They routed the pilgrimage through one of the massive oceancraft bays instead of the Grand Entrance with all the trappings of a happy welcome ceremony.

  Magic barriers allowed them through after a brief slowing which felt like swimming through a wall of jelly.

  The water on the inside felt warmer and soothing like home after a long, hard journey.

  Ragay couldn’t appreciate it.

  Not with the dying around him.

  Triage.

  He was familiar with the concept as part of his junior reef defender training that felt much longer ago than the almost two years.

  Doctors and other healer-types sounded commands, separating the wounded and having them carried away to more specialized rooms if necessary.

  “I’m scanning parasites!”

  Alarmed cries erupted.

  The once clean and clear water in the hangar had already turned murky with crimson.

  “Locking them down! Mass Stasis!”

  …

  Ragay woke up still inside the bay.

  “You’re clear. Your friend needs your help over there.”

  Hands shoved him.

  The waters had been cleaned while he had been in stasis.

  Vents in ceiling, floor and walls sucked the blood, bits and dead parasites to be filtered and cleansed.

  He swam to a team of healers working around someone. He caught part of a brown-furred arm through the frantic bodies.

  “You!” One of them, a doctor according to the tag on her skin-tight, white uniform, grabbed him. “You have the same weapon! I need you’re help.”

  He belatedly noticed that he still had the hooked staff in his hand.

  “Anything you need—” he swam higher to get a better look at the operating cradle.

  Ah… his fellow potential’s insides would be on her outside if not for the translucent band of hard water around her stomach.

  She blinked up at him, too weak to speak, but he saw the fear and hope in her black eyes. She yet held on to her own hooked staff, but her hand wavered ever so slightly.

  “Er… maybe another stasis? And, um, Miss Karagatan can…” He glanced around.

  “That was a once a day activation. And it wouldn’t work on your friend either way. At least not enough. Whomever cut her up used a dark, evil weapon or ability. Magic and my own Skills aren’t working. Her wounds need to be operated on with purely physical methods.”

  “Sinaya’s— that’s working, though?”

  “Yes… which I cannot explain, nor have the time to ponder.”

  “Okay, what do you need me to do?” He held his fellow potential’s gaze.

  “Can you do that?” the doctor gestured at the hard water construct. “But in different shapes and size? Flexible, like bandages?”

  “Y— yes.”

  “Bring up the scan!”

  One of the doctor’s assistants fiddled with a shell-backed slate, projecting what appeared to be an exact copy of the brown-furred landborn’s insides above them.

  The doctor spoke in clipped, precise words for his benefit.

  It sounded simple enough.

  She and her team would work on one organ at a time, sealing the cuts when possible or filling up the missing bits with artificially grown organic material that would stop the bleeding and heal the organ over time.

  All he had to do was wrap the organs they weren’t working on in a construct to prevent them from bleeding out.

  Could he do it?

  Well… he had no choice if he didn’t want her to die.

  “I can do it.”

  Imagination became reality under his will.

  Just in time too, as his fellow potential finally lost the battle against unconsciousness.

  “Precision and efficiency, my team,” the doctor said. “Like always.”

  …

  Two hours and a handful of sand.

  Ragay swam away from the operating space in a daze.

  Empty now.

  The doctor and her assistants moving on to the next desperate patient clinging to life and flirting with death.

  His fellow potential— he still didn’t know her name— carried to another room where she could begin recovery.

  He wondered if that was the last he’d see of her.

  How many potentials had he started with?

  More than twenty?

  That seemed right.

  Now?

  Down to seven, including him… maybe six if the girl quit… maybe even less.

  He found one resting in a chair off to the side near one of the massive hangar’s walls.

  There were a few pilgrims scattered in the same type of reclining chair made out of a skeleton of coral with colorful padding made from the fibers of ocean plants.

  Triaged.

  Bandaged or gelled.

  Not in imminent danger.

  “Will she live?” the dark-skinned landborn that looked just like a drylander if one didn’t notice the gills in his neck.

  It took a while for Ragay to understand the question.

  His head hurt, his senses dulled as if a bag had been placed over his entire body.

  He had never held constructs for that long.

  His will had held, but only just.

  “Yes. They think she’ll be fine… eventually. She has to heal without magic or Skills.”

  “Bloodtide,” the landborn sneered. “Cowards as always. It’s not enough that they have higher levels and better weapons. They can kill cleanly like proper warriors, but they maim instead.”

  “Cruelty is their purpose.”

  The landborn held up his elbow.

  Hardened gel encased the stump like a cap.

  “I am evidence of that.”

  Ragay grunted.

  “There are no better healers than the ones here. I’m certain they will regrow or regenerate it for you.”

  “Maybe, but the one that took my arm used a Skill. What was it? She said ‘My cuts shall last until I die.’” The landborn laughed. “I’m scared to ask them because while I remain uncertain I have hope.”

  “It seems to me that there is one certainty.”

  The Bloodtide hid their identities somehow.

  Even now he couldn’t recall the sneering, leering faces that snatched people out of the current and cut him terribly.

  His entire body throbbed, especially the deep cuts on his back. Even with the healing he had received.

  “That is the most impossible option. This was the only reason I survived.” The landborn held up his hooked staff. “Even now I don’t want to let go because I think they are coming at any moment to finish it. She toyed with me. As if she cared nothing for the kill. As if she just wanted to maim us. I still hear her laughter as I chased after her. She swam so fast. Cutting limbs off as she darted through the pilgrimage. She had to be at least Level 50. That Skill alone… even with this— I only live because she wanted me to suffer.”

  “I’ve never thought much of the Bloodtide.”

  “Neither did I. They were a distant threat. Terrible and sad, but for others. Why hasn’t Miss Karagatan killed them all?”

  “Maybe she has and more eventually replace the ones she killed.”

  They attacked anyone and everyone.

  They even swam up rivers to raid and ravage drylander towns and cities.

  He vaguely remembered reading about a long ago attack from a landlocked lake hundreds of kilometers from the ocean.

  Now he knew that they must’ve used one of the underground rivers.

  “That sounds likely,” the landborn said. “My name is Keisho Smith of Half Bay. My father is a blacksmith and my mother is an architect.”

  “Ragay of Sinaya’s Gift. My Aunty Bilaya is my favorite carer and combat teacher. I think she might have been a warrior of some level before she became a carer.”

  “I would think so, judging by your ability in a duel-style fight. You stood out immediately compared to the rest of us in that regard.”

  They talked a little more.

  Ragay asking how Keisho’s drylander father and oceanborn mother ended up wed.

  He wasn’t completely ignorant about the ways of different cultures across the world. His education emphasized the opposite of ignorance as a bare minimum.

  Keisho was less learned in the traditional sense. He had apprenticed to both his parents and a few other skilled occupations in his city before being taken away by Miss Karagatan.

  The dark-skinned landborn was curious, but not judgmental when Ragay explained how his progenitor mother and father had no part in raising him, nor were they personally involved with each other beyond the business transaction that was his conception and birth.

  In time, both boys fell silent, then asleep as their bodies finally failed them.

  …

  Suiteonem Prime, Sonombera, Hanane, 213917

  There was change in Miss Karagatan’s home.

  She was gone more often and for longer.

  And the potentials were given more freedom.

  No longer was it personal quarters to training chambers and back.

  They could now take their meals in an eating chamber where an oceanborn chef did the work of four thanks to his tentacles in addition to his two, normal hands.

  Ragay was perhaps most pleased by the ability to sincerely thank Decqa for nearly two years worth of fine, healthy and most importantly filling meals.

  Not only had he grown taller, but he had grown bigger, stronger, more than he had thought possible. From a rather lean boy to a rather muscular, slightly older, boy.

  The potentials gathered around a table.

  Out of the water since not all foods could be consumed underwater.

  Indeed, if one wanted hot meals that didn’t come in liquid form out of a bag one had no other choice unless they had a really good spell or Skill.

  Seven still.

  None had been drowned by the Bloodtide. None had quit.

  Even Tagge, who was still slowly mending from her horrific gut wound.

  She piled her plate with fresh oysters on the half shell, although she complained about how her family would mock her for getting soft. Apparently, in her culture only small children needed help cracking shells open.

  She slurped and chewed loudly, declaiming how fresh everything was.

  Sings Too Loud winced as some of her liquids splattered his gray-skinned arm.

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  In her defense he had a lot of arm to hit.

  He opened his mouth to complain, but shut it.

  The brown-furred landborn had only recently begun showing some of her old feisty nature.

  Sings came from Sovereign, the floating island that rode the Storm Belt encircling the Ocean of Storms on the other side of the world from Sinaya’s Gift.

  And from what the boy had said about his home, Ragay figured they were big on ritual and manners.

  The latter of which half the table lacked.

  Green-scaled fingers reached across Ragay to tear a chunk of medium rare steak.

  They often discussed how Decqa managed to obtain land meat so far beneath the ocean surface in the middle of nowhere without a conclusive answer.

  The master chef only ever laughed with a wink when asked.

  “Sorry,” Justavi of Hygara on Zanmadawi said as he dripped a few pink drops on the lip of Ragay’s plate.

  Ragay didn’t mind that much.

  He wasn’t one for formality.

  In beach cookouts one ate where one found space. Sitting on a bench or standing near the fire pits. It didn’t matter. Half the time he hadn’t used plates or utensils.

  Thus, Justavi’s refusal to use said utensils didn’t bother him that much.

  It was only… well… the setting mattered.

  Out in the elements by an open flame and hot charcoals?

  No utensils needed.

  At a table?

  Utensils were there for a reason.

  He speared a hunk of pink meat with a fork and remembered to chew with his mouth closed.

  Justavi’s tail swished happily. He had lost a chunk of the end in the battle with the Bloodtide. About a hand-sized piece was missing. It hadn’t seemed to affect his swimming all that much.

  Seated on Ragay’s other side was a direct contrast.

  Gossamare in her landsuit ate deliberately and delicately as she placed food in the attachment to her helmet that allowed her to eat the pieces without them getting wet from the water inside.

  Her plate was sparsely filled for she didn’t need to eat as much as the rest of them.

  He supposed that coming from one of the deepest trenches meant she had the most need to adjust.

  Regardless, she remained silent as usual.

  Next to her sat, Abygale Wavecutter, who resembled him the most with her mix of skin and fish scales, but in pale shades of gray that were almost white in bright lighting. Her folded arm and leg fins were as colorless as his were colorful.

  She hailed from a nation of cold islands in a cold ocean near the northern end of the world with ways that were different from his.

  He had more in common with Justavi even though the landborn came from salt-less water.

  Abygale ate in silence, but unlike Gossamare, it wasn’t by choice. She was small and slight, having not grown much since they started training. The rumor was that Miss Karagatan had given Decqa orders to stuff her like an oceancow until she grew.

  “Songs or stories?” Keisho tapped his fork on his glass.

  That was another change in the months since the Bloodtide.

  They had time now.

  Time to get to know each other.

  Suiteonem Prime, City of the Sun, December 2057

  It was a steam-powered locomotive artfully crafted to resemble a pod of finned animals that resembled dolphins.

  Okay… they looked exactly like the dolphins Cal had once shared the Southern California waves with back in his distant youth.

  Each train car of wood and brass was an individual dolphin leaping out of the water.

  The white puffs of steam from the engine’s smoke stack smelled not at all like smoke.

  It was a pleasant floral scent, subtle, not cloying.

  Instead of coal, diesel or electric the trains in the Empire of Man ran on steam generated magic and artifice.

  He sat on a bench dressed in local attire stolen from one of the evil men he had killed in the night.

  Murderer.

  Was he one?

  He had killed thinking beings before.

  Though never as many at one time and with such viciousness.

  He hadn’t simply killed them

  No, no, no.

  That wasn’t enough.

  Not this time.

  He had to be sure, so he had immersed himself in their memories.

  There was no other way to be sure of their evil.

  To be that deep inside another thinking being’s thoughts was perhaps the closest one could get to another.

  So, he killed them without mercy for what they had done to others, for what they were beneath the wealth, the power, the smiling masks.

  Instantly.

  A burst vessel in the brain. A heart attack. A noose around the neck and a short, sudden drop. Diarrhea that wouldn’t stop. A mix of everything for the worst ones.

  But, that wasn’t enough for some of them.

  So, he trapped them in a nightmare pulled from their subconscious.

  A prison sentence of decades lived in that instant before death.

  What was the difference between subjective and objective reality when in one of his mindscape creations?

  Nothing at all.

  He sat on the bench reading a book.

  He truly was reading it.

  It was easy to split his mind countless ways for countless purposes.

  The book was meant for mature children or immature adults, the latter of which he liked to think a part of him still was.

  It was the tale of adventure in a magic school about an orphan girl that was secretly chosen to defeat the evil ice witch.

  There was some comfort in knowing that people weren’t all that different across the spires worlds.

  He figured that he had learned enough about so many different species and cultures to say that definitively.

  Whether it was convergent or divergent evolution didn’t matter, did it?

  In the end they all ended up in the same place.

  He read.

  He clouded minds.

  Soldiers swarmed the train station, this and others. They swarmed docks and ports. They swarmed the brand new airship tower, though only halfheartedly.

  Dirigibles and hot air balloons with propellers and sails were reserved for those with wealth. Airship travel was newer, which meant it was only for trade, military or the extremely wealthy. Not the expected escape method for the hundreds of escaped repentant.

  The word made him frown.

  Innocent victims, more accurately.

  Inquisitors prowled like hyenas denied their meat. Their golden armors caught the rising sun’s rays and shined brightly.

  He decided to be petty.

  The two inquisitors stalking the train platform experienced a sudden and explosive bout of diarrhea. They exited with haste, lucky that they didn’t have secret evils worthy of death.

  It wasn’t all vicious pettiness.

  He also silently soothed fears and gave just a bit of courage.

  For the innocent victims and the brave men and women that answered his call.

  The latter shepherded the former to those train stations, docks and ports. Most would return to the their homes and lives in the city with quiet, unassuming rewards waiting for them, even the ones that jumped at the call without asking for anything in return. For those, he would do more when it came time.

  The dauntless few would ride with the innocents to their ultimate destination in the furthest northern reaches of the Empire of Man.

  A nobleman, who was also a lord and retired senator owned an isolated town in the middle of an expanse of land that contained mountains, forests and windswept hills.

  Oh, he didn’t own the town because that was against the laws, at least on paper. No, he owned everything in the town through a tangled web of shell companies, fake identities and other things.

  He had turned it into a depraved, evil Disneyland for himself and his fellow wealthy.

  He had died in his bed.

  Found this very morning soaked in his filth with his face the twisted rictus of a man that had seen hell itself welcome him home where he belonged.

  Soldiers patrolled past Cal. Their eyes slid off him like water slid off a fish’s scales.

  One gazed at a teenage girl with her family and thought bad thoughts.

  Cal nudged the soldier away from that path.

  Was it wrong to prevent a man from doing, thinking what he wanted?

  “One less rapist,” he whispered.

  The innocents walked to the platform like lambs huddling in the dark while the wolves howled.

  They had been properly clothed, but one couldn’t miss the signs of torture in the pink bandages and the hollow stares in their eyes.

  “Nope.” He denied reality. “Everyone just sees regular people off on a little trip. They don’t see the same faces on their little magic phones.” In fact, no one would remember the haunted faces after they boarded the train and began the long journey to the distant north.

  Cal watched and meddled from his bench for the next several hours as each innocent person and their brave shepherds left the City of the Sun.

  He eyed the sun and checked his watch.

  The journey would take a few days on account of the stops and train changes.

  Those taking ships and boats across the Inner Sea— now that wasn’t natural, no sea was a perfect circle, that Grand River was just as guilty, what with being a straight line through the continent and sea— would have an even longer journey.

  That was fine, he’d watch them all the whole way to make sure all of them made it safely.

  It was his responsibility, after all.

  Time was good.

  It gave Nila, revenants and Blues time to ready the town for its new inhabitants.

  He thought of the empire’s war industry.

  One in particular.

  It was impossible to avoid thinking of it, especially for him since he could hear them screaming in torment.

  He almost ended their suffering right then and there.

  But… something that big and noisy would be noticed by Suiteonem.

  It was too soon.

  He needed the demigods on his side and he hadn’t found a way to get them there without going through with the farce of Suiteonem’s regularly schedule apocalypse.

  And so, he didn’t do the right thing in order to preserve his chance at revenge.

  “Paving my road one brick at a time.”

  Suiteonem Prime, World Tree, Mathogopolis, Suiteonem II, 20137

  “You like it? Smooth, right?” Thundercrash grinned like a kid while he jerked the small wheel in his hands.

  Sixty-eight shrugged.

  The craft was strange even compared to the other animal-less carriages on the road.

  It was sleek and low to the ground.

  Low enough that had there been no floor her boots would’ve scraped.

  She glanced out the glass window to her right and saw a brown wall with wheels blur by.

  Rather, she blurred by.

  “Cost me more that I’d want to say out loud and it took the wood singer almost two years to finish my baby!”

  Everything in the craft was in the darkest black. She had to really focus her vision to see the subtle grains in the wood.

  Well… almost everything.

  There were bright orange lights in the screen behind the tiny wheel.

  Numbers and gauges.

  Speed, distances, fuel.

  Those seemed likely.

  “She might have been slow playing me, but honestly I don’t mind. My baby’s the fastest thing on the road! And still as quiet as a whisper!”

  True enough.

  She felt, more than heard, the humming of whatever engine powered the craft.

  “It’s all in one piece. I know what you’re thinking. What if it gets damaged? Wouldn’t it be easier to do repairs if it was more modular? You’d be correct… except this isn’t just any wood. It’s living wood grown right out of the World Tree. And that means magical! If she takes any damage she’ll heal herself right up!”

  Sixty-eight kept her eyes on the road and the other larger, bulkier craft that seemed to be standing like statues as Thundercrash jerked the tiny wheel left and right, always on the verge of collisions.

  “She’s also got a really good trick. I haven’t used it yet because I want to keep it in my pocket for emergencies.” He grinned. “That’s a good lesson for you, honored demigod. You’re young, so you probably haven’t developed a trump card— do you know cards? Or maybe like an ace up your sleeve?”

  “I know what you’re talking about.”

  “Okay, good! So, once you’ve got an ace, you can’t use it too much or your enemies will figure it out and once they can prepare counters then it isn’t much of an ace, is it?”

  She was curious about this special secret ability, but it seemed a waste to use it on a thief gang.

  Thus, she told him what she thought.

  Thundercrash laughed.

  “That’s another trick! How do you keep a secret?”

  “Kill everyone that knows.”

  Obviously.

  It was either that or don’t tell anyone.

  He blinked at her… then broke out into a huge smile.

  “Spoken like your father’s daughter. May Suiteonem’s rage grant us strength. Now, keep your eyes open! You don’t want to miss this.”

  So said, he jerked the wheel hard to the left.

  Had she not been strapped into her chair, which was strangely softer than wood should’ve been, she would’ve been thrown into the side door.

  The craft skidded, sliding across the road and into the other lane of oncoming craft.

  Bright lights filled her vision for a split-second.

  She wasn’t too concerned about a collision.

  If the craft was made out of wood sung straight out of the World Tree she judged it proof against craft made out of mundane materials and methods.

  Sudden darkness fell as they zoomed into a narrow road.

  “There. Should be less eyes on us. Here we go!” Thundercrash pressed something on the tiny wheel.

  The wood road in front of them opened up like a sinkhole.

  The dark mouth yawned wide and swallowed them whole.

  It was strange.

  Sixty-eight didn’t quite feel like she was still in reality.

  Outside the craft’s glass was like a tunnel of wood and light and dark.

  Grains flowed like streams of light. They flowed like streams of dark.

  Or was it the opposite?

  “They probably taught you this, but this tree isn’t just a giant tree. It exists in… other spaces. Spaces I can travel through with my baby!” He gazed wistfully out the front window. “Can’t do it for too long, though. At least according to the wood singer. Something about the tree objecting to its slavery, but you know how weird those nature-types get. Anyways, it shouldn’t be a problem for short trips. I’m restricted to my city, after all. God’s rules.” He nodded. “Time enough for a last minute planning session. Do you remember?”

  “As soon as we stop, we get out and attack.”

  “Perfect! Remember, no mercy. The entire gang has been marked for execution.” He tapped the small scroll hanging from the small mirror hanging from the craft’s low ceiling. “Official. No one can complain.”

  The strange journey ended with darkness at the end of a tunnel that seemed to appear ahead of them from nowhere.

  Ahead was a graffiti-covered wall.

  Then the wall was gone and they were inside the gang’s base.

  Thundercrash plowed into a group of gangers.

  The craft jerked up and then down.

  “Let’s go!” He shoved his door open and leapt out. “Criminals. Do you know what herald’s the storm?” He posed with his mace held high. “I do,” he growled.

  Sixty-eight rolled her eyes.

  The Empyreal Guardsman did look intimidating in his sleek gray and black armored clothes. Higher quality materials and higher quality enchantments meant less material was needed. He was also strong and durable enough to wade into the gang completely unarmed and naked and still come out unscathed.

  The gang scattered, running for the exits.

  She supposed they had to be smart to be so successful.

  Thundercrash swung his mace.

  The spiked ball detached, flying on the end of a chain that lengthened well past what the arm-long handle could physically contain.

  Ball and chain whipped into a handful of gangers.

  Instant death.

  Sixty-eight knew her job and Quest.

  She chased after the nearest ganger.

  A young one, older than her, but not by much.

  He shouldn’t have broken the law.

  If he hadn’t then her carpenter’s hammer wouldn’t have crushed the back of his head.

  Same for the other, much bigger ganger that turned and drew a long knife.

  “Bleeder Slash!”

  He caught her just above her brows.

  Instant curtain of blood over her eyes.

  Too late for the ganger as she had already buried her dagger in his chest.

  Under and up the ribs to tickle the heart, like she had been taught.

  Two down.

  Many more to go.