John Fultz - Seven Kings

“Like you did with Vod,” she said. “And now Tong.”

“I choose not to destroy but to build, to create, to define. That is my pattern.”

“What about Zyung? What is his pattern?”

Iardu looked once again toward the busy gardeners below, trying with all their skill to replace death with beauty. He poured another cup of wine and sipped at it before he answered.

“Dominance. Conformity. Order. Constancy. Zyung does not believe in free will. His empire is built upon the twin pillars of fear and obedience. Those who defy him are crushed without mercy. Only those who recognize his right to supremacy and their own place in his order are allowed to prosper. His is the pattern that drives all tyrants.”

“Most tyrants rule from fear,” she said. “Is there nothing this God-King fears?”

Iardu looked at the sky, as if searching for his next answer among a flock of birds winging toward the distant jungle.

“Perhaps the word ‘fear’ is not applicable to one such as Zyung,” he said. “What he desires above all is the peace of absolute order.”

“Peace?” She blinked. “He commands an army greater than any in history and seeks to conquer all free nations. How is this peace?”

“His absolutism knows no bounds,” said Iardu. “His empire stands strong in his image because he forged it with blood and iron. All those who oppose him are dead. There are no wars in his empire, no border conflicts, no piracy or rebellions. By uniting every kingdom beneath his banner of total control, he has driven war from his side of the world. There is only one monolithic kingdom, which bears his name and venerates his image. He deems his long work a success because of its vast imperial order. His people thrive until the moment they grow defiant; then they are chastened by his ruthless power.

“Do you see the paradox? Zyung has brought ultimate peace by denying the freedom of his people. He has slaughtered millions to achieve this, and he counts it as no great cost. Each succeeding generation becomes more obedient, as he pulls malcontents from his continental garden like weeds. Now there are no more weeds.”

Sharadza savored the tartness of the wine on her tongue.

“So Zyung believes he does what is best for all?”

“He does,” said Iardu.

“And he seeks to spread this ultimate peace across the rest of the world. No matter how many Men, Giants, or families he has to murder.”

“Now you understand,” said Iardu. “Only his ends matter. He cares nothing for individual lives. They are of no consequence to him.”

“Unlike you,” she said, “who fostered the development of the six kingdoms over the course of ages. Did you never think to conquer them all, like Zyung? To put an end to these wars?”

Iardu chuckled. “Of course I considered it. If I had listened to Zyung all those millennia go, I would have subjugated my half of the world in exactly the way he conquered his own. Then we would unite to form a perfect world. Or so he believed. Yet I rejected this theory.”

“Why?”

“All living things have the right to decide their own fate. I nudge them, guide them, whisper wisdom in their ears. Some listen, many do not. But ultimately the individual determines his own role in the universe. This is the essential joy of living, Sharadza, the infinite power of creative consciousness. Sorcerers tap into this more easily than most, but any living being can do the same. Most live their entire lives without realizing this. The ones that do are called wizards, saints, or heroes. To eliminate free will is to destroy the core nature of sentient beings. Zyung and I will never agree on this point.”

“So you must confront him, as surely as any of us,” she said. “Or bow to his absolute authority.”

“These are the choices before us.”

“Who is he, really?” she said. Already a spark of revelation had kindled within her.

“Have you not guessed?” Iardu said. “He is what Men would call my brother.”

Sharadza sat quiet while Iardu drank. It was not easy for him to admit such a secret. She considered its implications.

“You refused his offer a long time ago,” she said. “If you had not, the world I know would never have existed.”

“Perhaps…” His eyes gleamed like prisms; the blue flame on his chest guttered low.

“Ianthe…” She hesitated. “Is she also…”

“Yes,” he said. “All the Old Breed are brothers and sisters, as all Men and Giants are related by a common bloodline stretching back to the primordial mud. Yet unlike these mortal races, our spawning grounds were the gulfs between the stars.”

She sighed. “So you spend your life shaping the world in one direction, while Zyung spends his shaping it in the other. A final confrontation was inevitable.”

“Inevitable.” His voice echoed her word with a heaviness born of remorse. What a terrible weight he must bear, knowing that his own existence was the cause of the coming conflict. Would anything he built survive? Or would the endless legions of absolute control break the world apart and reshape it in Zyung’s image?

“You spoke of others from the Old Breed,” she said. “We must call them out, wake the Dreaming Ones, convince them to join us against Zyung.”

“We must try,” said Iardu with a sigh. “And soon.”

“After tonight’s war council?”

He nodded and drank. Sunlight gleamed on his silvery beard and hair. She could not imagine the true depth of his age, could not even attempt it. He must be older than the Four Gods themselves. She dared not ask him the truth about those intangible objects of Men’s worship, whether they were real or entirely imagined. She feared what he might reveal. As long as Men believed in Gods, they served their purpose. She chose to keep that part of her understanding untouched.

“What really happened to Ianthe when you stole her physical form?”

Iardu snapped his fingers. “Her spirit fled. Where I cannot say. It would have emerged in the high tower again if we had not destroyed it. So with Gammir.”

“When I held him in the grip of the living flames, Gammir said I had freed him.”

“So you did,” said Iardu. “You freed him to find another manifestation somewhere else in the world.”

“Have you any idea where they will find rebirth?”

He looked at her. “Can you not guess?”

“Can any of the Old Breed be destroyed?” she asked. “Forever?”

Iardu considered the question, rubbing his chin.

“Nothing in this universe is ever truly destroyed,” he said finally. “Matter and energy only exchange forms in the endless dance of Being and Nonbeing. What you consider death is simply… change. There is never truly an end.”

“What does that mean?” she asked.

“It means that I cannot answer your question.”

She sat alongside him on the balcony until they had finished the last of the wine.

Patterns.

Everything she knew, and everything she did not know.

All those who lived, and all those who had died.

All that existed now, and all that would ever be.

Patterns, all of them.

Combining and evolving into the Grand Pattern that was the cosmos itself. There was no distinction between the part and the whole. To be in the pattern was to be the pattern. All of these things Iardu had taught her.

Somewhere deep inside the pattern that was everything there lay an answer for her.

This was her duty: to seek and to find that answer, before the pattern itself crumbled, only to be replaced by a new one. If Zyung reshaped her world into his own image, would she even miss the old one? Or would the emerging pattern swallow her and everyone else into its ineffable weave?