The First Technomancer (4 page)

“That explains Vretil's sin, what of
you?”

Aiah Rishona locked her gaze on Lilith, she
licked her lips as if in consideration, and finally returned her
brilliant blue eyes toward Iblis Jinn. “You see my Lord,” she said
overly deferential. “I do not have long, for once I put off this
mortal coil, I shall soon quicken, and give birth to a whole new
generation of our kind.”

This news brought Shaitan up, out of his
mighty chair in a thunderous surge. “No Vril has given birth in
untold millennium!” The Lord of Darkness actually marveled at the
prospect.

“That has not always been so for our people.”
Aiah Rishona explained. “Once we were like the humans, we made
love, had children. Until The One gave us eternal life.... The urge
can still be found in a few of us, as you well know my Lord.”

“Tell me Aiah.” Shaitan inquired as he
returned to his chair, brushing his own pregnant concubine's hand.
Lilith bred for him many fierce, bloodthirsty warriors. A pity her
Nosferatu lacked the noble bearing of their Annunaki cousins.
Lilith's beautiful countenance made her an aberration, yet all
Utuk-ku queens were such as she, very different from the feral,
animal like male drones which they produced. “What plans does The
One hold for my intrepid humans?”

“From the moment of their genesis,” Aiah
answered. “The One has gathered human morphogenetic signatures, he
preserves them in a krater, called the 'Well of Souls'. It, The One
believes these souls are special, singular among all of creation
and important to the warp and weft of his plan. I know nothing more
than that.”

Ambakhun glanced upward at his father, who he
could tell deviously schemed. These fleeing star-crossed lovers
offered Shaitan leverage against El-Shaddai. Certainly a sort of
kinship existed between Aiah, Vretil, and his father. They were all
willing to test the artificial rules which had been imposed upon
their species. Pushing back his cowl with a flick of two fingers,
the Technomancer leveled a gaze on the voluptuous dark haired
female Vril. When she noticed him for the first time the Lady Aiah
gasped, in awe.

“He is your child.” A statement, Aiah could
see the technology illuminated beneath his flesh.

Shaitan nodded, proud to recognize Ambakhun
as his offspring. Glad his species would prosper in this woman
before him. “For my help I want something in return. Hatch your
children here and hide in the shadow of my fall.” He broadly
grinned. “You see lady, I've a whim to be witness to history, our
rebirth as a species. Let me guide this new clutch of Vril.”

“You will not have my children!” Aiah Rishona
roared.

“What do you have to give me then Lady
Aiah?”

Aiah had anticipated that a high price would
be asked of her for Shaitan's favor and so had brought a treasure
from Araboth's holy armory. She withdrew a hilt from the folds of
her gossamer garment. “This! Ikraan, Vretil's greatest weapon, his
lightening-blade, the 'Iron Cutter'.”

“No,” Iblis Jinn got up from his chair, moved
toward the burnished cross-hilt of the monofilament sword.
“Vretil's greatest weapon yet roams the cosmos,” Ishallrav he
meant, and its line of decimation throughout the galaxy, “where it
cracks planets, and consumes stars.” Shaitan eagerly reached for
the bladeless hilt. “This trinket however will do, for I've beheld
its magnificent blade lit in battle.”

Ah yes, a Vril sword. Ambakhun studied the
knobs of the cross guard, it's shaft fashioned from a silfren
alloy, at the hilts center an oval red jewel thrummed with power.
He thought though its name to be somewhat crude, and cumbersome.
Iron-Cutter
, very blunt. The Vril word lacked poetry He
hummed... remarked to himself. “Caliburn – “

“What?” Iblis Jinn wondered.

“The swords name in Welsh.”

Shaitan smiled. “I like that son.”

In all his time on Thaitin Ambakhun had
mastered his power, and beheld many a magnificent moment of magic.
From walking among the naked stars beside his father, to conjuring
spectacular beasts from out of the ether, and even bending fate to
his whim.

Yet the most glorious thing which he set eyes
on while a guest in Shaitan's stronghold had to be the moment Lady
Aiah put off her mortal body to return to her true form. Vril, in a
raw state were overwhelming to look upon. Beings of light,
smokeless fire, which only a properly attuned mind could tolerate
for very long.

Soon after that event, as she had promised,
Aiah Rishona did indeed quicken to bear forth a clutch of
twenty-four Vril eggs. Ambakhun even delayed his going from Thaitin
for three months so that he could have a chance to see the
hatchling Vril.

This also became a thrilling memory for the
now full-fledged Technomancer.

“You've done well boy!”

Staff in hand, enrobed in his fine green
leathers, Ambakhun simply nodded at his father.

“Now it is time for you to go – “

“Where will I go?”

“Ambakhun,” said Iblis Jinn. “You have the
whole universe before you to command, and shape to your will. I ask
only that you be
magnificent!
”

“Earth then...” Ambakhun thoughtfully rubbed
his chin. “I've business there.”

“Business? Of what sort?”

Lo, these many years the Roman Senator
Gavrus's ill-treatment of his barbarian slave boy nagged at him.
“To right a wrong. Though, I’m not fully sure how I intend to
achieve it.” He deeply exhaled. “I'm sure an idea will strike soon
enough.”

“In that case I have a gift for you.” Shaitan
snapped his fingers. A horned owl descended from the great
underground city's dome.

“A pet – “

“No, much more than a pet.” Iblis Jinn
said.

The owl perched on Ambakhun's staff.

“Meet Vrroch, a faithful friend, and
transportation.”

The horned owl, Vrroch jumped from its pole,
fluttered above Iblis Jinn and his son. For a split moment, it
seemed to expand in space gaining mass, its insides turned outward
becoming a champagne hued spaceship which had swept back
illuminated wings, which were part of its advanced gravitic
propulsion system. Vrroch, was a robotic construct.

The Sword in the stone, and the blade
Excalibur are two different weapons. History, enshrouded in myth,
often blurs them together to be a single blade. Yet to be sure, the
sword withdrawn from the stone was not Excalibur. What sword then
did King Arthur pull out of that granite? Yet more importantly, how
did a shard of steel get wedged into that stone?

–
Lady Imogen Drake

[Britannia, 5
^th
Century. The Dark Ages]

Vortigern, warlord, ruled over the land with
an iron fist.

The warlord's dictatorship however did not
forestall uprising or famine, nor did it prove itself more just
than what Rome, despite all its sophistication had brought to these
verdant shores when it ruled here. Man remained cruel to his
fellows, no matter the time period, or locale.

The wizard shrugged, on his staff he walked
at the edge of an evergreen wood. Overhead his unusual owl friend
boomed out a long hoot, and fluttered its wings. Close by the
ringing of metal, on metal reached the green mantled wizard's
perceptive ears. From beneath his cowl he gazed upward at his
companion, whispered: “Go see.”

Sight, by way of Vrroch provided for the
wizard a vision of an unfolding battle. Two armies clashed, an
upstart warlord thought to claim Vortigern's crown.

The wizard grinned. “Not unexpected.”

This would be worth watching. He walked
toward the battlefield where the entrenched armies fought. The
upstart warlord, Silas Silverblade it seemed thought himself much
more suited to be Supreme Warlord of Britannia – Vortigern didn't
agree.

Silveblade's army however had done rather
well in its conflict with the Supreme Warlord's forces.

The wizard found himself a hilltop, well out
of the way of the bloody conflict, yet a vantage point which
allowed him to observe. No need to spook the locals... not yet.
They thought him rather odd, the old wizard who dwelled in the
glen. He did not dispel them of such thoughts.

Vrroch settled in a branch, turned his head
around to take in the onslaught of warriors.

“Oh yes, there it is!” Exclaimed the wizard
almost amused by watching the warriors advance on one another.
Though, rather he was actually sad at it all. However stirrings of
an idea had begun to take shape, and so he would watch for the
outcome of this war. If Silverblade won, good, less work for him to
do. But if Vortigern proved victorious... well then he would take
from this conflict, and arrange something to use that might help
him shape this land for peace and justice.

It would present itself.

Silverblade! Silas had earned that name for a
reason, for he carried with him a noble sword, a weapon of
blue-steele, which is said to have sung with its own life. The
sword was unusual in that its cross-guard swept backward, almost
like angel wings. Its pommel, a golden acorn. Legend had it that
the swordsmith who forged the blade had been in truth a Druid
priest.

From his place on the hilltop the wizard
could see the flash of Silas's blade, a crisp thrum, like a pluck
upon a harp string filled the air. “Oh yes, indeed,” said the
wizard. “Meteorite metal!” How did he want this to go? Should he
bend the odds in Silverblade's favor? Or would it be best to allow
fate to work its hand?

To be rid of Vortigern...

Silverblade's sword cut a line through the
Supreme Warlord's men.

The wizard tensed.
He might just do
it.

The tide of battle suddenly shifted.
Vortigern pressed Silas back.

“Now that,” stated the wizard. “Most
unexpected!”

Bonfires lit the field as day became night,
though the wizard did not require much light to see what transpired
below.

A few skirmishes followed sundown, nothing
which brought much advantage to either warlord.

Despite himself, the wizard stretched,
yawned.

Clang!

The wizard's eyes shot open.

Vortigern, and Silas's armies were upon each
other.

Birds tweeted happy songs while men hacked
at, and bloodied his fellow man on this new spring morning. The
pleasant day all but belayed by the carnage that transpired all
around.

At last the usurper, and Supreme Warlord
faced on the field of combat, swords clashed all around them.
Blades swung, Vortigern slashed at Silas, who he hulked over. The
younger man dodged a blow. They clashed shields in a thud.

The Supreme Warlord brought his sword down,
he struck true.

Silas Silverblade collapsed in a bloody
heap.

“Oh no!” The wizard urgently sprung up.

Laughing, Vortigern bent, lifted Silas's
blade, held it with little regard, having no idea what sort of
steel which it had been forged from. To him this weapon represented
rebellion. He was heard to say: “Let it rust.” And with that threw
the blade into a nearby stream.

The wizard watched Silverblade's weapon arc
through the air, to splash down and sink into a body of flowing
water.

After the field had been cleared of the dead
and maimed, the wizard inched his way, slowly, and out of view of
any person's gaze toward where Silverblade's sword had gone to
rest.

Respectfully the wizard lifted the weapon out
from the water. “Yes, this will do nicely.”

Above Vrroch let out a hoot.

Mounting a peek of black granite the wizard
held aloft the weapon that he had retrieved from the river bed.
Below his boots he could sense an underground spring, the untapped
water pulsed within the peek, ached to be let loose from inside the
stone.

He'd always held an affinity for the water
element.

Vrroch perched on his staff.

“This sword, raised in rebellion against a
tyrant, it shall become a sign of true-kingship.” The wizard
declared. “He who withdraws the sword from the stone, he shall be
king!”

A rap of his staff, embedded with its Vril
technology, and a rush of nanobots softened the granite. The wizard
plunged the blade into the now malleable stone, alloy scraped upon
black rock, a shower of yellow sparks, and a smell of brimstone
filled the air. “Good,” said the wizard. He tested the blade,
pulled and the granite that sheathed the sword tightened its grip.
“A proper push will release the blade.” He laughed. “Though none of
these robber knights have the wits for it...”

The sense of water persisted under his boots,
he hummed.

Over his shoulder, the wizard glanced,
extended a hand, shut his green eyes tightly and imagined. Power
which he had once called on as a young boy, now refined to a
pinpoint. A geyser erupted, the water became a deluge, white rapids
spilled forward powerful, began to fall down the peek to pool into
a new lake below.

A treacherous watery drop awaited him.
Getting to this blade would be no easy task. “As it should be.”
Said the wizard. Extending his hand once more, a blue jump portal
blinked to life. The technology under his skin glowed with his
power. Leaping off the cliff, the wizard entered the portal that
closed behind him, its corresponding exit aperture blossomed to
life near the ground where he stepped out safe, and upon the
earth.

A last glance over at the waterfall that he
had birthed this day, and the wizard walked away. Rumor soon would
take hold. How did the sword get there? What did it mean? He would
be sure to whisper these things, plant the seed. The sword meant
power, and true kingship. Many would come and attempt to pull the
sword from the stone. All would fail. Not only fail, be injured, or
die in the attempt. Only a true king would wield the
Silverblade.