The First Technomancer (5 page)

“A monster!”

An orange dawn rose over the moor.

Out of his hovel, a cave covered in moss and
lichen on the edge of the forest stirred the wizard, who clutched
to his staff, his favored weapon, as he went to find out what all
the commotion was about. Lately, since returning, he did not get
enough sleep. Though they thought him a madman, it never prevented
anyone from seeking his help. Either for things which seemed beyond
the ordinary, or curatives for many an ailment. When he'd first
come to this land, he'd even helped Vortigern with his little
dragon problem. In retrospect, he should have let the beasts devour
him.

Often he wondered if he did too much. The
wizard had restrained himself, not handing over advanced technology
or science. Yet he never held them back however, he did nudge
though whenever he felt humanity might go off a righteous pathway
back onto a beneficial road. Humans had potential for much good, as
well as to become grander beings. Often, they only needed to be
reminded larger purposes awaited them.

The boy, a child of nine ran, his call held
both fear and wonderment at whatever he had beheld out there on the
marshland. “Master. A monster upon the moor!”

“What Newt?” Asked the wizard.

“A red bull. Its eyes filled with fire.”

The wizard blinked. “A red bull you say?”

“Yes master. It’s true, I saw it myself. Our
animals are – “

“Very well Newt,” said the wizard, a hand on
the boy's shoulder. “Go back to your farm. I'll see to this red
bull.”

Great solid head bowed as if in prayer, steam
poured forth from out of its flared nostrils, which set to create a
growing fog. Silhouetted by the early morning, diffused sunlight,
and crowned with a set of impressive curved horns, in all its
primordial majesty, a titan of an ox-blood aurochs stood on the
moor, lord of all that which it beheld.

The wizard grinned, and nodded at the beast
whose keen eyes blazed with fire, just as Newt had told him. “You
do know how to make an entrance,” he said to the beast, aware it
could understand him. “I'll give you that.”

Groaning the aurochs glanced up at the forest
dweller and lifted itself to its full height which caused the bull
to tower high above the human. Had it so desired the creature could
have charged, and easily gorged the wizard. The red hide began to
shift, going from resting on all four hoofs, to become a bipedal,
shadowed mass. Ox-blood hide darkened, to become a billowing cloak.
“You know, in this form I sired a warlord, Aurik Kreis...” The
shadow said from under a tilted wide brimmed hat. “They called him
'The Red Ox'. A marauder, who claimed whatever he so desired.”

A brow up, the wizard stated. “So you do have
children.”

“I've many children Technomancer.” Declared
the shadow with outstretched hands. “The Vril are no less my
offspring than Aurik. They however exist as a different order of
being than that mortal son of mine. Your father left me no other
choice but to infuse my own bloodlines into this species. They
shall be turned to my cause.”

When last he had stood before Blaise he had
been a column of light, bottled up in a human shell. Not now
though. This massive figure before him, was more an endless abyss
that threatened to consume all in its line of sight. As if all
creation, slouched in a gyre toward his darkness. The wizard
understood this to be Blaise's
true opposite
, his
transcendent reflection. Created beings were by trait spectrums,
not polarities of good and evil. Outside the limits of, and beyond
Its own creation, The One mirrored in itself darkness and light.
Mankind or Vril could not be personifications of such moral
absolutes, for they lived in a mire of gray.

Pivoting on his staff, the wizard began to
walk, Blaise's shadow at his side.

“Why are you here?”

Blaise's shadow bellowed. “Isn't that
supposed to be my question?”

Halting, the wizard gave Blaise's shade a
sidelong glare. “Do you often spend you're free time chewing cud
upon the moor?” He chuckled. “I'm sure you've more urgent subjects
to attend to. The Universe is a big place.”

“Clockworks need not to be always wound.”
Blaise's shadow exhaled, a breath which seemed to bring a chill to
the air. “Mine is a well-tuned machine.” Yet added. “Besides,
unlike most beings, I can be all places at one time.”

“Perhaps... or maybe it’s more a piece of
artwork which needs to be touched up here and there. Otherwise
you'd not constantly interfere.”

“Only to correct that which has gone errant.”
Blaise's shadow stared the young wizard down. “Look at you, your
plans with that sword. Noble, but you're going to fail.”

The wizard huffed. “Fail?”

“Your new king will prove little better than
that tyrant Vortigern now on the throne.” Blaise crossed his thick
arms, each as broad as an oak tree limb. “Oh, he'll rule with a
measure of justice, even bring peace – for a time. Corruption, sin,
shall in the end destroy what you try to build here. It is
mankind's doom to forget, and undo themselves.”

Onward they began to walk down the main
avenue of a tiny village. Back and forth they argued. Debated
fiercely about the sword in the stone. As they went on, the wizard
caught bewildered glances from villagers who strode past him. “They
can't see you can they?”

Blaise's shade grinned, answered with a
nod.

“Madman of the forest glen, indeed.” And
continued on silent, weighing his thoughts, not waiting for Blaise
to follow. Of course he did.

“Nothing to say Technomancer?”

“I don't suppose we'd be an equal match in a
battle of magic?”

Blaise howled. Not a human sound, it was as
though a pack of wolves had gathered to, in unison call out toward
the Moon. “I would smite you with but a wave of my hand.”

“Thought not. How then to be rid of you?”

From the folds of his billowing, infinite
cloak Blaise's shadow removed what appeared to be a geode, round,
fist sized, iron noduled, and quartz specked. “Plant this seed for
me.” He grinned, in what was supposed be an encouraging expression,
yet came off as menacing, and shoved the rock into the wizard's
free hand.

“What is it?”

“That is my business.”

“I won't endanger these people – “

“They won't be in danger, have faith.”

“Why me?”

“Only your power can give it life.”

The wizard blinked, and Blaise's shade was
nowhere to be found. He gripped tightly to the geode-seed, thought.
What are you?

Geese took wing, rippled the eerie waters of
Dozmary Pool.

Above a purple sky seemed to join with the
lake, linking the Heavens to the Earth. The wizard leaned on his
staff, and listened. Hundreds of his tiny nanobot probe bugs, in
the form of robotic butterflies, and other creatures monitored the
land for him, sending back data on local populations, their
relative health, as well as other basic information. All so that he
might put his power to better use and guide these people.

From out of his pocket he removed the
geode-seed. “Let's plant you then.”

With his staff he bore a hole near Dozmary
Pool. Blaise's shade claimed that only his magic could bring the
thing to life. Whatever it was? Holding the geode, he cast a surge
of power into it, and the seed responded by throbbing in his
hand.

In the hole he dropped the geode, and put
earth over it.

The atmosphere over the lake changed, became
tinged with an electric current.

Wary, the wizard glanced at where he had just
planted the seed.

In the center of the water, a ripple, that
soon became a wave washed ashore. A glow, a whirlwind of blue-fire
upon the water congealed, to transform into a humanoid figure.

The wizard gaped.

A female mischievously giggled. The figure
that floated above the lake.

Radiant, her skin pulsed white light, a halo
of fire surrounded the semi-corporal woman as she glided over the
surface of the lake toward him. Jewels in her up swept, black hair
glistened, filled with their own energies. Her ears were delicate
oval points.

“You're something new.” The wizard stated
urgent, even as he noticed that she had silver-black, mammalian
type wings, and a flat armor plated tail which ended in a
silver-pincer blade. His vision shifted, let him see her underlying
structure, deeper than even then that of the molecular level,
represented by a binary Enochian code. Among the datastream, this
woman jumped out stark, code tightly packed, more data in her
composition than most sapient creatures combined. He had never
witnessed code like this before, not even among the Vril, which
though she resembled one, she was by no clear measure Vril. “What
are you?”

“Perhaps I'm a water sprite come to seduce
you?”

“There are no such things as water
sprites.”

Inches from him, yet still upon the water,
her presence pressed down on the surface tension causing little
wavelets, she giggled once more, exotic black eyes filled with
knowledge. “However vampires, elves, and angels do.” She said
half-mocking, a bright smile on her exotic face. “Yet no water
sprites? A limited view, for such a broad mind.”

“What are you?”

“I am, as you said, 'something new',” the
lady of the lake playfully grinned. “I am Kheira.” She reached over
and affectionately touched the wizard's bald head with her ethereal
fingers. “And who, or what might you be?” Though Kheira's tone
indicated she already knew the answer.

“They call me... The Merlin.”

“Merlin,” Kheira laughed, to then step down
off the surface of the lake, at last to touch upon the raw earth,
became substantial, rather than the semi-corporal thing which she
had previously been, even took a moment to admire her physical
body, as if it were not her usual form, or way of being. “You and I
have much to do.”

“Why have you come, my Lady of the lake?”

Kheira smiled, wrapped her flat, armored tail
around his waist. Behind the couple, flames from an advanced, well
before its time sort of fireplace lit the hovel, which proved to be
much larger inside than what its humble outsides would have lead
one to guess.

“I told you,” she ran a nail down his vest,
moved aside his leathers to reveal a juncture point of Vril
technology that joined above his heart. “To seduce you.”

Merlin couldn't believe it. In his long life
he had been many things, a woman magnet never one of them. To have
this ethereal beauty openly lust for him, it knocked him off his
central point of gravity. Whatever she was, he had never seen such
a woman as now rubbed herself all over his body, he longed for her
touch. The wizard reasoned she must be a class of alien he had yet
to encounter. Though, for the moment, Kheira maintained the water
sprite story.

“Truthfully,” Kheira leaned in, kissed him.
“I've come to help you create your king.”

How did she know of his plans? “Really?”

On a small oak table, Kheira discovered an
amulet fashioned in the semblance of a white, and red dragon. The
creatures chased each others tails. Lifting the amulet she smirked.
“I know these 'dragons'... you are, I hope aware, they weren't
really monsters right?”

Merlin recalled. “I suspected they were some
sort of machines.”

“They were,” Kheira admitted. “First of a
fleet of ships.”

“Your people's I presume.” Merlin managed
even as she nibbled on his now bare chest.

“Yes. Self-aware, organic-metal
Leviathans.”

Sighing Kheira took hold of Merlin's hand,
examined the conduit of cerulean Vril technology which branched off
into the fingertips of his right hand. Together they walked over in
the direction of a heap of furs which served as the Technomancer's
bed. Merlin sat, moved his hands down the generous curves of her
body, a thrill sparked a long dormant impulse inside him.

Casting aside her clingy, silver-scaled
outfit, the Lady of the lake revealed a pair of womanly bell shaped
breasts, capped by surprisingly darkish areola and outward pointed
nipples. Kheira went, knelt on the furs beside Merlin, grabbed his
face, kissed him, while he, with an eager hand explored one of her
more astonishing attributes, a trimmed triangle of black pubic
feathers. From her pubic feathers, his fingers, which pulsed with
power began to probe her more intimate, female areas, every caress
drove Kheira to a low, gratified moan.

He ran the silky-membrane of her right wing
between his fingers, found himself, even while enjoying the
pleasure of her magnificent body, thinking:
It is an advanced
fiber, fabric of some sort, Is she a machine?
An unexpected
self-realization hit the technomancer.
But, then, does not the
Vril technology which inhabit my own body, make me no less?

After they had fulfilled their mutual lust as
only two otherworldly beings could, mingling both body, and
eldritch powers, Kheira rested in Merlin's embrace, together,
silent for a lingering time they watched the flames jump, and spark
in the smokeless fireplace until she whispered. “There will be
others like you... technomancers. They'll be called Arclayhts.”

“Huh?” Merlin asked from behind a haze of
joy.

“Yes others, and they will create more still
from those not born of Vril.”

“My lovely, you've a grasp on the future
which not even my visions can hope for.”

Sitting up, black hair now loose about her
narrow, ethereal luminescent face, Kheira pulled her legs beneath
her, pincer tail uncoiled, its armored length drooped off the furs.
Silver and black wings folded behind, illuminated by her own light,
as well as that of the fire, proudly nude, she smiled at him.
“That's because for me, what was, what is, and that which is to
become exist all at once. I need only choose what thread I want to
walk upon and there I will be.”