Milc/C.J. Milnes
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Six Souls, Book 3, Chapter 16 - It is how it is
🕑 Added 2025-09-19 19:28:26 +0000 UTCCan you see it yet? Tezca demanded. Considering he was a ghostly jaguar being subsumed by my soul, the guy was a pretty harsh taskmaster.
“No, I can’t bloody see it!”
Reach out for your followers, your believers. Focus on them.
I tried to relax, letting the tension flow out of my muscles, starting from my toes and working my way up through my legs, torso, and arms. I shut out everything else and ignored the fact that my body in this place was something I had conjured from shadows.
I didn’t slap myself in the face, but I should have. I let my physical form dissolve, spreading out into the swirling mists of my expanding domain, but it wasn’t enough. The tent and the grasslands around it faded back into shadows as well. I wasn’t forcing anything in this place to be anything other than what it wanted. A natural state. Neutral. Relaxed. The domain was me, and I was it.
Without eyes, the process became easier. Flashes appeared, like an image of a map, or when I looked down on the world through Glimpse’s senses.
My new world looked almost exactly the same as the old one. Landmasses condensed, mountains rose in most of the same places, the Worldspine range being the major exception. Dividing east Asia in half, running through what I would call central Russia and connecting with the Himalayas at its southern end.
Some parts were grey and fuzzy; beyond the topographical information, I had no idea what was going on there. But around the tribes and the legions, things were more vibrant. Even from what seemed like a low-orbit perspective, I could sense movement and life. The definition was clearest around my people, but there were spikes of clarity in a number of unsurprising places.
I narrowed my focus on North America and watched as indigenous warriors went to war. Arrows, spears, and clubs; as men committed violence, my perception expanded around them.
I pulled back, and it was the same everywhere. The Crathan city states around the Aegean, unknown civilisations that seemed to stretch across Africa, glimmered in my senses. Everywhere humans fought or schemed to kill, I could feel and see what was going on.
The barrage of sensory impressions overwhelmed me, and I snapped back to myself, trying to open eyes that I currently didn’t possess.
Filter it. Focus on what you seek, Tezca purred from where he lay stretched out his back, four translucent legs stuck in the air like he was begging for tummy rubs.
“It’s too much!” I hissed. The sound manifested according to my will, despite my lack of vocal chords.
Still thinking like a mammal. This is your world. Urth feeds you power and is yours as well.
Is this better? The thought took on weight as it spread around me, and my domain shivered, the mist stirring as the words passed through it.
Yes. Now try again.
I tried to zoom in, and my perception narrowed, this time on Riverwheel.
Half a dozen waterwheels lined both banks of the fast-flowing river, providing power to a myriad of workshops that had sprung up since I last visited. Just outside the walls, dozens of windmills had been built to drive yet more machinery. Nothing too complex, lathes, looms, drop hammers, and bellows. But they had automated a lot of the grunt work.
In the centre of the city, a large stone building stood. I mentally chuckled at how annoyed the nomads must be at the amount of material and work being invested into a shit-sitter structure. It was intricately carved with fluted columns and colourful frescoes and mosaics lined its sides. The art was mostly of horses and aurox, but there were a few showing our victories against Mortimer that were half complete. At the top of the arch that led to the main entrance, a couple of Huskar were in the process of painting over the old seal.
The spear and shield that had marked it before were being replaced with a vertical dagger.
How do they know? I asked.
They follow your lead. It is a spiritual connection. Tezca’s tail flicked back and forth in the shadows. War and killing go hand in hand. If you had chosen to fall in with Lust or Time, it would have been a much harder transition for them.
I pulled back, admiring the steady flow of wagons heading to and spreading out from Riverwheel like a spiderweb of trade. Roads had been built that stretched almost to Gethanel, the town where I had met the first of Mortimer’s Soulbound. We were taming the steppes, bringing industry and art to my savage tribes.
Something caught my focus a little to the west, and I moved my attention back to the Pass. Smoke choked the air, but it didn’t obscure my vision. Where the Mondyn had first camped when we came north was not choked with refineries and forges, greedy for fuel, spewed out the clinging clouds that were unavoidable in metal production. It blew north to leave the narrow gap in the hills cloaked in shadow. I appreciated the aesthetic on some fundamental level that I wouldn’t have noticed before this transformation began.
A section of stone cracked and ruptured, flames and smoke flying up with deadly debris as a section of the gorge's wall exploded. Huskar moved in to begin clearing away the detritus.
Explosives?
Yes. They are inelegant, but they have their place. The Huskar want easier access to the tundra to the north. Moving herds of mastodons through the pass as it is can prove challenging. Look for a particular follower, a friend. You need to master this way of seeing your world.
I need to master making bombs.
Graceless. Unspecific. That is not what we are. We are the knife that slides between the vertebrae, the single bullet through the eye. We are not slaughter, we are murder. Precise, merciless.
It would give my armies the edge they need.
What can explosives do that your spells cannot? You could walk through an enemy army and unleash your aura. None would survive.
I can’t be everywhere, ghost. Mana trickles down with every spell. Bombs can be stockpiled and used when needed.
Fool.
I phased out the rest of Tezca’s diatribe. Sure, explosives were indiscriminate; that was why I’d always refused to use them in my work back home. Home? It wasn’t home anymore. Home was a felt tent and a hazel-eyed beauty. I needed to fully accept that I was never going back to Earth.
My focus shifted again. I dragged my perception over the long train of my armies marching east. Patricia… was a problem. But Jeremy was a threat. Insidious and untrustworthy. Untrustable. The man was a snake; he was the worm within the apple he’d chosen as his symbol. I looked down as the Parthil splinter faction finally caught up with the trailing elements of my main force.
Implacable Huskar stood like statues, faces hidden within the cheekguards of their helms. But the nomads cheered and whooped. Brothers embraced each other, warrior clasps giving way to hugs and yells of exultation. I focused on a single entity, one I could trust absolutely.
Glimpse floated above the third and final group of renegades. They were a few days west of the Parthil; their reunion with their families would be soon. Soulbound had been sent out to hunt down the infiltrators, each of my followers emblazoned with a vertical dagger tattooed on their left shoulder. There had been some bloody fighting, only the Parthil had been led astray by a single Beauty. However, the tribes were finally coming back together, and my forces were swelling.
I scanned ahead, my perspective rising above the Worldspine like, well, like a god. My pseudo-omniscience faded in the high passes ahead of Jandak. The handful of hardened groups who lived there rarely interacted with each other, and their lives were constantly dependent on the rest of their clan, making murder a rare occurrence.
On the other side, what would have been China and Mongolia, if my memory served, was a morass of my followers. Even if they didn’t realise it, they worshipped the god I was becoming. Vast swaths of land, thousands of miles, were dominated by the Lord of Roses. Cities that dwarfed anything in the West were filled with people scheming and plotting violence.
It didn’t matter if they were for or against the Beauties that ruled them. Even some of the Soulbound of Jeremy were secretly linked to the divine aspect of myself. If they plotted to kill, I could use them.
In a city just the other side of the Worldspine, located at the far end of one of the main passes through the mountains, Jeremy’s pets schemed against each other. A man without a shirt, muscles rippling across his shoulders, slipped a powder into the wine of his superior when she wasn’t looking. He smiled at her as she lifted the glass, and for a moment, I was behind that smile.
So many!
What did you expect? The rich river valleys of the east always sported massive populations. China and India didn’t end up with a billion souls apiece because historically they were sparsely populated.
How many?
Hundreds of millions. Look to the south. The subcontinent is where Patricia has built her ivory tower.
Why are we all in Eurasia?
What is the point of a death match if you need to invent ocean-going ships for the participants to fight, Raymond? This is a game. Sport. You all needed to be somewhat close to each other.
In north India, there was a blur, a smudge on my senses. Something blocked me from focusing in. I could feel the people within, at least those with murderous intent, but I couldn’t see through their eyes or perceive the world as they did.
The Veil. Patricia found Thoth’s Source early on. As with everything about that monomaniac, it had to be understood before it could be used. As the Magus gradually peeled back the layers of tricks and traps, it began to work as it was intended.
Which Source does Jeremy have? He must have one to give his minions that bio-nuke spell!
That is hidden from me.
You know which Source the professor has, but not the narcissist? There is killing intent in every village, town, city, and tribe. We can look into any place we want where someone is plotting to kill. But you can’t see this particular thing?
It is hidden from me. His tone had dropped. Tezca clearly didn’t like discussing his own shortcomings. You are too young to understand, but you’ll see as your power grows and you find the limits of it.
Bullshit.
This is not a productive conversation. I have not and will not lie to you. You are me, and I am you, little man. If I say I cannot see, trust that it is true, Tezca snarled, his feline form dissolving back into my mist.
Dammit. I’d just pissed off my divine mentor and gained nothing for it.
Fay. I zoomed in and found my perception limited by a wagon cover, rumbling over the ground and heading east.
“He has to. The combined source that got shoved into his heart is gaining power. If he stays in our world, it gains strength too quickly,” she hissed. “In his divine domain, it grows more slowly. He gains more time.”
“I wouldn’t let my man sit in some bead while we move to war. He’s the Warlord, Fayala. He should be leading the column; he should be sitting by the fire every night to hear the complaints of the warriors!” I didn’t know the woman. She wasn’t part of the coven; no scarlet letters floated over her head.
“Kalil, Mond’s captains are present. Do you think Kos and Pertabon, Kril and Jagapan are incapable of hearing the concerns of the warriors?” Fay asked in a tone I knew to fear. It sounded reasonable, but it was a trap.
“Woman, your heart is blinding you to reality! He should be present!” Kalil snapped, her black hair swaying as her anger made her shake.
Fay put a hand on Haylin’s arm to hold her friend back. Haylin's other hand had dropped to a dagger she wore on the thin leather belt that wrapped around her midriff.
“Mind your words, Kalil. The Nastuf family is loyal to the Killer, are they not?” Jandak’s wife growled. Fay could be challenging at times, but I didn’t envy my friend's marital arrangement. Haylin was every inch the nomad; the brutal culture of the tribes was a veneer on the feral nature of a people who always lived on the edge of disaster. The other woman blanched and nodded hurriedly.
I was the Killer now. I felt like a shit-tier superhero. It was what I’d always been, well, at least as an adult, but it felt… wrong. Unnatural.
A vertical dagger was my symbol. People had been adopting it osmotically, as far as I’d been able to tell. Tattoos, brands, scarification, I’d seen the symbol swiftly spread among the nomads, and even some of the Huskar. The Umbrati, the elusive and stealthy guardians of the legions, had taken to it with a passion.
I reached out to my body, currently stored away in a ring on Fay’s finger. There was resistance, a sense of fighting back, but the divine trumped the magical.
I appeared in the wagon, the steady rocking making my hair sway. Kalil flinched and rose to her feet, but Haylin swiftly interposed herself between us.
“She isn’t worthy of your attention, Mond,” she snapped. She wasn’t protecting me, she was protecting the heretic.
“I don’t care about what she says. Fay is right.” I laid a hand over hers and squeezed slightly. “I am living on a timer; every second that ticks by without a solution brings me closer to… I don’t know. Something bad,” I muttered.
“Lord, I didn’t mean–” Kalil began.
“It’s fine, Kalil. I know it’s hard to understand, but it is how it is. Fay, I’m going to run ahead to Jandak. He’s got what I need to fix Wilson.”
“We won’t catch up until tomorrow. A quiet dinner?” Fay asked with a faint smile. I knew what that code meant, and I nodded enthusiastically.
“Yes. Very private. But before that, I’ll eat with the chiefs and the legates. Kalil had a valid concern.”
“Be careful, love,” Fay whispered as she kissed my cheek. I grinned at her, then moved to the rear of the wagon and jumped down.
Grass. Not the grass of the steppe. This stuff was thinner, tending to dense mats rather than long stalks, but it felt good under my bare feet as I sprinted along the side of the column.
It stretched out seemingly forever in two directions. To the rear, it was clouded in dust, long lines of wagons and cavalry disappearing into the distance. Ahead, the fresh clouds blew up as the army tramped onwards.
Flanking cavalry units moved off to the side, keeping pace and spreading out to provide an early warning if any enemies tried to creep closer. Having watched the army from a god's-eye view, I knew we were safe for now, but I respected the dedication to doing things right.
The advanced party had been in place for a week or more. Legion forts guarded the pass, and nomad camps lay between them.
I strode through the well-organised camps and found Jandak in conversation with a HUskar and a couple of nomad chiefs. We exchanged a warrior's clasp, gripping each other's forearms, and he grinned at me.
“What’s it like in the real world?” Jandak laughed.
“This world is only as real as they choose to make it,” I grumbled. “You got the stuff.” It wasn’t a question. While I’d been in storage, I’d been learning to watch ‘reality’.
Jandak tossed me a pouch, and I snatched the leather bag out of the air. “All in there, Mond. Enough to make Wilson into a proper monster.”
“He’s a good boy. And a bit of a monster!” I chuckled, spilling storage stones into my palm. Tons and tons of meat. Biomass. Raw materials I could use to heal and enhance the first friend I made in this world.
Vile-eagle, falcons, dire-wolves… Some of the substrate wasn’t quite what I was looking for, but I had enough to finally do the job. The wolf appeared in front of me and looked around quizzically.
“It’s your choice, bloke. I can just fix you, or I can add to your abilities,” I said as I knelt and ruffled the fur on the back of his neck.
He cocked his head at me, one ear inside out, then chuffed in agreement. Warmth flowed up the psychic bond, and I’d be lying if I claimed I hadn’t missed that particular connection.
“OK. It might sting a bit. That’s what Marbo said it felt like.” The wolf sniffed at my words but nodded.
I reached out with my power, guided by my more than mortal perception, and realised what a bungled job I’d made with my previous titans. Ligaments connect inefficiently, and muscles not enhanced to peak performance. I’d half-arsed it before, but this time I could really see what I was doing.
A silver mist covered the wolf and gradually expanded. I rewired nerves, connected missing bones, and enhanced the musculature. The shroud of mist expanded along his back, then expanded again. He had been two metres tall at the shoulder before, but the cloud grew to be closer to four.
I focused on rewiring the way his nervous system worked. He wasn’t just regaining a limb, he was gaining a whole new pair of ‘limbs’. As the mist began to disappear, the wolf grinned down at me, long canines shining in the fading magic.
The fur was still bronze, but my head only reached halfway up his legs now. Wings spread as the wolf shook his new body out, then beat down, launching Wilson into the sky.
Jandak and the other humans had shied away as the mist dissolved. The Huskar stared on impassively, but even they recoiled slightly as Wilson took flight.
A howl rang out in the sky above us, and I smiled thinly. Wilson was back.
“What the hell do you need a giant flying wolf for, Mond?” Jandak asked as his eyes tracked Wilson above us.
“I can think of a few things. It’s going to make scooping the poop a lot easier, at any rate.”
