War of the World Makers Read online

  War

  Of the

  World Makers

  by

  Reilly Michaels

  ________________________

  If you can look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow and which will not, speak then unto me.

  - William Shakespeare

  ______________________________

  царица

  1

  A Hail of Giants – Since The Time of Babylon – Zolo’s Fate

  SPELLCRAFTER ZOLO BOLD WOULD SOON FACE DEATH for the final time at the hands of Temujin Gur, the most ancient and dreaded of all Asian sorcerers. Zolo’s strategy to arm the Kazakh Khanate and its tribes with a dragon’s horde worth of cannons, muskets and spells, and lead them against the tyrannical Chinese Emperor Qian Long, had forced the Emperor to stir the blackest of magic into life. Though the act of awakening a monster like Gur was fraught with unspeakable danger, the Emperor weighed this fear against an onset of panic. Zolo’s followers were pouring in from all over Asia. By the tens of thousands, they prepared for war, the likes of which had not been seen since the age of The Great Khan.

  Zolo would triumph over their armies, free the Chinese people and spread terror to the civic agencies of Qian Long. With the help of his own magic he would later conjure a fair and just democratic utopia, one that even the English philosopher, John Locke, might find satisfactory. But before Zolo could finalize his grand strategy, a horrific catastrophe was destined to spread his new army on the winds.

  As soon as the midnight clock struck the year 1744 A.D., the black clouds of winter above the tents of Zolo’s sleeping soldiers began to moan like dying women—an unholy moan far more frightening than mere storm. Kazakh sentries on patrol that night froze in fear, staring at each other like mystified children until one of them broke the spell by screaming, his head and finger pointing upward. As one, the sentries lifted their eyes to see flaming giants raining down on them from the fathomless black. Scores fell in thunder, their bodies searing the air like lightning, and once they finished their call to gravity, the noise as each one struck ground sounded as if God himself were pounding a weeping Earth.

  And no respite was allowed.

  From west to east along the Bukhtarma River Valley, the hail of fiery giants mercilessly descended. Thousands of soldiers died at the moment of first fall, others shivering with horrible burns. All those not paralyzed, dead or wounded, ran shrieking into the darkness, their heads filled with a vision of unforgettable Hell.

  Zolo was jolted awake after an impact of giant less than twenty yards from his tent. He sprang from his bed of horse blankets, believing an earthquake had cut short his dream of the Chinese Emperor humping a huge rat. As he scrambled for balance, his ears already hurting with the shrieking death sounds of his men, his black-and-ivory striped djinn named Azamat bowed to him. No taller than a cat on hind legs, Azamat calmly parted the tent flaps and Zolo, wearing only his camel-hair trousers, ran cursing into the flaming night—still blinking and woozy, but mad for answers.

  Several terrified camp guards and soldiers whined and hopped past him in every direction like twice-bitten dogs, and then he saw it, the source of their terror: a colossal human-like body on fire so close he could almost touch it. What was it? An angel? Was God once again culling out rebellious divinities and hurling them down to the hell of Earth? Zolo heard cannon-like booming in the distance and gazed up to see more giants falling from the black sky not only close to him, but many miles down the valley, some vanishing behind a distant ridge of hills in the southwest. The forest there, as well as the trees surrounding his camp, already licked and snapped with heat. A firestorm of enormous size appeared inevitable.

  All of his men would die unless he acted quickly.

  But towards what end?

  He knew not the identity of his enemy and therefore could not strike in retaliation or reverse the terrible spell that dropped the fireball goliaths. Instinctively, he realized the Chinese spell captains of the Forbidden City must be involved. Who else? But even all their powers combined could not have wrought such profound annihilation.

  Sparks flew in his face and he waved them away. Fire-glowing smoke roiled over his head. The pop-pop sound of musket fire echoed up to him. He looked down to see a line of his Kazakh musketeer guard firing their weapons at the closest flaming giant. The giant’s burning face turned towards them and Zolo saw the lips move.

  The thing is trying to talk!

  He ran towards them all shouting, “Let it speak!” “Let it speak!”

  At least 15 musketeers turned at the last second to see Zolo. Their gun barrels still smoking, their faces contorted with fear and shock, and though elite troops created by Zolo, they appeared to him in the horror of the night like black imps or demons celebrating the fall of a fire god. Before anyone could react, a word filled the air. A single hot word spoken by the flaming mouth of the giant:

  “YOU.”

  The voice like a groan of monster drowning in lava.

  “YOU.”

  Zolo pulled a gleaming scimitar from the scabbard of a musketeer closest and brandished it before him. For the first time, he saw the giant’s eyes through the tongues of flame. Golden eyes big as his head. The eyes appeared sad and suffering.

  “Are you a fallen angel?” Zolo asked.

  “NO. I AM AN IMPERIAL CONCUBINE OF EMPEROR QIAN LONG.”

  “What?”

  “ALL OF US… ALL OF US FALLING ARE CONCUBINES. WE ARE BURNING UNDER THE SPELL OF A SORCERER.”

  “His name? Who is he?”

  “HE WILL SAVE THE EMPEROR.”

  “Who is the sorcerer?”

  “I HAVE HIS ANSWER.”

  The giant pursed her flaming lips and blew a sulfurous yellow vapor at Zolo that billowed into a rushing cloud of gas. It only stung his spell-ironed flesh, but it oven baked the Kazakh musketeers behind him. They howled and ripped at their armor, holding their faces and falling to the earth. The gas ate deep into their flesh. Skin slid from their hands and face in smoking sheets. Zolo cried out and clutched at them, desperately mumbling spells over their seared bodies, but it was no use. They dissolved down to bone and hollow armor in less than a minute.

  Zolo!

  Someone yelled. He recognized the voice as he rose to his knees weeping.

  Do you know who this is?

  A voice within his head speaking slow and deliberate. He decided to answer.

  “Niccolo?”

  I have caused your powers to lessen. You cannot save your men in any case.

  “My God, it’s you!… How could you do this?”

  I ordered you not to open a new front in China. It cripples our cause.

  “Would not a China free of tyrants impede Godfellow’s utopia?”

  The Chinese cannot fathom the democracy you desire.

  “But we can guide them, help them… change them.”

  Non possibile.

  “Then return my full powers, Niccolo, and help me reverse this massacre. You are a World Maker with—”

  I cannot.

  “Then let me save my men at least… I beg you!”

  Sono quasi morto. They are nearly all perished.

  “How can you allow this?”

  I had no hand in the rain of death. It surprised me also.

  “Then who is the sorcerer she speaks of?” he said, pointing back at the giant.

  Temujin Gur.

  “What?... That’s not possible!”

  There is no doubt.

  But he died at the Czarina’s hand.”

  He lives in 1744. Do you not recall your boyhood?

  Though only 46 years of body age, Zolo had lived more than three centuries working for his lord and mento
r, Niccolo Paginini, so in reality he was nearing 400; therefore, recalling his boyhood wasn’t easy. He needed a spell to tweak the electricity of memory, but it all seemed to drip from his body. He felt helpless as his magic fell to the dirt and grew nothing. But he vaguely imagined the Great Hall of a castle in Prussia. He’d worked there when a teenager, his job to keep a watchful eye on Princess Freddie von Anhalt who would later become Catherine II, Czarina of all The Russias, as well as a supremely powerful World Maker.

  Parties took place, balls, and the coming of Empress Elizabeth.

  “I cannot remember. Master Paganini… Tell me.”

  But he would not answer. As a shadow is moved by sun, so too had he soundlessly departed the mind of Zolo Bold.

  Then the world caught fire.

  The giant suffering concubine burst into a wind of fiery shards that blew about with such force it caused the gas-burned corpses of the Kazakh musketeers to vanish. Bits of the human detritus burned his arms and chest until he cried out, and when the bombardment ceased moments later, Zolo turned to see the forest-birthed firestorm go avalanching down the hill sides with a black-magic velocity before exploding into ferociously roaring tornadoes of flame that began to sweep to and fro across the Bukhtarma River Valley.

  He was dumbstruck by the sight of it.

  Despite his centuries of witnessing things no normal human could even imagine, he was shocked to see bits of men and horse and wagon swirled like flaming black cinders in the maelstrom. Tears brimmed in his eyes and burned off to steam as he watched.

  Nothing could be done.

  No one could be saved.

  Even the air itself began to depart his lungs as his camel-hair trousers crumbled to smoking black pieces.

  Naked and gasping, using his remaining magic to screen the heat, he ran back to his tent to gather his spell-protected garments, weapons, horse and his adored djinn, the faithful Azamat. But once arrived, he found little Azamat lifeless. A burning shard of iron had cut through the tent and struck him. With a shaking hand, Zolo pulled six inches of metal from his old friend’s head.

  The open wound bubbled over. It sputtered and coughed before speaking these words to him:

  Your only chance is Prussia.

  * царица *

  ZOLO RODE SOUTHWEST TO EUROPE VIA SAMARKAND. His ultimate goal was to reach the castle of his youth in Prussia—the place Niccolo had helped him recall, and where the future Czarina lived. But a detour to Samarkand he believed a prudent step. Certain ancient spells fused like magic fossils into the stones of that city and he knew the right incantation would make them fluid and easy to absorb—after all, he needed weapons like black lightning to stay alive; and even though his horse, Kublai, was a magical breed capable of preternatural velocity, it would still take weeks to make the perilous journey. Besides, Temujin Gur might be searching for him, and the 12th degree black warlock was at the peak of his powers.

  Would he forget Zolo now that the Emperor Qian Long was safe?

  Other dimensional creatures known to Zolo as “The Night Brethren,” beings who had gathered his dark intelligence on enemies for the past century, could not foresee Gur’s intent or even know his position, but they whispered to Zolo of a young World Maker coming into her power in the Holy Roman Empire. She was known as Freddie von Anhalt, and one day soon would possess not only the ability to defy Temujin Gur, but even Time itself.

  Yes, he knew. She lived in that Prussian castle.

  Perhaps the two of us can destroy Gur.

  A small chance, but one he would take. What other choice was possible?

  Zolo’s magical grand Arabian named Kublai carried him across the southern plains of Kazakhstan in record time, but upon reaching the rocky shore of Lake Balkhash, it broke a leg in a fall. With what little magic Zolo had left, he fixed the leg, but then it broke again. He fixed the leg one last time and set Kublai free. He soon found another horse, but three Russian bandits stole it on the border of Transoxiana. After those unfortunate and nearly fatal setbacks, a wandering Turk traded a horse to him named Blister for a pistol, and he soon goaded the hapless Blister into hauling him to just outside Samarkand.

  Now, many days into his flight, Zolo straggled into a caravanserai beside the abandoned watchtower of a long dead race. The one colossal eye of that tower, solitary and morose, stared forever across the lake to the distant mountains beneath the full moon. At the local inn, Zolo fell upon his bed, exhausted, perhaps even too exhausted to be afraid of death. He groped in a pocket within his robe and withdrew a small figurine: Alexander. Zolo had carried him since he was a child, for Alexander still served as inspiration. Unknown to most, the ancient Greek struggled through war after war to create a world ruled by just laws and wisdom. Zolo desired the same goals for his own world of the 18th century.

  A short prayer he mumbled to the old, soft-featured god, and once done, stuffed him deep in his robe. Before drifting to sleep his final thoughts were of his long lost mother, Avizeh. The god Alexander, and the nearness to Samarkand, had cajoled him once more to feel her tender caress and a soft kiss on his forehead. Avizeh had vanished quite suddenly when he was only seven. His father had vanished days before. He never understood. Before she disappeared, he recalled her terrible fear of a bee. She saw a bee in the mouth of a street vendor in Samarkand. It stood on his tongue and stared at her with cold anger. Zolo remembered it also: the strange cosmic blackness of the eye, the odd looking head of the vendor and his evil toothless grin.

  That was all he considered.

  The next morning, as the caravans of the Silk Road arrived laden with treasures from the West, he awoke in a panic, thrashing and yelling. He’d dreamed himself pierced by a hundred bloody nails within the body of a Virgin Mary—an evil iron maiden used by the Pope’s agents in Rome to murder heretics.

  The sun, already high, clued him that too much time had passed. He cursed himself and leapt from bed, the pain of nails fading. He sprinted downstairs, paid the innkeeper for the night and rushed out to the stables. As he strapped down a bedroll on a sagging Blister, his stomach complained to his brain that many days had slipped by since he'd swallowed a hot meal. Within moments, his stomach began quarreling, promising to ache if his brain refused to surrender. Cursing again, and with a quick look over his shoulder, he returned to the inn where he positioned himself in a corner and ordered food.

  It all seemed safe enough, for the time being anyway.

  Zolo glanced around the room and verified he was alone, except for a solitary old man at a small wooden table nearby. He dismissed the fellow without a second thought and brooded to himself, planning his strategy for winning over the Princess von Anhalt. Minutes later, the innkeeper brought a side of lamb and a bowl of hot barley. Zolo ate like a famished serf, and once more, pondered his situation. As he imagined a chance at final salvation, the old man spoke:

  “Back already?”

  Zolo turned to examine him. He noted the long white beard, the old furs and rough woolen clothing of a mountain peasant. Nothing unusual. The old man’s beard dipped in his tea cup when he spoke again. “Your stomach brought you back,” he said.

  Zolo tore a chunk of lamb from the bone with his teeth, wiped the grease from his face with a dusty sleeve and said, “Do I know you?”

  “You have, and you will.”

  Lifting a bowl of hot barley, Zolo shoveled it into his mouth. The ache in his stomach slowly faded.

  “Well, I don’t know you.”

  The old man cleared his throat and said, "I hear you dabble in democracy?"

  Zolo stopped eating and stared suspiciously. It wouldn't be beyond any one of dozens of sultans or princes to have sent an assassin to claim his head for preaching European Enlightenment.

  "Dabble? What care you if I dabble in monarchy for that matter?"

  "I simply find it fascinating that a wanderer of the wastes like yourself cares a wit about people ruling themselves."

  "Why? Because—"

  "In fact,
I am more inclined to believe that wandering the wastes has burned away what little wit you have left," the old man croaked and laughed to himself. "Ha,ha, hehhhhggg!"

  "I need not defend my political views to you. You would never understand."

  "I do understand that you are a fool. The people of Asia would rather feast on your carcass than follow you to a republic of tyrants.”

  “What?”

  “They know their place, and their limitations."

  "What do you mean a republic of tyrants?"

  "Athens, a city run by tyrants who were elected by idiots like yourself. It took Alexander, a great warrior king, to unite the Greeks and bring glory to them."

  "You're forgetting about others like Pericles who—"

  "Pericles? That oaf with a head like a stew pot? He cultivated the lower orders and it justly brought him to ruin, his country following along. I would have told him, but I wanted him to fail."

  Zolo laughed. "Ahhh, so you were a contemporary of Pericles, eh old man? You are truly far older than I thought."

  "Yes, I am. Since the time of Babylon. Before that I wandered the waste, much like you."

  "I am relieved you are simply insane. At first, I thought you were an assassin."

  "But I am an assassin," he said and grinned. “And I want to tell you, that’s a fine horse you have. He’s strong, sure-footed and handsome... Will he run for office in your new democracy of Asia?”

  “He has bad teeth, and he's stubborn. No one would vote for him.”

  The old man cackled and slapped his knee. “I’m going to enjoy riding him through the mountains.”

  “He’s worn out and perhaps ready to die, much like me. But he’s my horse, and he’s going to take me to Samarkand.”

  “Oh, ho ho! You don’t need a horse, for you are not going anywhere.”

  Zolo laughed and shook his fist. “By Allah’s thumbs, you’re a bandit?”

  “You still don’t recognize me?”

  Zolo saw nothing familiar. “I am not Pericles, so I have never met you.”