Zeroth Law, page 12
In the distant past, a time of amazing wealth and plenty - if the bustling, glassy, bright cities from the era were any indication - humanity had taken ships into the skies and beyond, out into the void between the stars themselves. These ships were larger and more impressive than the workhorse-like craft they had claimed from the ruins, and appeared capable of crossing vast distances. And like so many islands in the sea, humans had found other worlds and started living on them.
Much of this story she gleaned not from the confusing jumble of words, but from the images she was seeing, sprinkled with the most basic linguistic understanding possible. While she was at first shocked at the notion of humans moving away from Earth, she found it to be fairly prosaic after a moment’s thought. If the sun was but another star among millions, and just happened simply the closest, why wouldn’t there be millions of other Earths out there? What existed in one place could surely exist somewhere else.
Then came images she hadn’t seen before - she must not have gotten around to them in the ruins. They contained incredible sights, all the more frustrating for being confined to such a tiny size. She saw ships, and people in suits, and enormous machines welding together vast metal structures in inky blackness of space, high above the Earth.
Gods, wait a minute. They were constructing the ring.
She let out a gentle sigh, and looked out the window into the sky. It was growing dark, but the ring was a fixture of the heavens at any time, day or night, a single vast and silvery arch stretching from one end of the horizon to the other. Stories said the ancients had once walked the ring, but to have built it? The enormity of the task was terrifying. Like the moon, the ring had simply always been there, without explanation. Had the ancients built the moon as well?
How very much had been lost in the last thousand years.
As she kept watching the images, evening melted into night, and Ada became less and less able to focus on interpreting the symbols and matching them to words, and became more and more intent on watching the images and trying to understand what had happened in general terms. She lay down on the narrow bed next to Tanos, holding the artifact above her head as she watched.
There had been war of spectacular violence on those distant, alien worlds, and it had something to do with people digging into the ground with great machines. There was a rust-red world in particular, peppered with sparse lakes and red-leafed, tan-barked trees and shrubs, that featured prominently in the story, apparently as the site of many battles. The word Mars came up again and again. Mars was one of Earth’s sister planets, wasn’t it? A reddish star in the sky?
The weapons this war was fought with were awesome and horrifying in power. There were weapons that resembled the gun she had stolen days ago, but many were larger and their devastation more explosive. There were massive, lumbering vehicles that looked like great tortoiseshells, hovering above grass and sand and armed with enormous guns that rocked the entire vehicle backwards with each shot. There were lumbering aircraft that dropped explosives down below and, most intriguing of all, lithe ships entwined in glittering duels of light and flight out in the darkness between the stars. They wove and bobbed around one another and around even larger ships, deadly duels unimaginable in scale or setting to anyone on Earth. The technological prowess on display was... intoxicating.
It seemed that the outcome of the war was peace rather than annihilation. The word Armistice came up a lot. This message had been crafted after the fact, perhaps as a lesson. As near as she could tell, there were agreements between the elders of the various worlds, and the loop of images - which she had surely watched a few dozen times by now - always ended on a strange note. Diagrams of strange, geometric structures appeared and shrank into a silhouette of a human body, and the voice said something about humanity growing within instead of without. The nature of that change remained opaque to her, buried under a millennium of historical, cultural, and linguistic drift.
It was dark out, and the village was quiet. Tanos had apparently fallen asleep next to her despite the relic’s noise. She tapped the small archive off, and stashed it in her pack alongside her gun. She stared at the ceiling, dreaming of the vast void beyond. She had glimpsed the glory of the ancients. The heights they had reached were amazing, and the wallowing primitivism of humanity today pained her all the more. But she was - as the Institute elders had told her - an unrepentant heretic who threatened the social order. Having seen what humanity was capable of at its height, she was convinced more than ever that the social order needed some serious threatening.
What could she do?
She could uncover more of the past. She could learn the language of the ancients, understand what they were doing, perhaps find their scientific and cultural archives. Find out why they had ultimately failed. With that knowledge she could help change things - she could build a better future, richer than the pastoral simplicity of her world and more resilient than the ancients’ apparently fragile edifice.
Could she really do such a thing?
She could try. She had gotten this far, uncovered things nobody had ever told her about. She was on the edge of a much, much broader world - and she, Ada Liu, would forever be the one who had rediscovered it. Pride swelled in her chest, curling warm in her limbs and getting her heart beating faster.
“Are you still awake?”
Tanos had rolled over to asked the question. She looked at him; she could feel her megalomaniacal grin still plastered on her face, but then, she saw no point in being humble about her discoveries. “More awake than ever.”
“What did you learn?”
“That I really can do anything. The ancients did incredible things. I just need to find more of their archives, and I can figure out how to do them too. The whole world could change!”
He chuckled. “You’re not exactly humble.”
She grabbed his shoulder and shook him. “You’re not exactly listening. The people who built all these ruins lying around? They also built the damned ring!”
“ The ring? No way.”
“What other ring is there? Just think of what we could do if we had access to a tiny bit of their knowledge! It’s so exciting!” She could almost feel blood rushing past her ears, as visions of ships duelling amongst the stars danced across her mind. She could do anything - she was unlike anyone else in the world. She could take whatever she wanted and make it hers.
Ada took Tanos’ face in her hands and pulled him over, kissing him and clambering on top of him.
Chapter 8
Isavel was still confused by what had happened. They had tracked the raiders to another ancient ruin to try and ambush them. Just as the fight had started, though, a machine had zipped out of the ruin, striking and killing Lessa almost instantly. It had seemed clear this was another raider, but then whoever was controlling it had stopped and fired at the very raiders Isavel’s party was hunting, incinerating one of them before disappearing into the woods. It made no sense.
Seawave Lessa lay silent, now, the crumpling of her bones just barely visible. The remaining warriors - Rodan, Nera, and Kirrit - had dug her a grave not far from the ruins, near the strange circle of blooded stones that surrounded the entrance. Orden knelt down beside her, holding her hand. He was quiet, jittery, shaking, face shifting between red and pale.
Isavel wasn’t sure what to do or say. This was yet more death, but she felt numb to it - she had lost so much already, and she barely knew Lessa. And yet that numbness was shameful, and so she looked down at her feet as she stood silently close to Sorn. Orden eventually broke the silence, standing up and letting out a shudder.
“I don’t need to tell you that I intend to hunt these people down and kill them. I hope you all feel the same way.”
He paused, and glanced at Isavel and Marea.
“Well, most of you. Y ou two haven’t known her that long. If you’re not ready to go all-in on this, I’ll understand.”
Isavel felt her face go red. What was she supposed to say to that? Marea looked confused, though, so Isavel translated it as simply as she could, stalling for time.
Was this what she was meant to do? She had died, and yet the gods had seen fit to bring her back and give her two brand new gifts - such a thing was unheard of. This could be a warning for her to leave, but it seemed different. It seemed more like a calling, like a demonstration of why she needed to fight. She cleared her throat.
“I’ll help. I didn’t know her well, but... she was kind to me.”
Shale threw Sorn a glance, but nobody else reacted. Marea seemed ready to stay too, nodding after Isavel. No words wasted on an explanation. Orden pursed his lips, taking a deep breath.
“Okay. Good. So we leave now. The rest of the raiders went east, and we don’t have time to plan much anymore. We need to move, to hunt, or we’ll lose them.”
Sorn briefly touched Isavel on the arm and whispered. “Thank you.”
“I need to do something . ”
She really did. The gods had given her power, and to not use it would surely be foolish. She moved to the front of the party with the other pathfinders as they fanned out into the woods.
She wished she could tell them what she had become. This might be that opportune moment - now, more than ever, they might be more willing to accept something that looked like heresy if it helped them. She could tell them the truth, that she was at the very least a hunter and pathfinder both.
And they would accuse her of not doing enough, somehow, to prevent Lessa’s death.
Damn it. They might not - it would be a terrible accusation to make, wouldn’t it? But they might. And she’d have to skirt the whole resurrection thing, too, because how was she supposed to explain that?
She had to do something, but that something would have to involve more sneaking, more distractions, more hiding.
The advance along the edge of the valley was long and silent. A pathfinder would occasionally notice something that made them change their course, but they didn’t catch up to the raiders. By evening they had found a small village in the crook between the valley’s two rivers, a village that had not yet been attacked. Isavel thought she might have been there once, as a child, but that was another lifetime. They kept to the woods, but they would need to rest soon.
When the sun had definitively sunk beneath the horizon, the party stopped to share food, but the painful silence persisted. That silence invited brooding, so Isavel tried to focus on the outside world again, casting her senses out into the living forest. There was lots out there - sights and sounds, shapes and calls, but nothing she thought might change the course of their evening.
“I think we should rest.” Orden may have spoken, but the party didn’t feel any less silent. He sighed loudly, his fists tense. “We did just sleep last night, but I don’t want to run into anyone tomorrow night and be tired. Won’t do us any good.”
They all nodded, but nothing really changed. Most of them were staring into their bowls. Marea and Rodan were trading bits of food they didn’t like with one another, but even they were quiet. Isavel felt like she was drowning in the silence; she couldn’t stand it. She needed to swim. She stood up, turning towards the village they had passed by.
“I’ll go keep watch.”
She walked into the woods, just far enough to see that village, and leaned back against a fir tree. The fading glow of twilight was too bright still for her to see the village’s own lights very clearly, but she watched anyway.
She could hear things in the distance, voices and faint brushing against vegetation. It was far away, though - maybe foragers in the farmwood. Closer to her, not far behind, she heard footsteps approaching. She recognized the pace, the weight, the caution.
“Sorn? What’s up? Come to make sure I’m not running off?”
“No.” He sounded a bit cautious. “Just wanted to ask why you’re staying with us.”
He laid a hand on her back as he stood next to her. She glanced at him, resting a hand behind his waist.
“I have… I’m gifted. I can’t just let that go to waste. And I’m kind of starting to… not like this, but It keeps my mind busy, and I need that right now.”
“It sounded like you were living a simple life before.” She could tell she hadn’t answered Sorn’s unasked question, but he didn’t bring it up. “Not to say you were wasting your gifts, but… Is revenge the only thing keeping you here?”
“Not revenge.” She looked up to the dimming sky, and the silvery ring stretched out across it. “The gods… I survived when nobody else did. There has to be a reason for that. This is about finding out what they want for me.”
“You take them pretty seriously.”
She wasn’t sure how to interpret his comment, but it was true. Waking up after dying, newly gifted, all in the midst of what appeared to be a brewing war... there were things that belonged to everyday life, and then there were things she couldn’t possibly hope to explain without the gods’ intervention. Why wouldn’t she take them seriously? Beyond the veil, she could only imagine the gods pulled the strings.
“Well, they seem to take me seriously. They’ve kept me alive.”
“Fair enough.” Sorn pulled her a bit closer. “You can count on me.”
She looked back at him with a raised eyebrow. “Don’t you all count on each other?”
“More than that.”
She sighed and leaned on him, a faint smile crossing her lips. “Thanks.”
She kept her eyes and ears focused on things far away, on the sounds down in the valley. The rustling and the voices were louder, but not closer. Strangely, the forest was growing darker, but the village was not.
She pulled away from Sorn, stepping closer. “Wait. Something’s wrong. The village we passed earlier -”
“What?”
Sorn was peering down with gifted sharp eyes, but he couldn’t hear what was going on. Isavel heard. She heard screams.
“It’s under attack! I can hear them - Sorn, we need to get the others. Now!”
He rushed after her as she ran to the camp, and everybody there looked up unhappily. Running into camp didn’t suggest good news.
“The village is under attack! We need to get down there.”
Orden’s face hardened. “This is our chance.”
Joon pointed into the valley. “They came from the east; why would they have circled all the way around the village just to turn and attack it?”
“It doesn’t matter. Isavel’s right, we need to go. Everybody up.”
That wasn’t difficult; they had barely settled in.
They edged down from the mountain path towards the village, and soon enough everybody could hear the screams. They slowed. As the light from the village grew closer and brighter and more orange, it became clear the attackers had again grown in number. There must have been several bands of them running about the forest - more than any of them knew.
Orden pointed into the valley. “They must have linked up with their friends - there’s no way the few we saw could take on a whole village. Sorn, Marea, get up on the edge of this cliff with me. Pathfinders, watch our flanks. Warriors, I… you too, circle up behind us in case we get caught.”
It was a simple constellation, and Isavel took to it naturally by now. She and the two pathfinders fanned out evenly from the group, crouching down to hide and keep eyes and ears on the forest. The warriors looked lost, their leader freshly buried, but they did as asked.
Then the hunters started cursing. Isavel looked around, but Shale and Joon were off in the distance. The three of them were the outskirts of the group because of their gift, but she needed to know what was going on in that village. She couldn’t just stand by and wait. She slunk towards the cliff, leaving a risky gap in their screen of lookouts - but she had to see .
There were scores of raiders.
She saw the raiders, crisp and clear with her hunter’s eyes, as they rounded up villagers. They weren’t killing them, heaping them onto piles of corpses. No, they didn’t seem all that violent at all. Methodical, calm, and relentless, they were scouring homes, dragging the inhabitants out kicking and screaming or knocked out, and lining them up, bound, in the village square. These couldn’t possibly be the same people who had killed her.
Somebody was walking down the line of captives, calm and collected, and - oh gods.
Isavel had never seen anything like it. A sphere-shaped wrong flared up every time he stopped in front of a captive, as though he were peeling back the world to reveal another beneath it. A walker, the rarest of the gifted - but it was the world on the other side of him that truly scared her. Unwelcome familiarity crawled along her spine as she remembered the feeling of cold metal digging into her throat.
Each of his victims, as he paused and dragged them into that world, screamed horribly for a few seconds. It was impossible to see what was going on - it was like everything in that place was invisible, except that wasn’t quite true. Something was visible - a deep black void interspersed with jagged, pure white fragments.
After a few moments the villagers emerged from that world, staring at their hands and arms as though they had never seen them before, stumbling unsteadily over to the other raiders. They embraced as old friends and laughed as the remaining captives looked on in fear.
Isavel could barely breath. Whatever was going on down there was terribly wrong.
Engrossed as she was in the horror below, she still heard the footsteps moving towards them in the woods, the cracking of twigs and rustling clothes. Over where she had been - where she still should have been standing guard.
Damn it.
She stood, turned, and with hunter’s eyes and pathfinder’s ears she found them right away - more than a dozen armed men and women, jogging through the woods towards her party. It looked like they were wielding clubs, and they didn’t look friendly.
Isavel scampered across the ridge, stuffing the rest of her rations into her mouth as she went. It might be too late, but she didn’t want to get exhausted in a fight. It wasn’t far to the others, and she found them still staring down into the village below.
