The Gardens of Nibiru (The Ember War Saga Book 5) by Richard Fox Read Free Book Online Page B

watching as patterns twisted across the orb like a film of soap over the surface of a bubble.
    “Here. Can you see me?” Stacey asked.
    “You are not here,” the orb said. “Your soul is cold.”
    “I don’t know how to convince you otherwise. Given your situation I assume you have time for a few questions,” Stacey said.
    “The burning ones demanded much. I gave. Why should I bother with a fleck of ice like you?”
    “I came here to discuss history, not philosophy or metaphysics. The Qa’Resh aren’t the most engaging hosts. I doubt anyone else will be down here for a very, very long time. What will it be?”
    Stacey waited a few heartbeats before turning around and starting back to the sled.
    “You ask about history?” came from the orb. Stacey stopped but didn’t turn back to face it. “The burning ones asked questions a human mind cannot comprehend, nothing so mundane as the march of time. But we are lost if we do not know the path we’ve walked. Isn’t that right…Stacey?”
    “How do you know my name?” She whirled around.
    The orb contracted and poured itself into a new shape. Yarrow, made up of the same shifting, patterned bronze metal, stood before her, his skin and armor blending together.
    “This host knew of you. His mind was a wide pool with little depth, his knowledge imperfect. I wonder if your mind is as flawed.” The Yarrow-orb reached a hand toward her and stopped at a force field that shimmered from the contact.
    Stacey approached the force field.
    “Do you have a name?” she asked.
    “You may call me…Jehovah.”
    “No. You are no god to me or anyone else. Cut the crap.”
    “Elohim.”
    “Not that either. You’ve mentioned others of your kind before. What did they call you?”
    “In my original form…Malal.”
    “Can you assume that form? The way you are now is…unacceptable.”
    The Yarrow-orb shifted to an asexual humanoid shape, its features as bland as a department-store mannequin.
    “It’s been so long,” Malal said. “I don’t think I remember.”
    “How far back do you remember?”
    Malal canted its head to the side. “I was imprisoned on Anthalas for the last hundred million years. Before that, my time was with my peers, working to solve the great question.”
    “And what is that question?”
    “Is there an end? Were we, the galaxy’s first and greatest civilization, doomed to extinction as entropy wore all of creation down to nothing? The answer was no. We found a way out, a door to an infinite expanse where we could live on…but the others left me behind. Left me trapped in that insignificant speck of a world where I could watch the heavens dim to nothing.”
    “Why? Leaving someone behind doesn’t seem very…godlike.”
    “ I was the one that found the key. I was the one that opened the door for the rest and they shut me out. They didn’t want to pollute their new perfect world with the price I paid.” A riot of colors swarmed across Malal’s skin. “But the door remains. I will find my way back and make them pay.”
    “This price, did you pay it with the Shanishol we found on Anthalas? Through murder?”
    “Immortality requires sacrifice. My people cleansed the entire galaxy of lesser species to fuel our way through the gate.” Malal smiled, the corner of its lips pulling far wider than any human’s could have. “They left me on that rock, waiting for the next batch of intelligent species to arise. It was…tedious.”
    Stacey felt her skin grow cold.
    “Your species consumes other living things to survive,” Malal said. “So did we. I managed to tempt a few to Anthalas, but none in the numbers I needed to make the journey. The Shanishol were my last best chance before the Xaros arrived…you know how that ended.”
    “Speaking of the Xaros.” Stacey reached into a pocket, pulled out a small holo-emitter and set it on the ground. It flared to life and great filaments of galaxies came to life around her. She touched a finger on the