Chapter 17: The Thing Not Yet Made

Othomo twisted Mistress until the Fiend went limp, then leaned heavily on her haft. She was not proving to be a willing companion. The wendigo came upon them unawares, reaching for the child first. Mistress was quick to respond when protecting the child, but once it was safely out of the fray Othomo found himself contending with two foes, and had to channel power directly through his limbs, an action fraught with difficulty. Drained and fatigued, he sat against the wendigo's furry chest and breathed heavily. The child came close and put its hand on the flat of Mistress's blade, a thoughtful look on its face. It then looked up at Othomo and shrugged.

A weary watch ended, and an urgent wind summoned Othomo to stand. Long leagues lie between him and the robber king. Othomo had not been angry on coming through the firmament, nor was he when the thieves hurled the sky down onto him. It reminded him of the sport they made before the Whirlwind, when the two faced man turned Fiend and lashed out at the Mornes. Milamir was too gentle for the abuse done to her mind. Othomo wanted Yannis dead on that count alone. A slow turn of the head, a blistering of the wind, and shadow oozing like blood on a garment across the cold ground. As a boy he ran to the two faced man with his arms back, so eager for news of all the distant tomorrows, and the boyishness the oldyoung titan never lost. As a man, the faceless greathelm peered northward in a haze of hateful smoke. What Mortal eyes were blind to, Mighty eyes would shudder from. They knew him as an eager child, or a loyal friend. Then his sisters died, perverted by the selfishness of sick and diluted cowards, and now they'd fare better were Hadeon let loose among them. When a boy, Othomo had devoted himself to play to keep the inannis at bay. Now the boy was dead, and in his stead, rose a soldier for the working day, who counted vengeance in his pay.

But Yannis was beyond him. His death was needed, to be sure, but Arun's folly was his first errand. The Sun needed to be unchained, and Arun brought low to repentance. And besides, even one so empowered by purpose as the relentless shadow needed humility. Yannis was of the first, and his gifts made him privy to all but the deepest secrets. And while he had laid low for long years and in an occult manner spread his roots far and deep, Othomo had come as a hurricane, Foe swinging in wide arcs and Victory steaming from his nostrils.

Victory, where was he? I miss you brother. He gripped the handle of Friend, grateful his dagger was still with him.

The wind rushed again, with no desire for leaves, raising for majesty the dark horse tail, and Othomo felt comforted. He was the dreadknight, and so named for good reason. Arun and Selenne feared his dark, but he too had fire to weild. This the thieves saw when they pressed him on his arrival. He nearly ended Kari, and sent Phosphora's deadly rays to the tomb with his hand. Only Limo gave him any real trouble among the emanations, but he would have fallen had Selenne's halfbreed daughter not seen that he was outmatched and pulled him back. No, it was only the combined might of Sun and Moon that bested him. Even the touch of death from the stormlich could do little more than fatigue his ceaseless might.

He stood, remembering that he was strong, however weary, and turned his head east where the Sun rose high above the tower of its shackles. The Morne would have to avenge themselves, unless Hadeon could be coaxed into the fray, but that would be a tricky thing to do without bringing ruin to all the world. Tartary was precious to all the Mighty, even the soon to die Fiends. The Wayward sought its defense in lack of faith, the Patient looked on eagerly, too afraid of damaging the scape of promise to dare breaching the firmament. And the Stalwart, they were ready to pay the steepest price for Tartary's rescue. He was struck by a sobering thought, that he might very well be the only Stalwart there.

Even Yannis values this place, he thought with a cold glance back north. How Othomo would love to drive Foe deep into Yannis's mouth, digging and wrenching until he found the bug eyed young face within. But he knew that fight would be his end, him so tired and without support. Among their generation, only Hadeon had the raw power to throttle that antediluvian monster. Othomo shook his head. If Hadeon came, Yannis would die, but it was doubtful if Hadeon could be calmed quickly enough to avert terrible tragedy afterward, lest the Radiant Soul Himself transfer Hadeon away. The shadow wept with knowledge sad. As he had seen his sisters perish, so might he see Hadeon. His essence might be preserved out of pity, but his body would likely have to be unmade, and Othomo would suffer no hand but his own to be the one to strike the blow, and he knew that Hadeon felt the same. Still, that would require strength that Othomo did not have, especially if this new consort of Kari's were to stand between him and Arun. Like his father, he would choose to trust the Radiant Soul and the Genesis edict, worrying over only his own role in the logic of the world. He turned his head again to the east and began his march; a tired gale.

A waking dream took him while they traveled. He felt it rapping softly inside his cracked and faceless helm, ringing with sweet promises and mystic musings of the sort that draw sages to bottomless wells, and move erudite wanderers to impale themselves to the trunks of yew trees. Swift leagues then rolled beneath him on an invisible flight. He saw the gentle yottnar, whose footfalls summoned land from under the expanding seas, looking up with their slow gazes, wary of the feeders stirred to waking by the turmoil of the Whirlwind.

The thing he heralded then spread across the sky, and he could have wept, so happy was he to see it. Victory, his horse, thundered beneath him now, and above he saw the Sun freed of its bond in gleeful descent, off on a new voyage to fields and mountains long deprived of sight, while Tartary grew dark and became the haunt of big-eyed wonders. Night had come, and the land rejoiced. The Mortals slumbered in sleep that healed, and the sounds of black lions and broad winged owls mingled with the screeching of scarabs to echo off of land and dome.

Victory neighed loud, sending the nocturn choir scurrying out of their way. Othomo held tight the reins, lowering his head into the wind his savage mount tore through. An eight legged, steel clad visage of black bones was his horse, whose eyes shone deepest crimson, while a blue mist trailed from his mane and tail as he galloped. He was born when Othomo was sent to wage war, conceived from his master's thought and given life of his own, so that the dreadknight was both his father and his brother. Foe was slung on Othomo's back, and Friend rattled in the hollow of Foe's ricassa, where he could be readily drawn and thrust into the flesh of an enemy. Together they galloped over a tall hill, then down into a steep gully walled with purple moss that was slashed through by a deep and gurgling stream. Blue lights danced around them, and the stars blazed above, now and then streaking downward as if shot from a bow.

Victory wandered wild, joyous to be reunited with his brothers. His dream-shod hooves carried them astride a mountain whose shadow governed for miles, and once free of it he sped along a river so wide they could not see the opposite bank. The land rose suddenly, giving him an excuse to show his stride. One strong bound and they were away from the river, rounding the mountain and diving through a deep vale that feasted on starlight. Boulders littered the land, and the frosted stumps of fallen trees, all of which the dark horse leapt over like a child skipping past a puddle. He slowed to a canter at the end of the vale, taking them to a ring of standing stones where green bulls tipped their horns to the Moon. With his proud neck arched he came to a stop under the Moon's shining beams, and with a snort urged Othomo to dismount, which he did, and stood in reverence under the light of the Pale Queen's crown, now freed by its Wayward captor. The Moon bore mournful grey scars from its chains, but where it was unmarred it glowed as brightly as a thousand stars gathered into a glass pitcher.

A stone clanked off his helm, pulling him from his vision. He was sitting with his back to an ivy covered tree, his legs bent and hands on his knees. The child had made a fire, and the sky was of a color with the soft clay of riverbanks.

Othomo stretched outward with his mind and memory. He took only a small part of the early descents to witness the birthing storms that bore the binary walls in which a man sows seed and a woman grinds corn. The gem caves of the heavens were his favorite haunt, and the cavernous kilns where Obrus taught his sons to work a smithy. He loved to stretch out his cape and fill the spaces between the stars while Obrus's hammer rang in the near distance. He and Noctis first met there, and he wooed her with his shadow. When he came for the lights, he was mostly a stranger to materium, having primarily heard of its doings when the lesser Mighty born there ventured into titany. But he'd seen the maps. When the noble metals were given spark, all Mighty minds were placed in a trance, where pieces of things before unthought fell in their most minute aspects, tiny grains so as not to overburden all of the etherium with questions that could only be answered through patient experience.

Othomo knew the lay of tartary from those founding dreams, along with many conversations overheard amongst his elders. Archimonde and Thrond spoke of the place in detail as well, as they were umbilically linked through their handling of the metals. Avon Lasair was ringed by chasms of fire, bestial savannas, a canyon that ripped into the ground so deep it may as well have been a continent all on its own, and plains so vast and sprawling and naked that he would be prey to anything with power bent on hindering his crossing. There too were numerous cities and fiefdoms ruled by greater Mortals and lesser Mighty, where he might find aid, or resistance. Arun had had many long watches to lay his traps and ready his defenses. Othomo was tired and hurt, and in the small time since he rose had already been beset with trials. And of course, there were still many Fiends to be dealt with.

"Do you need food?", he asked the child. The little varmint shook its head and held up the skeleton of a large toad. Othomo nodded, then rose with a sigh. "I need my horse," he said in his cold, deep echo. "Come, we go to see your mother."

The child stared blankly and shrugged.

Worth a try. He reached down, lifted the child to its feet, and pointed west with Mistress. It nodded and was off, looking back and waving him on. As he watched the child hopping over rocks and sticks, humming to itself in a high and unworried voice, he thought of Asteira and how she was when Hadeon was calm. More and more she would venture further afield in the unmapped spaces, often beckoning Aurora to follow. There were times then when Othomo was left alone to comfort his sick brother, as his father's disagreement with Yannis escalated. His mother was busy reaffirming the faith of their contemporaries while the future watchers argued over the fate of materium, leaving only him to try to mitigate Hadeon's bouts of agony. Othomo never felt up to the task, and he found that he greatly feared his brother's power. Still, he tried, and during those moments they came to know each other and bonded. Were it not for that bond, Othomo may well have been slain by Selenne and Arun. Perhaps that's why his sisters grew distant; so that he and Hadeon could bond. Or perhaps they grew weary of caring for one so afflicted. He would never know. As the child pointed to a light on the horizon that could only be Phosphora, Othomo remembered finding Aurora's bones, unrepentant and impure, and the look in Asteira's eyes just before she died.

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