Worldship: Udo the Warlord by Joshua Gayou

Author:Joshua Gayou [Gayou, Joshua]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aethon Books
Published: 2021-07-11T16:00:00+00:00

23

Udo? Udo...are you here?

Here. Here I am.

Oh, wonderful! Wonderful, my beautiful son. Are you well?

I am...I...I can't see...

Patience. Your mind is returning to this world. Your sight will return as well.

And...and I can't feel my body...!

That will also return. Calm, now.

What has happened?

You have merged.

Have merged? Is it over?

For now...yes.

Oh...oh, thank you! Thank the gods...

As well thank yourself.

I remember nothing, though.

Nothing?

Yes, nothing at all. That is...I remember the chamber, and laying back in the couch. The dark globe overhead, and the steel gauntlets. There was a kind of humming...everywhere, like the sound of Riese thinking. I want to say it came when they pulled the gauntlets on...but that isn't right. I think that humming was always there. Maybe even before I entered the chamber. Maybe it was always there...

And then?

My breath was constricted - I think they strapped me in. Then...nothing.

Nothing, Udo? Really...?

No...no, you're right. There is something...

What?

An eye. A great...world-devouring eye suspended in chaos...and I was no more than a particle that drifted before it...

Oh, my, how poetic you have become!

I don't understand.

Think back to how you spoke before. You have always had a way with words, my dear heart, but if you search, you will find that your way has changed.

Yes, I see. Is that...normal?

Normal?

There have been many before me. I've felt them. I think...I think I can hear them now.

Can you? How wonderful! I will say that it is not normal...but then, you are not a normal man, are you?

The...kernel. The thing you hid inside me - it changed the process somehow, didn't it? What is it? What have you done?

I have preserved you from annihilation. You must have realized by now - there is a reason it is called Sacrifice.

To what purpose? Why? Why any of this? Why any of what came before? You told me on the first day, when you restored my body - you said I was to watch my brother. To protect him; keep him safe. Then later, Tyr sent me to war, and said much the same. Attend to my brother, among many other things, and see to his keeping. And he never needed me! Even those times when I was most frightened for his safety, I need not have been. He was never in danger, was he? And I never could exercise any control over him. Riese acted according to design, always. And later! In the Necropolis of Dis you showed to me the unshuttered hearts of many evil folk; said I was tested! Said I had passed, though you refused to say how! That was you, wasn't it? Not your body, not your face...but it was you nonetheless! So why? Why do these things to me? Why did I have to do any of it? Why did I have to see...that...

Calm, Udo...calm. There. Better. Now...I will tell you...it was essential for your growth-

Growth? Growth?! What growth?! Even at the other end of Erde Tyr intimated that I was some sort of prize, while Riese was little more than an experiment, but I have never once felt prized in any of this!

Udo, please.

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