Zachary Jernigan - No Return

Despite the kingdom’s vast expenditure of resources, as time wore on the program failed to produce anything of actual or perceived value. A small but growing minority viewed the outbound mages’ efforts—which at that time consisted largely of monitoring Adrash’s movements—as blasphemous, asserting that no man had the right to enter the god’s abode. By the opening of the ninety-fourth century, public support of the mages had eroded almost completely. Eldermen, so recently a beloved symbol of Stol, had become a suspect race, a source of anger and targets of violent reprisal.

By imperial order, the bloated program was cut to a fraction of its former size in 9365.

Oddly, this act proved foundational in energizing the corps. Reduced to a lean nucleus of fifty highly skilled eldermen, the mages reinvented themselves, purging their lore of any unnecessary ritual or tradition. With fewer resources, no longer under the eye of public scrutiny, they developed their own odd society. They restricted themselves to the academy grounds almost exclusively, fearful of a public who feared their race.

With their combined genius and magical talent, they developed and refined the voidsuit, a tool that increased each mage’s magical capability fivefold. Reaching orbit in record times, they flew farther and farther away from Jeroun, even to the point of entering the moon’s insubstantial atmosphere. They became fast and strong, and ultimately forced their way—through murder, deception, and magical coercion—back into ruling positions in the academy.

The majority of the mages had long since ceased to believe rumors of a competing outbound army in Knos Min, and redefined the program’s mission. Convincing Adrash of the world’s worth became the only goal. Over time, this became the academy’s encompassing objective as well. Entire branches of magical inquiry were abandoned, faculty dismissed or executed for heterodox views.

In the span of a few generations, one question came to dominate all academic discussion: Does Adrash love the peaceful, or does he love the strong? Undoubtedly, the question had been asked many times, in churches and on street corners for millennia, but the development of advanced magics that allowed an outbound mage to travel to the moon—into Adrash’s territory— made the issue less a matter of metaphysics than concrete reality.

How , the mages submitted, can we approach Adrash without offending him? The debate went on for many years, but by the time Ebn bon Mari rose to the rank of Captain of the Royal Outbound Mages her predecessors had generally come to the same verdict: Adrash did not look kindly upon acts of aggression.

Of course, they possessed damning evidence to support this conclusion. The creation of the Needle itself seemed to have been spurred by a particularly violent display of the corps’ strength in 10991. Seven hundred years later, the mage Dor wa Dol—driven mad by the sigils he had tattooed on his body with alchemical ink—had attacked Adrash, causing the god to send his two smallest weapons to earth, resulting in a decades-long winter. The Cataclysm.

These tragedies , Ebn’s forebears determined, are the result of our arrogance. We must not treat Adrash as if he were an equal met on the battlefield. Instead, we will beg his forgiveness. We will prostrate ourselves, offering gifts and tribute.

Ebn had inherited this outlook: despite her own monstrous gaffe, she believed in it wholeheartedly.

‡

After breakfast, a knock on her door. Ebn hurried to the balcony curtains and drew them shut. The weighted hems whispered across the polished flagstones, shutting out the sun completely.

Four of the sculptor’s apprentices brought the statue into her apartment. Though each strapping human lad wore a worksuit of high-grade eldercloth, they struggled under the weight of marble. Two strained at its head while the other two swiveled its torso, angling its massive shoulders through the doorframe.

“Could we get some light?” one asked.

“Shut up,” Ebn said. “You measured everything yesterday. Your eyes will adjust.”

The apprentices maneuvered the statue to the exact center of her living room and set it upright. Even in the near dark it was beautiful, but it was not yet the effect she desired. Without taking her eyes from the figure, she pointed to the curtains.

“Open them,” she told no one in particular. “And when you do it, do it quickly. I want the sun to burst into the room, not crawl.”

One of the apprentices shrugged and hauled on the golden rope. Light filled the room instantly, blinding Ebn for a heartbeat. The blackness fled from her eyes and the statue came into swift focus, as though the figure had materialized into her room out of nothingness.

The breath caught in her throat.

Adrash stood before her, head nearly touching the eighteen-foot ceiling. He stood relaxed, back straight and feet slightly apart. Carved from a single immense block of unveined white marble, the swells and depressions of his musculature appeared as smooth as polished glass, buffed to a high shine with several hundred grams of bonedust.

The armor had retreated from his head and neck, revealing his stylized masculine features and smooth scalp. Traditionally, sculptors used a black stone to show the true color of the god’s naked skin, but Ebn preferred the purity of white alone.

His eyes were closed, his lips slightly puckered to kiss the globe cradled in his powerful hands. Though she could not see the detail from where she stood, Ebn knew the god’s lips landed on Stol. She had designed it to symbolize Adrash’s love for the world, but also to suggest the kingdom’s centrality. For the last month she had spent far too much of her time quibbling over sketches and miniatures with the sculptor.

The chest must be just so. The genitals, just so. His thighs are too small, his head too large . She obsessed over the globe, even. The islands were too numerous or too uniformly shaped, the perpetual storm on the other side of the world spun the wrong direction. The sculptor, not to mention the entire arts faculty, must have thought her batty.

No matter. The statue was completed, and it was beautiful. Her time and the academy’s funds had been well spent.

“Ebn?” Qon called from the open doorway. She stepped in. “I have been knocking for some time. I...” She stared up at the statue. “Good Lord Adrash. Ebn, I had no idea how beautiful it would be.”

Ebn tore her gaze away. “I think I am insulted. What did you think I was doing with my time—carving a mantle-piece? Adrash needs nothing of any practical value, true, but he does deserve to be venerated properly.” She could not contain her smile as she turned back to her creation. “Only now I cannot bear the thought of letting it go.”

‡

Dustglass helmets cradled in the crooks of their elbows, forty-two outbound mages stood on the roof of the Esoteric Arts building. They were accoutered for a long orbital excursion, bandoliers filled with spells. Ebn noticed more than a few fresh sigils—blue and grey and red—painted on voidsuits, and approved.

A strong breeze had carried the smell of the docks, wet and rotting. Qon pulled a kerchief from her suit collar and covered her mouth, unconcerned if the younger outbound mages interpreted this as a sign of weakness. Though the smell made Ebn nauseous too, she stood stone-faced among her officers as the statue was hauled and deposited upright in their midst.

They were ready.

The moon had not yet risen, but the Needle already stretched nearly halfway across the sky. Positioned in the exact center of the roof, the marble god seemed to glow with its own inner light. Several of the older mages faced it and pressed left fist to forehead out of reverence. The younger lot stole glances at the statue, affecting airs of disdain. They could not ignore the existence of Adrash, but deference did not fit in well with the affected cynicism in vogue among the academy’s young elite.