Many thanks to BeaconHill and frustratedFreeboota for betareading.

Many thanks to MugaSofer, Assembler, and ShadowStepper1300 for fact checking.

Flicker 8.7

I saw them.

Two monstrous shapes, fractured and fractal, sundered by dimensions human eyes couldn't perceive, existing in layers superimposed on the same space.

Had I eyes, they would have bled. Had I a mouth, it would have screamed. Space and time were a fractured glass, and they were observed through it, fragmented and whole, enormous and tiny, everywhere and nowhere.

I saw them as the others did—too large to make out, too large to understand, too large to identify with any word but large, and every one of its multitudinous synonyms.

And yet I had a sight unlike the others, and I saw clearer. The fracturing of the universe could not hide them from me—could not protect me from what I saw.

Their flesh was crystalline, and shimmered terribly like a black sun. They extended outward in every imaginable and unimaginable direction, to lengths which seemed to stretch to infinity. And I saw all of it as clear as through the most flawless diamond.

I saw them as they were, behind the veils of space and time, behind the shroud of mystery and the lock of mortal vision. I saw them—a million eyes, a billion legs, and a trillion slavering maws, furious and hungry.

They spoke, and I heard it as a human being, but I heard it also with ears that were not human at all. Each idea was more than a word—more than a sentence or a paragraph. More than a novel, or even a dictionary. But every iota of it was as hollow and empty as the dark between stars.

They were shedding. Little twinkling fragments fell like rain from them, shards of crystalline flesh like the children of a hydra, dropping down though there was no down, spreading out though there was no in.

One was coming towards me, and as it approached it came into focus. The crystal was no crystal, it was flesh. Black, and hard, and hungry.

Though I had no body, I ducked out of the way as it came hissing and spitting towards my face. Though I had no hand, I reached for my sword as I turned to face it. Narsil shone white and red as I held it before me, though I was not there.

And yet I was.

It turned to face me. It had many eyes, too many to fit on its face. It had too many legs for its body. And its mouths were too numerous to be contained by any space. When it spoke, every single one moved—some with lips, some with beaks, some with mere flesh surrounding a gaping hole, and the most terrible with a pair of hairy black mandibles.

Maia.

One word—one idea. Its scale was far smaller than the speech of those massive things, of which this speaker was but a fragment, but it was still larger than it had any right to be. But even their horrible speech could not empty that idea of meaning.

Host.

"No." The word left my lips before I remembered that I had no lips.

Assistance.

"No."

It drew itself up to its fullest height—truly impressive, for a being the size of a planet and existing in a fractured space of near-infinite parallels. Affirmation.

I willed a body into existence with a scrap of song. Embedded in a space that had no room for bodies, it took a guarding stance. "No."

It struck with a scything leg, with an edge like a blade that shifted through every imaginable dimension and universe. I deflected with a sword that existed in the only universe that mattered.

It screamed in a language that wasn't a language, as a fragment of itself was sundered and crumbled away. As it withdrew in pain, I took a guard again, and said, "No."

It struck blow after blow. Each was stopped, and with each deflection, it was diminished, and I grew brighter and stronger.

Though it filled all available space, slowly I drove it away from me. Though it laughed at distance, slowly it yielded more and more to me.

And as the battle continued, for the first time since before time was first spun into thread, I began to sing.

I sang a song of sunrise, and the night at last gave way. The beast was driven back and away, and into the dark, empty space between the stars it withdrew. I knew it would not trouble me again.

Perhaps it would seek out another host, or perhaps I had injured it so severely that it could not. In the dark, empty night, it might grow so hungry, so ravenous, that it would at last succumb to that inexorable temptation of all gluttons, as had the first, so long ago.

As it fell away and was gone, the sun rose and blazed, and I saw out of it like a burning eye.

My eyes opened to heat and flame.

I was lying prone on the pavement, and the heat rose in a haze from the ground. Off the road, the bushes were burning. The flower garden my mother had once tended was crackling merrily in a macabre parody of homeliness.

I hurt all over, and my head felt like an oven, baking my brain. I blinked, trying to clear my vision.

There was a voice, calling me. I tried to turn, but could only glance a little to the side, and then I stopped.

Dad was lying there. His clothes were torn and scorched, and his skin was blackened. His burned face was upturned, and his eyes were closed. I couldn't see whether he was breathing.

And beside him, on the ground, Vilya flickered.

I reached out, but couldn't grasp it.

"—ay—or!" The voice was getting closer.

I pulled myself forward with the last of my strength. The world seemed to dim around me.

My fingers closed around Vilya.

"Taylor!" Then there were hands around me, gently pulling me up and turning me over. My head lolled back. I had no strength left. It was all I could do to keep ahold of Vilya.

Sophia knelt beside me, cradling me in her arms. Her eyes glittered damply through the holes in her mask. She was saying something, but there was a ringing in my ears. Her face was the last thing I saw as I slipped away again.

I awoke with a gasp, already sitting up and reaching for Narsil. The sword wasn't there, but even as I searched I saw the flicker of Vilya upon my finger.

That was the first thing I noticed, the shimmering blue of the Ring of Air, and I latched onto it like a drowning man to a lifeline. I stared at the blue star, allowing it to fill my senses, as my heart rate slowed and the horror faded.

Horror, not fear. Bakuda, Lung, Heartbreaker, the Slaughterhouse Nine… they evoked fear. Fear was born of what something or someone might do. This was horror, brought on by that awful vision of the abominable things that drifted in the space between spaces and grew by breaking apart. Horror was born of what something was.

At last I tore my eyes from Vilya and began to take in my surroundings. I was in a bed, with white sheets, a thin but warm blanket, and a simple metal frame. The walls were white cinderblock, and the floor below was tiled in grey and black. There were more beds to either side, and through a window I could see the night sky. It was afire with stars.

The beds were all empty. There was only one other person in the room with me. She sat slumped in a chair, her chin resting on her chest, which rose and fell steadily in sleep. Her face was shrouded by a curtain of unkempt dark hair.

For a moment, I watched Sophia sleep, as she had surely watched me. I struggled, torn between a desire to wake her and hear what had happened, and the desire to let her have her rest.

In the end, my selfishness won out. I reached out and gently shook her shoulder.

Her eyes opened immediately, a muffled "Taylor," on her lips as she awoke. Her eyes sought mine. "Oh, thank God. You're awake."

I nodded. "You got me out of there, right?"

"Yeah. The others helped me defoam Vista, she got back her Ring, and we got you and your dad out."

I twitched. "Is…. How is he?"

She glanced away. "He'll live," she said. "He's pretty badly burned, though."

"And the soldiers?"

"We piled them into the van and Clockblocker drove them back. They're in master/stranger quarantine now."

I nodded. I looked down at my hands, and slowly clenched them into fists, then let go again. "What about Shutdown?"

"Dead. You got him."

I considered Vilya on my finger. "Should I… feel bad about that?"

"No," Sophia said firmly. "He was—"

"He was the enemy."

There was silence for a moment. Sophia cleared her throat. "Well, yeah, but—"

I swung my legs over the side of the bed and stood up. My feet hit the ground earlier than I was expecting, and I swayed slightly. Sophia started at the motion. "Taylor, you shouldn't be standing! You're—"

"I'm taller," I interrupted, looking down at her. "Right?"

She swallowed. "That's not all," she said quietly.

I frowned. "What?"

Wordlessly, she took a mirror from the bedside table and handed it to me. I took it and turned it around so that I saw my face.

Angular features looked back at me. My bones had realigned slightly, into harder, finer lines. My brown eyes were more almond-shaped, now, and, looked somehow sharper, and my ears tapered into thin, long points.

I looked similar, altered, and achingly familiar.

"I don't know what happened," Sophia said. "Sorry."

I didn't answer for a moment. My mouth was still too wide, my skin still slightly too pale, and my hair still lay in that uncomfortable interface between curly and wavy where it never looked quite right.

I narrowed my eyes at the mirror. It was just a shape, this body of mine. Just a physical shell. It didn't seem right that I should have to obey its constraints.

Lowly, in the back of my throat, I began to hum. The clear note filled the room, setting the air thrumming like the strings of a violin.

I didn't need to open my mouth, to properly Sing, for something as small as this. The low humming was sufficient. Slowly, my mouth thinned, shifting into something less toadlike. My hair smoothed slightly. My skin took on a healthier luster.

"Okay, wait." Sophia was staring at me. "Since when could you shapeshift?"

I handed her back the mirror. "Since just now," I said.

"And you... don't want to go back to how you were?"

"No. I like the change." My voice was hard with chained anger. "Sophia, we have work to do. Where's Narsil?"

Sophia blinked. "Narsil?" Then she frowned. "I… don't know. Didn't see it. But Taylor, you're exhausted. You can't just—"

"I'm fine." I smiled mirthlessly. "I feel great, actually. But we need to stop Heartbreaker."

Sophia looked hesitant, but eventually she nodded, stood up, and tossed the mirror on my bed. "Okay. What do you need?"

"Are the others asleep?"

"Yeah. They went to bed a couple hours ago. It's about three in the morning."

"Go join them," I said. "Get some rest. I have something that needs making."

"You're going down the the workshop?" she asked. "Now? Can't it wait for morning? You need rest, Taylor."

"What I need," I hissed, "is Heartbreaker's head on a pike. I need my city back."

Sophia took a step away from me, as if on an impulse. Her voice quavered slightly. "Taylor? Your eyes—"

"Get some sleep," I ordered. "I'll wake you when I'm ready to move."

"I don't—"

I was already striding away and out the door. "Sleep well, Sophia," I said. "I'll see you in a few hours."

The door swung shut behind me. The air parted to let me pass as I made my way towards the workshop.

I couldn't find Narsil. Iphannis, though powerful, was too precise a weapon for what I wanted now. I didn't want a spear, to keep my enemies distant. I wanted something that would keep them close enough for me to see the whites of their eyes as the light left them.

And I had just the mace in mind. Long, forged of black galvorn, and brutally spiked and bladed.

Búrzashdurb. The One that Rules the Dark.

It wasn't the ideal tool for the job. There was something I'd much prefer—a tool with which I could subjugate entire nations, and bend armies to my will.

Forging that would require more than this little workshop, however, and more time than I had right now. It would need a place of immense power, and time enough to properly focus on the task, neither of which I had at the moment. So Búrzashdurb, heir to Grond, would have to suffice for now.

End Arc 8: Flicker