The Last Human IV - Ch. 1: The Grave of Two Gods (Patreon)

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Chapter 1: The Grave of Two Gods

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At the core of a hollowed-out world, Sen’s Great Pyramid showed no sign of life. Its inverted base was suspended by thousands of columns that reached down from the planet's crust, though many of these had been chewed and drilled and severed by an armada of drones. And yet, the Great Pyramid still hung, its polished tip pointing down, suspended at the core of the world.

Countless gouges scored the inward faces of the Pyramid, scars in the metal dripping with melted slag, long-since cooled. Deeper still, the Pyramid’s depths overflowed with that same armada: tens of thousands of drones, some crumpled, some torn to shreds with their wires and reticulated limbs strewn about, but many still perfectly whole—and unmoving. Here, an armada of the Sovereign Swarm had died in a single flash of Light, and its corpses would never move again.

The dome of a mountainous, metal hulk, sheered in half by the weight of its own body, rested at the nadir of the Pyramid. Below its many decks and shattered repulsors and the gaping honeycombs of its hangars (still littered with drones that had failed to launch in time), an ornate gold and glass structure rested in an accidental nook of the hulk.

Once, the structure had been called the Mirror of Sen. Once, it had been a Gate to another existence, a universe beyond this one. Now, it was little more than a grave for two gods; Sen, who had gone through a thousand years before, and whose agonized death had been stretched over the millenia, and Poire, a human cursed and the Savior Divine, who entered the Gate a handful of years prior. On his passing, the Mirror had cracked. On his passing, he had saved everyone … everyone but himself.

Somewhere, many miles above, the snows that blanketed Sen’s dead world melted and water seeped through the cracks of the crust, and fell in a river down through the hollowed-out planet. By the time the waterfall reached the core of Sen’s world, it was little more than a drip of water, pattering gently over the domed husk of that dreadnought machine. The droplets fell in a gentle, rhythmic patter on the head of an android, who kneeled on the steps leading up to the Mirror. Moss grew on the android’s body, crawling up her metal limbs like a kind of floral fur, a dark brown tinged with green. The android did not move; had not moved since she’d come here, and shoved the drones out of the way, and kneeled at Poire’s grave.

She prayed.

“Blessed are you, my Savior, who has seen the way.”

There were none to listen to her words, none to heed or beckon her to follow, and yet the android prayed. But she did not pray as many did—for mortal rewards, nor for the alleviation of personal pains, not even for salvation.

What need had this machine of salvation?

“Glory to you, oh Destroyer, who gave Yourself that all others should live.”

No, this android—this machine, built by a human mind—prayed for the last five years, and would pray for a thousand more, that through some miracle, the Savior’s death might be swift and painless, for when one passed through the Mirror, one passed into an existence where the laws of nature were changed, warped beyond comprehension, and time itself twisted and curved, so that one minute might last one millenia, and one death might last a hundred lifetimes.

“Praise to you, Poire, who walked the path that none but you could walk,” she spoke, her voice echoing in that hollow space beneath the dead dreadnought, “Praise and ease on your last journey.”

But the Mirror was broken, all those shining, near-glass faces cracked, revealing an infinity of complicated layers beneath.

No light shone from its depths, but the light from her own eyes, reflected a thousand times over. One day soon, when the moss grew over her eyes, even that light would be gone.

Neither god, nor machine remained. Only her. And though none could hear her, she yet prayed. By all accounts, both prophetic and real, Laykis, the last daughter of Tython, should be dead. For ten thousand years and more, she wandered the countless worlds, searching for the Savior Divine. She knew her last moments, long before they would ever happen: she would stumble upon him, this unlikely human child, in the bowels of a city called the Cauldron. And she would carry him, and deliver him to the Guardian, and without ever hearing him speak—she would die.

And yet …

It had not come to pass. Instead of dying, she had risen. Laykis had heard his voice, had looked into the Savior’s eyes, had even helped him to save another god. And now, Laykis, the android who should have died, was here to pray at the place of Poire’s final exit from this existence.

What greater purpose could she ask for?

What higher purpose could there be?

Nothing, in all her imagination, could exceed this sacred privilege. To have been a part of his journey, and now, to pray under the husked-out eaves of a dead machine the size of a mountain, surrounded by a forest of dead drones; the remains of his last, selfless act. How had one fragile child destroyed so many?

Laykis would never know. All she knew was that he had gone through the Mirror, to die.

The cyran warrior had explained how Sen had died, too. How it had not been a quick thing, but a slow and agonizing corruption, as some untold state of matter slowly ate away at her body.

All Laykis could do now—all she wanted to do—was to pray for a swift end to his immortal burden. Blessed be his way.

The water that fell from the hulk dripped on her head, and still she prayed. The moss grew, and changed colors, and crept up the sides of her face, fed only by the fainest light from the emergency strips that outlined the edges of the Pyramid. And still, she prayed.

Once, two years ago, something had given way in the forest of limbs, and the metal creaked and dropped, causing half a mountain of broken drone bodies to collapse on each other.

Laykis had not even paused her constant muttering to listen. There was nothing here, on this world. Gone were the Lassertane peoples, and their fabled castles and fertile fields that wound through the valleys on the surface. When Sen left, when she went through the Mirror to die, the Machine Swarm had come and killed them all, until even the last scuttling scavengers had been routed out.

Laykis was alone. Entirely, utterly, alone, worshiping at the tombstone of a god. And yet, her purpose brought her bliss.

“Praise,” her mechanical voice clicked, “Praise and glory. I was nothing until I found you. With you, I became more than everything I ever wanted. Praise, and ease in your final suffering.”

By now, the moss had crawled up the side of her face, and reached the corner of one eye, eagerly absorbing the dimly-glowing light. And still, she did not move. The water pooled at her metal knees, and still she did not move. Her joints had gone dry, all her mechanical processes forgotten, and still …

The plinking of the water stopped pattering on her head. Instead, it drummed on the floor in front of her. Stray droplets dripped a path in a straight line away from her. Laykis looked up—a movement that caused all the rusted bearings in her neck and shoulders to scrape painfully. The thin stream bent in mid-air, as if guided by a gentle breeze. But Laykis sensed no wind.

The trail of water bent until it pattered against the broken glass of the Mirror. Droplets dripped into the cracks or clung to the ornate, golden filaments that held the structure together. From here, Laykis could see nothing but her own reflection, cracked and broken in the Mirror. How much her face had changed, since she’d first come here: moss grew in the deep scars on her mask, and her eyes had lost much of their light, so that her face was little more than a fractured shadow.

Then, she noticed the condensation. First, on her own mask, and then on the golden metal of the Mirror. Not quite frost. Perhaps there was a breeze, and Laykis could not feel it. She tried to lift one arm, and a grating shriek rang out across the steps, amplified by the hollow husk overhead. Perhaps, her sensory systems had eroded worse than she thought. She had come here to pray, and only to pray, and had not bothered to maintain herself in all the usual ways. Foolish, she thought, and she resolved to do better, for how could she bask in Poire’s great sacrifice, if she did not take care of—

The Mirror blazed with light. Every crack, every twisting pane of glass, every shadow filled with blinding brilliance, as if an eternal eclipse had been suddenly broken, until all darkness passed beyond memory. Laykis’s eyes irised down to pinpricks, shutting out all but a fraction of the light. She threw her hands up to shield her face (her joints shrieking in protest) and her body locked up as she twisted away from the light. The light from the Mirror was a violent, visceral object, one that shifted and crawled over her, bathing her in glaring, pendulous waves. It came from a place not inside the Mirror, but from beyond.

And the light spoke, “Did it work?”

The voice was unfamiliar, deep and scratchy with disuse. “I’ve forgotten everything,” it said. And then, “Is someone there?”

Laykis could not move fast enough. Her joints groaned as she tried to sit up. Her hips squealed, and something snapped in her right knee, and rattled as she tried to climb to her feet. All her fluid had dried out, and without her hydraulics, it took ten times the effort just to stand. She swayed, and pieces of moss caught in her pistons, locking up her joints, so that her first step was also her last.

She crashed to the floor, unable to throw her hands out to stop her fall.

She didn’t bother to stand again. Instead, with her eyes wide open (though unable to see anything at all but that blessed, blazing light) she willed her arms forward, willed her fingers to claw at the steps, to drag her wretched body across the floor and up to the base of the Mirror. She put up a hand, and touched the glass. And felt the chill, far colder than any other shadowed place in the dead world. Far too cold to be natural.

“I am here,” she said, and she raised the volume of her voice box, until she was shouting, “I hear you!”

“Is that—” The voice caught, and a quiet gasp breathed through the Mirror. “Is that you? Oh, of course it’s you.”

His voice. Almost unrecognizable to her aural sensors, for it had changed so much. And yet, she could never forget the way he spoke.

“And,” he said, uncertainly. “And your name? I have forgotten it.” His voice rolled back to her. Unsteady, but growing in strength, as if he had not spoken in a long, long time. “Wait. Let me see you. I need to see you, one more time. We have so little time.”

Damn these joints, Laykis thought, and Damn these pistons. She would shred every last poorly-held mechanic of her body, if she could just have a moment to speak with him. Her core hummed to life as she felt the pull—his pull—beckoning her to stand. And though her knees trembled, and her legs refused to extend, and her very feet weighed like two dead stones laid on uneven ground, she would see him. Laykis grabbed at the ornate struts of the Mirror, and pulled herself to standing.

“I am here, Poire.” She pressed her face against the glass, so cold that frost condensed on her mask and threatened to cover her eyes. She irised them wider, forcing herself to stare into that blazing sun of light. At first, she saw nothing, but that swirling, furious energy; a maelstrom of chaotic color wrapping around and around a single point. Then, there he was, at the center of it all. The source of it.

Not a boy, but a man. An old one, wrinkled and grayed and resilient, as if age had instead strengthened him. He lifted his noble face up, and his lips broke into a smile, spreading wider and wider, until Laykis felt that she were the god, and he had come to worship her. He was the most wonderful thing she had ever seen.

“Oh, but look at you,” he said. “You are just as perfect as I remember. Laykis.”

The sound of her name on his lips, his divine lips, sent ecstasy reverberating from her core. “I am here,” she said.

The human’s eyes dragged up, over Laykis head, as if he could see something coming from behind her, as if something else tugged at his attention. And then, his focus fixed back on her. “Laykis. My dear friend. I owe you everything, and more. But time is—there is none of it left, and there is one place I cannot see. But if we do this right, then I tell you, the way will open. Khadam. It’s Khadam. You must tell her everything. Everything that I have told you.”

“But Poire,” Laykis said, unable to keep the despair from entering her thoughts, “You haven’t told me anything.”

“Of course,” he said. “Then you must listen.”

For the last five years, she had sat here, waiting and praying to a dead god. Praying, that she might hear his voice one last time.

She knew it was a selfish dream. She had always been selfish, that way.

And before this, when she first found Poire and roused him from his eons-long cryosleep, she had burned just to hear his voice—just once—before she died, even though such a gift was not in her fate.

And when she had walked with him, from Cyre, through the Emperor’s clutches, and journeyed across the red jungles of Thrass et Yunum, she had clung to his every word, greedily basking in his presence.

And long before that, as she had wandered the countless worlds, she had listened to every prophecy of the Savior Divine, every tale, every myth, collecting them with the fervency of a zealot who has only one reason to live.

“Laykis,” Poire said, “Are you listening?”

“Always,” she answered.

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