The Secret War - 1st novel in the Shadow Series

Interlude 1 .

The Awakened One

Millennia from now, when The Corruption has been vanquished by those who are stronger than us -- for surely such will come -- my brothers and I will awaken. We will beg the vanquishers to teach us, to share with us their sublimity, so that we may become like them.

We sleep in distant reaches, connected to each other by the lightstream. All dreaming, all hidden, all safe.

* * * *

The first to awaken me are travellers in blinking bodies of gleaming alloy. They are like me and my brothers, I think, for they need no ships to fly, and I do not sense The Corruption upon them. Yes, these must be the ones for whom we have waited. But I am wrong. When I touch them, their insufficiencies become clear; these blasphemous beings possess not the light.

I will show them therefore the grandeur of my kind.

I slaughter them in waves, and they chitter and they scream. They plead to keep their lives, but this is a gift I cannot grant them. None may know of the place where I sleep until the vanquishers have come.

Even by the hundreds, and even by the thousands, I kill them until none remain in this place.

Yet still, I know there must be more, for they are not natives to this world.

I wade into the lightstream and reach out. I will trace their path.

Ah, they are close. These beings are young, and they travel more slowly than light. They have not yet spread very far among the stars.

I move from world to world, demonstrating for them my glory, breaking the connections they have made between them, and ensuring none remain alive.

My brothers sing to me. Together we luxuriate in the carnage.

I will return to my dream.

* * * *

Then, for a second time, I am found.

These ones are called the Gatherish, and they are strange beings of wide biological variation, each one their own shade of pink, brown, gray, blue, red, and bronze. They are smaller than children. I can hold them in my hands. They do possess the light, yet none among them use it.

Many of them stand around me with their weapons drawn. I sense they are frightened and awed by my magnificence.

"Why do you despair?" I ask them.

"We are starving, great one, for our food supplies have been tainted, and we find ourselves isolated from the rest of our kind."

"Why do you not use the light to sustain yourselves, or to communicate with your people? Where are the Celedins among you?"

"Great one," they tell me, "we are sorry, but we do not understand."

"I will feed you, then," I tell them, "but first you must feed me. Bring me your three most promising, kindest, healthiest and I will dine upon them."

"This goes against everything we believe," they protest.

"What you believe is irrelevant."

* * * *

Midway through the night, they leave outside my cave three sedated red ones, and one pink one, who paces back and forth, waiting for me to emerge.

I lumber my head through the entrance and take one of the red ones into my mouth.

"Wait!" says the pink one. "Don't kill them, this is vicious, this is cruel. You clearly do not need to eat them for sustenance. Why, then? To pay tribute to your superiority? If you can really prevent us from starving so easily, then you can do so without this barbarity."

"The weaker must suffer at the hands of the stronger," I tell her. "It is the way of all things."

"Isn't generosity the greatest demonstration of strength? To give without requiring anything in return?"

"No," I say. "The greatest demonstration of strength is to kill. Let me show you." I bite into the red one. It crunches between my teeth, and its juices flow into my belly.

The pink one screams.

"See?" I tell her. "You do not wail at generosity, do not fall to your knees, do not weep and despair. The feelings that follow generosity are mild compared to those that follow destruction. Generosity breeds weakness. Destruction breeds strength." I tear free a red limb and gnash upon it, the muscle and bone satisfyingly textural in my mouth. "After this, you will be stronger. The next time I eat one of you, it will hurt much less."

She weeps and throws her body over the other red ones. "Don't eat them," she begs, "please don't eat them, they've done nothing to you, they're innocent. Please. Take me instead. Kill me and let them live. Please, please, please."

I rise fully from the cave to tower over her, that she might cower before my terrible resplendence. "Silence!" I command. "Do you think I like to hear such whining? Cow yourself back down the hill to where the rest of your kind sleep. I will devour these beings as we have agreed. Your supplications will not sway me."

The pink one swallows her sobs as she gets to her feet.

"Then our agreement is rescinded," she says. "I will remove these red ones from your presence, and we will have no more dealings with you."

"You would choose to starve? To sacrifice your entire community, including these red ones, instead of simply letting me eat two more, so the rest of you may live?"

"We will starve or we will find our own way to survive."

I laugh. "Then you will all die, and I will return to my sleep. What strange creatures you are."

She struggles down the hill dragging a red one in each arm, and I chew lazily upon the one that I have already killed.

* * * *

The Gatherish return the next day with new ones to bargain with. They tell me they still wish to continue the deal, and that the pink one doesn't speak for them. Save them, they implore, and they will give me a blue one and a furry one to eat. I tell them this is good, for the Law of Exchange requires that something be given for something, and nothing be given for nothing. I have no desire to see these creatures starve. I sense not The Corruption upon them.

"Great one," they say, "we have already given you something and you have just said that according to the Law, you must give us something in return."

"Yes," I agree. "Our bargain was three to sustain all of you. Therefore I will take away one third of your hunger."