered before Alashar had died.

“The how is already in progress,” Magadon said.

Brennus had almost forgotten he was in the room. “Rivalen is mad, Most High. You know this. He wants only to die and take the world with him. He must be stopped and he must pay.”

“I can’t kill my own son,” Telemont said.

“Father-”

“Just leave,” Magadon said. “Take your people from Sakkors and go. You don’t have to kill anyone. We’ll stop him.”

Telemont stood to his full height and his voice recaptured its typical imperiousness.

“You ask me to abandon a city of the empire.”

“Sakkors is already dead,” Magadon said. “The Source-the mythallar-is dying. When it does, its power will go out. The city will fall from the sky. It has hours.”