*****
Steffor emerged from his healing slumber to appear back atop his dive platform, surrounded by suffocating smog. Disoriented, he gasped and coughed as the acrid fumes burned the senses. Garments reacted, encasing his body in protective armor. Desperate, his ability to stave off the poisonous atmosphere limited to a few minutes, he searched Toliver's Peak for a means of escape.
His powerful sight penetrated the black cloud and locked onto a tower rising above the canopy. Rejoiced, believing he had found the entrance to his dive chute, he prepared to dive when a burst of white flame erupted from its dark opening. Stunned and confused, the wave of heat and soot that followed knocked him back, causing him to lose his balance and topple from his platform. Honed instincts kicked in as fingertips snagged the platform’s edge to avoid certain disaster.
He dangled for several long seconds, fighting the urge to scream as he registered the pain of scalded his skin caused by the wave of heat. He regrouped and, with body taut, scanned the area around the treacherous tower for some type of escape.
As he did so, he noticed with dismay how sparse the canopy had become. Once a dense blanket of green pine needles and brown cones, the top of the world was a skeleton of tar covered twigs and branches. His heightened vision penetrated the plentiful gaps between with ease to depict Instenkul's branches miles beyond.
This cannot be! What has happened in my absence?
His panic rose as he looked out across the decimated canopy to find dozens of similar towers breaking the surface. The gargantuan pipes, built from a sordid mix of wood and metal, belched black clouds into the gray sky. With halfhearted effort, he released his grip, turned headfirst and fled from the dismal setting.
His depression mounted as he threaded his way down the network of wilted branch, stem and foliage, revealing the full extent of his home's transformation. The smog diminished into a greasy haze the farther down he traveled. A mangy blight pitted the surrounding vegetation into a perpetual fight for survival against an enemy of no known defense.
Gone were the quaint estuary towns and villages set amongst the aesthetic crooks known to the upper most region's zigzagged stems and branches. In their place, Steffor flew past one grungy settlement after another, gutted into bark and branch nearest the Trunk with little thought or care to beauty or the Provider.
Steffor witnessed a flurry of human and mechanical butchery alike within each communal atrocity. Fires burned everywhere. Not like the random wild fires that would occur with the passing of a storm, but huge bonfires contained by mammoth, brick hearths. The glowing coke produced by each hearth, moved by shovel and conveyer belt, fed giant furnaces that powered machines of gear, piston and violent churning. Chimneys sprouted from each complex like wicked plants. Each connected to massive exhaust pipes that extended up toward Toliver's Peak.
Steffor shuttered as he imagined the vast network of chimneys that must exist to justify the dozens of goliaths atop the world. The damaged caused by their relentless purge of poison into the atmosphere too much to fathom. He embraced the numbness, a thin buffer keeping insanity at bay. But he knew the fix was temporary. The horrific scenes were but moments away from consuming his soul.
He then broke through the tight knit network of upper branches and flew into open sky. He emerged miles above the Constunkeen Prairie Bough. Tears of sadness and fear streaked down his face as looked down upon the Provider's longest bough. For he could find no trace of the once wide-open wilderness he knew as his birthplace and childhood home. Gone was the sprawling terrain with subtle hills and ravines, pocked by knot lakes and meandering streams. No longer a region covered by an array of grasses, herbs, flowers and bushes and populated with the Provider's most diverse collection of creatures. Now, for miles upon miles, in every direction, a black material, sparkling with a dull glimmer in the overcast sun, encased the mighty limb.
He stared at the appalling monstrosity in disbelief, revolted by the terrifying and efficient destruction. Like termite mounds, industrial complexes covered the bough in systematic patterns. Each complex, full of man and machine, mined Source-rich bark and sapwood. Giant furnaces refined the Provider’s flesh, pouring their molten byproduct into large cauldrons.
Steffor watched payloads glide away from factory along rails molded upon the paved surface. Locomotives, resembling more beast than vehicle, pulled the long trains. Spoke to hub, rails connected the satellite mine complexes to a fortified city located at the center of the bough. Three curtain walls, each replete with armed bastions and tower battlements, ringed the city. Steffor estimated the city to be over sixty square miles.
In the center of it all loomed a tower that shot skyward like a jagged spearhead in flight. The tower was constructed from a strange material that was neither wood nor metal. It's chaotic design and raw power boggled Steffor. The steep angles, sharp edges and pointed spires were a stark difference compared to the soft and natural architecture of familiar. Steffor aimed his descent toward the foreboding fortress, a sudden but welcome outlet for his consuming rage.
The trains merged into one of four primary rails that came from the north, south, east or west and led into the city. A half mile out from the city’s outer wall, each rail disappeared down dark tunnels, submerged beneath the surface. Nowhere within the shantytown packed between the first and second wall did Steffor see the trains reappear. Nor did they emerge amongst the more refined structures located between the second and third.
He moved his search inward, scanning the base of the tower contained within the third and final wall. Just inside the walls, he discovered the trains. They had arrived from underground tunnel openings located to the north, south, east or west. As rails spiraled inward, lines of trains merged into one procession. The clockwise lurch delivered trains to a depot, trunk-side of the tower. There, a team worked an intricate system of cranes. Chains and hooks lifted cauldrons and poured the molten contents into a ring shaped reservoir. Once emptied, train and cauldron exited the tunnel used to enter, and started the process over again.
Like a moat, the reservoir framed a courtyard area around the tower. Small streams of the liquid energy splintered off the reservoir, fracturing the black surface of the courtyard with iridescent cracks and capillaries. An organized commotion brought his attention to a kidney-shaped forecourt before the tower's arched entrance. A crowd of people congregated on the forecourt, their attention focused an individual standing on a dais located near the entrance.
Consumed by the desire to inflict pain onto those who would commit such atrocities to his world, to his God, Steffor adjusted his trajectory toward the forecourt. Distracted by his anger, he failed to detect the gun turrets stationed along the tower's spiked top. Nor did he sense their movement, as each gun locked onto his position, now a half a mile above. If not for his helmed visor, alerting him to the incoming projectiles, Steffor would have never made it past the first spire.
Despite the bullet’s disturbing speed, he managed to evade the first wave with a quick turn and dive. But the second wave had locked on with impeccable accuracy. As a result, he was forced to shift a crude Source shield at the last second to absorb the impact. The shield held but the impact concussion shocked his system, causing him to lose command of his shield and flail wildly in the air. Within seconds, Steffor regained control and righted his trajectory. Aimed back toward the forecourt, all its occupants now stared upward with rapt interest.
Made from the same type of grotesque material that covered the bough, he sensed an altered form of the Source powering the strange missiles. The refined form of the Source had caused an undeniable change deep within. As the thick residue of corrupt energy clung to his insides, he found himself wanting. His tempest of hateful emotions stifled the cries of intuition, warding him away from the dangerous change.
The opportunity to wield the addictive power arrived in short order. A third of the way down, flying parallel to and within a few yards of the tower, cannon turrets stationed within a mul
titude of camouflaged alcoves, opened fire. Steffor extended his right arm, shifted a thick wall of Source before him and shattered the incoming volley of fist-sized projectiles. With his left hand, he obliterated each passing cannon with targeted blasts.
A satisfied smile formed in the corner of his mouth as a mad scramble to escape his unstoppable advance ensued amongst those assembled on the forecourt. Few had cleared away before Steffor landed. He slammed the ground with a massive wedge of Source to break his fall. The impact created a deep crater, launching people in every direction. Steffor held his landing for a moment longer, kneeling on one knee with fist in the ground. He then leaped from the rubble toward the still intact dais.
"Master! You have returned!" Steffor recognized the owner of the voice as the man standing upon the dais moments before, now fifteen yards into arched entrance, hidden within the first cut of shadows. Confusion and curiosity by the others words put a momentary check on Steffor's vengeful intentions.
Why does this man look upon me with such familiarity?
Not waiting for Steffor to reply, the man shouted to those around him. "See! Did I not foretell of his return!" He looked Steffor up and down as he strode forward. "And with power beyond reckoning!" he added, gesturing with open arms at the halo of energy that pulsed around Steffor.
Steffor commanded his garments to remove his helm and stepped within inches of the man. Garbed in a scaled armor, the man did not shy from Steffor's advance. Instead, he stood boldly with chest forward and hands clasped behind his back. He met Steffor's glare with respectful attention and an air of authority earned from decisive action.
Steffor circled the large man several times and probed the other's bearded face for signs of doubt or fear, finding neither. "Why do you call me master?" Steffor snarled, startled by his evil tone.
"Lord and master of the Six, I beg your forgiveness. If it should advance your deity, I embrace your fury." With believable purpose, the other put his chin to his chest, waiting for Steffor's command.
Steffor tuned away in disarray, noticing for first time the others. Displaced by the impact of his landing, all now kneeled toward him with heads bowed low.
"Master, I pray you forgive my ignorance, but how is it you survived?" the man inquired to Steffor’s back.
He said nothing, confused by the question. The rush of Source had faded and the insatiable craving for more consumed his thoughts. But the sudden twist in events kept him under control for the moment. He stared at the reservoir below and tried to make sense of things.
"We received word, before Durlirave and his minions overthrew our forces, that you had evaded the assassination…”
Steffor had stopped listening to the man, struggling to make sense of his own internal dialogue. This is not my world yet here it exists! To what purpose does it serve? Why am I here? Am I to destroy it?
"All of this," Steffor said with his arms spread toward the city and bough beyond, "must end."
"Yes. Your return will end all opposition. Your rule will be eternal! What is thy bidding?"
"Destroy the factories, extinguish the fires. The Source must flow free!"
"Destroy what...the Source...what do you speak of?" Despite his conspicuous deference, the other could not hide the disbelief or reluctance from his voice.
Steffor turned on his heel, feeling drained and flat, his mind and body aching for the rush of tainted Source. "Destroy it all, take every man-"