vanheim 48
It's time for Vanheim turn 48!
In which Vethru tells Pherios why.
Pherios
For the first time since he had me hanged, months ago, Vethru comes to visit me. My aunt Tilneia, the Lady of the Tower, had been relaying his messages to me, initially with reluctance, later, with active derision. For all his circuitous arguments and rationalizations, his demands came to the same: I was to resume prophesying, and I was to take to the battlefield against Vanheim's enemies. Under his command. I refused, and I remained imprisoned.
Today he walks into my cell, Quellian Ji on his shoulder. Ji, too, had been bringing his master's messages. And like Tilneia, he wasn't happy about it, but he tended to plead with me rather than try to convince me. I think he just wanted everyone to get along.
My first glance at Vethru since my transformation staggers me. In an instant, he realizes that I'm peering into the spirit realm, and he clouds what I can see. But that single glimpse is terrifying.
Vethru's a patchwork. He's put together out of dozens of distinct body parts, knitted together in a blinding web of necromantic energies. There are hundreds of spirits flitting around him. I can only imagine what they're doing--sensing danger, maintaining his body, standing ready to defend him, whatever. Each one of them is tethered to him by a gossamer tendril. Impressive, but not the scary part. The tendrils are nearly invisible, because they're overshadowed by massive conduits of power running off into dimensions I can't access. Vethru-that-I-see, as powerful as he is, is nothing; he's the finger puppet of something else, much larger, hiding in a universe that I'll never touch. Vethru-that-is-elsewhere could swallow Vanheim.
"How did it come to this?" he asks. "Every one of my seers is touched by you. You, your uncle, the girls, and now, my lizard. I've given you a window into all the realms of life and death, and you, in turn, take my eyes away. How is that fair?"
Tilneia told me that Molly was in hiding, safe. A few days ago, I convinced the spirits of some lizards to stop telling their brother anything useful. "What did you do with Akkulu?" I ask.
"I sent him home."
Good. "Will you let me go, too? I'm not going to help you."
He pulls a chair up to the table and sits across from me. "I don't do this often," he says. "Once every twenty or thirty worlds, maybe. Always in low-tech worlds, funny. The techies and scientists never even consider that there might be something beyond their physical law. But there is. I'm going to tell you the secrets of the universe. Then you'll understand why you have to help me."
He thinks for a moment, almost ignoring me. Even though my transformation left me more powerful than ever before, there's no way I can stand against him now. I have no weapons or armor. I'm weak and half starved. And there's a short chain running from my ankle to a bolt set in the floor. I'm not sure it makes any difference.
"There is something beyond magic," Vethru says. "Something outside the world, that gives it its shape. Determines its rules. Is the rules, in a way."
"And you want to read them?"
"I want to rewrite them. It goes beyond that. These 'rules' are the world. They're the program the universe runs."
I'm lost. Program?
"No, damnit, wrong vocabulary. Think of a clockwork automaton. A toy. Or better yet, one of those clever music boxes with the little silver birds whose wings flap and beaks open and close as they 'sing'."
"Birds," I repeat.
He snorts. "Pay attention, boy! The birds don't matter. It's the clockworks. Ever take one of those apart? Seen the gears, and the toothed cylinder? Those parts tell the birds what to do. Those are the rules made metal."
"You're looking for...the world's gears?"
"Hood's breath, I'm looking for the source code to the universe!" He's exasperated, but it quickly passes. "It'd take months to explain this to you properly. Listen: yes, there are rules, and yes, I intend to rewrite them."
I think that's ghastly, and I tell him so.
Vethru shakes his head with a sad smile. "You don't see it. You've got the past and future in your head, and all of life and death, and your mind is still too small to see it.
"When I know the rules, I can fix things. Plague? Gone. Poverty? I'll tweak society's parameters, and your world takes three big steps toward a liberal democratic economy. I make one small change in your planet's albedo, and the growing season in temperate climates is extended two weeks, increasing crop yields enough to feed a nation of starving people. I can do these things, when I find the right parts of the rules that plug into your world.
"I've been doing this for tens of thousands of years, scouring the dimensions for little fragments of these rules. I estimate I've found between seventeen and nineteen percent of the total. Doesn't sound like much, does it? You can't cast seventeen percent of a spell. Doesn't work. But the source code is vast. Even small pieces have power. If I have the right fragments, in the right world...I can work wonders."
He's not even with me now. He's somewhere lost in memory. His voice grows soft, pleased. "In five worlds, it was enough. I left golden ages behind me. Shining cities, an educated and healthy populace. Can you conceive of a million people? A billion? I've saved that many lives. I've improved ten times as many!" Now his eyes find me again, and they're cold. "That's what you're interfering with. Give me Vanheim, and I'll put them on top of this world. I'll save this whole world from the zealots and monsters. I've almost found when I need, but I need armies to get to it. And I need your help."
He stands up. "You're smart, and you're a good kid. Think about it. Reach out to all those souls you now see, and ask them if you should give the world a better life."
He leaves, but Ji stays.
He kind of clears his throat, and says, "So, um, OK, sometimes the boss sound like a megalomaniac. You got me there. But it's true! Kid, I've been following him around for about a hundred and twenty years now, and I've seen it. Not one of the really good ones, but I've seen him take real hellholes and turn them into places you wouldn't mind bringing up your kids. He can do it. Just...think about it, OK?"
"And when he leaves," I ask, "Does he give them the knowledge? Or does it all go with him?"
Ji flutters his wings. "Better than letting every Joe in the street have it. Imagine Marignon with that power."
"I'm fairly sure they wouldn't have trapped my fiancee's soul in her reanimated corpse and enslaved her until her second horrible death."
"Sorry, kid," he says. "You know, I been saying that a lot lately, and I don't feel any better than you. But what can I do? It ain't a perfect world. Every choice has a dark side."
"You've got a choice, too," I say. "Tell my father where I am."
"I can't!" he squawks.
"Your choice," I reply. He flies out.
Well. Vethru had one good idea. I lay on my cot, close my eyes, and reach out to ask the spirit surrounding me what they think of tyrants.
Petema
I suppose our conspiracy should have met in the back room of a dark tavern on a stormy night, but my sitting room is very pleasant in the afternoon sun. I served tea and pastries that I bought from a shop down the block. I'm not much of a baker, myself.
Our conspiracy is a small one inside a larger one. The outer one is widespread and growing. The inner is small and will not get any bigger. There's only one way into our circle, and none of us is pregnant.
"I know where Pherios is," I told them. That caused a stir. We all believed he was still alive, and that Vethru had him. But Vethru's people were fanatically loyal. I know every damn jarl and herse in Vanheim, and I couldn't find anyone who knew anything about Pherios in the four months I've been searching for him.
"How?" one of them asked.
"You will not believe me when I tell you. We have a friend on the inside."
They were of course suspicious. "Can you trust him?"
We can trust her, I thought, and I smiled. I told them everything. Fate had tipped her scales toward us, at least for a time. We discussed our options, and when the meeting ended, our plans were set. They would take time to unfold, and there was danger ahead for all of us. But when they did...Vethru thought Pherios was trouble. Hah! He hasn't seen trouble until he's seen us.
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