STEEL

The Glass Plain was steel, pocked here and there with statued figures, rank upon rank, frozen in time. The ground was steel, and the hills beyond were steel, shimmering hot in the reflected daylight. Kio upon kio the Glass Plain stretched, kio upon kio of twisted, rusted, tortured metal.

She paused to catch her breath in the shade of a lone tree. It rattled in the breeze above her. The leaves and spines were steel, though most had snapped free by now. The ground was littered with them, still razor-sharp as the day it had happened.

She rested a hand against the trunk, checked the horizon behind her with her scope. Nothing so far, but he wouldn’t be far behind. She’d wounded him well enough at the village. He hadn’t expected her to put up a fight, nor to lead such a chase. He’d be very angry by now, and that would drive him. Hopefully make him sloppy. Maybe the delay would be enough after all . . .

She stooped and gathered a few of the metal leaves, tested one against her finger. It was fairly conductive. A good sign. The purity of the protodermic metal around her would increase as she drew nearer to the Epicenter. That would even the odds a bit.

She left the tree and descended the low hill, following the same track that had been there a thousand years ago, first etched into the earth by the tramping feet of soldiers and then frozen there forever, gilded and entombed. 

As she reached the surface of the plain, the metal effigies surrounded her like a forest. Here at the outer edge, the figures were evocative, the thinner layers of metal still allowing expression to show through. Arms pointed into the distance, faces crazed with shock and terror. Many of the figures faced outwards, away from the center of the plain, frozen in the act of running or falling, abandoning their ranks as they had realized what was coming.

Here was the form of a Toa, fallen to one knee. Here a Steltaxian brute, arms outstretched to clear a path through the bodies. Here an overturned Jaga-beast, legs clawing skyward, tail striking into the body of its rider, all fused into one. 

Sometimes the masses of limbs and weapons were too dense, and she was obliged to crawl and clamber. She tried not to think about it too much, tried to keep the memories at bay. At least it was quiet now. The muffled voices of the entombed had grown silent many years ago—no need to replay those memories. She had replayed them often enough over the past thousand years. 

Now there was only the rattle and creak of lifeless metal, and the need for haste. Quickly! These brambles would not slow her pursuer down. He’d flicker through them in a second, even wounded. The only challenge for him would be to track her through the plain, where the metal ground left few signs of her passage.

And even then . . . he’d tracked her across the world before. These were minor setbacks to him. He who had abandoned all codes, all rules. He was a killer, and he would not stop.

He would never stop.

The day wore on, and she made good progress. Nearer to the Epicenter, the metal was layered thicker, obscuring the frozen bodies and turning them into strange, angular pillars, faceless and spotted with rust. Rank upon rank they stood here—obedient to the end. There had been no warning at this range. No time to react.

In the near distance, the rotted out shell that dominated the Epicenter rose into the sky, its outer layers corroded away, revealing the chaotic lattice of protodermic iron within. Wind whistled mournfully through the structure, a thin, tinny sound.

She had not returned to this place since it had happened . . . since they had escaped. She had been a Toa then. Tall, strong, at the height of her powers, ready to fight Mata’s crusade, ready to obey the commands of Mata’s Barraki and bring order to a disordered world. Now . . . what was she? A weak Turaga, more used to the daily routines of Koro than the rush of battle. Her powers were a fraction of their former might. Even her Mask of Fate was a diminished Noble Kanohi now. How could she hope to win?

Slumped in the shade of a metal pillar, less than a kio from the place where her brothers had perished in tombs of elemental iron . . . despair almost overcame her. Her preparations were feeble. Her plans were half-baked. Soon he would be here. Soon she would be dead. Maybe . . . maybe she deserved it, after all.

Your life is owed me, sister. Unwelcome memories flickered in her mind. Scenes of a village, her village. Her Matoran stood around her. The huts were caved in. The air was heavy with dust and fear.

“I saved you,” he spat, standing at the village entrance, large as life. “I saved you when Ahrak lost control, and how did you repay me?”

“Naj . . . you’re . . . you’re alive?” she stammered, still reeling at the revelation. “But you . . . I don’t—”

“How did you repay me?!” Najak the Stone-Toa shouted, and the rocks trembled. The Matoran huddled closer.

“Why are you here, Naj?”

He advanced into the village. She tightened her grip on the pronged staff. The shock of recognition was starting to wear off, replaced by a dull understanding.

“I’m here to take back what I gave you,” he said.

There were scars on his armor, deep burn marks around his heartlight and across his Mask of Quick-Travel.

“Recognize these?” he said, noting her glance. “You didn’t finish the job, did you, Keersa? All those years ago. It hurt, that’s for sure, but you didn’t put quite enough juice into the current. Or maybe you couldn’t bring yourself to kill a brother?”

“You hunted me down. I defended myself.”

“You abandoned the cause. I gave you your life, saved you from the Iron Wave, and then you abandoned us, forsook your vows. The Lords of Order could not let that stand.”

“The Lords of Order are dead, Naj. Slain by the Makuta.”

“Don’t speak of the Makuta. Even now their hounds are after me.”

“Then you’d better keep running. Leave us be.”

“Not until I get what I’m owed.”

“What’s that? My life? You still want to kill me—that’s it? After all this time . . . I have nothing to say to you.”

“Words are the last thing I want. I’m disappointed, actually. Look at you now . . . a Turaga? What a waste. I was hoping you’d at least be able to put up a fight again, like old times.”

“How did you find this place?”

“Oh, the other Stone-Toa told me. Didn’t get his name. He was a fresh one.” Najak laughed coldly, “Could barely lift a boulder. Did you ‘make’ him, Keersa? Did you waste your power on him? As poor an Elder as you were a soldier, it seems.”

A chill went through her.

“What . . . Naj, what did you do?”

“I asked him to tell me where your village was. He didn’t want to, but eventually I made him. He died badly.”

The crowding Matoran shuddered, their eyes wide with fear.

“I had heard . . . rumors,” Keersa said numbly. “But the Code . . .”

Najak advanced further, eyes flashing. The Matoran cowered away on either side.

“The Code is zyga, Keersa, and you know it. We are older than the Code. We killed long before it was written down by the charlatans who now supplant our Barraki. It was invented to hobble us, to keep us from victory.”

“What victory, Naj? The wars are over! The crusade is—”

A hammer struck into the back of the Stone-Toa’s knee and bounced off. Najak’s eyes flicked downward, and the Matoran holding the hammer looked at once very defiant, and very, very small.

A sharp sound rang out in the air, and Keersa screamed as the earth erupted with small stones, bullet-like, and rent the Matoran’s body to shreds. Screamed with all the force of her lungs as more stones whizzed through the crowd, and she dashed forward suddenly on Calix-borne feet and struck hard with her staff, struck hard with her lightning, and with all the white-hot anger of her grief . . .

*  *  *  *  *  *

Keersa sat bolt upright, her drowsy mind pinging with alarms and with deep, deep rage. One of the static leylines she’d set down amongst the metal pillars had snapped off to the east. The wind was rising, and the sky was the color of rust. There was a dust storm on the way, by the taste of the static charge in the air. She would take any advantage she could get. 

Ping. Another line discharged, closer now. She slipped into a hollow beneath the frozen limbs of a statue, activated the scope on her mask, and watched. Everything hinged on her spotting him first. The cries of her Matoran echoed in the back of her mind, but she pushed them grimly down. No more distractions. No more doubts.

He appeared off to the left first, about 15 bio away. He was crouched, and she saw that his arm was now slung against his chest. Good—he hadn’t had a chance to repair himself since the village. He hadn’t expected the speed of her attack then, enhanced by her Mask of Fate. She allowed herself a small smile, remembering the sound of the servos in his arm frying as she’d coursed lightning through them. If only she’d been able to reach his heartlight . . .

Najak vanished from his position abruptly, then reappeared to the right. Less than half the distance now. A wall of dust was approaching in the sky. She saw him turn to glance up at it, shading his eyes. 

His back was turned. Now.

She activated her Mask of Fate, felt the surge of energy and strange potential it granted her. One of the metal-gilded tree leaves was in her hand. She raised herself slightly, all precision and intensity, and hurled it straight at Najak’s head.

The Mask of Fate was sadly no Mask of Accuracy, but by the time the razor-sharp missile buried itself in Najak’s right thigh, she had already nearly closed the distance. Najak roared in pain, dropping to one knee. His good arm craned to reach the puncture wound. She was almost on him. Her mask glowed hot. Her hand crackled with a deadly charge. Straight to the heartlight. Straight to the heartlight as he knelt forward . . .

His eyes flicked wide. He saw her.

Najak snapped out of existence. Her electrified hand skewered thin air, and she fell headlong on the metal ground, skidding and cursing.

She twisted, flipped. On her feet again, running for shelter, ducking and weaving through the forest of iron.

There was a low rumble like an earthquake, and the protodermic metal of the Glass Plain groaned as something pounded against it from below. Then it ceased. Keersa slid to a stop behind a pillar. She almost laughed.

“Can’t try that here, Naj!” she yelled into the air, now dashing for new cover. “The bedrock is buried under half a kio of Ahrak’s best iron. Didn’t you know?”

A metal figure exploded into shards next to her as a small bullet-stone struck through it. So he had some elemental energy left in him after all.

Before she even knew what she was doing, her Calix-empowered eyes were tracking the source of the stone’s trajectory, body was twisting painfully into a head-first tumble. A second stone tore through the ground where her feet had just been and exploded into needles of rock. The shrapnel bit into her legs and torso, but there was no time for pain.

She glanced off a nearby pillar, landed on her back, and kicked off from the pillar’s base, shoving herself across the smooth ground, across the open space, hoping she could slide far enough. Her mask was fading out.

Shoulders struck against a ripple in the ground and she rolled into a crouch with muscles that felt like jelly. Her limbs were slowing. Mask was inert. Head snapped upward, eyes darted around. There was a familiar noise, very near, and the ozone smell of elemental power. There! 

She slammed a hand against the metal ground and poured her small reserves of Turaga-lightning into it, channeled it with all her strength forward, along the conductive surface, up through the exposed feet of the Stone-Toa that crouched between pillars not two bio away.

Najak gave a choking cry as his muscles seized and contracted, and the stone bullet he had been conjuring dissipated in the air. She pushed with everything she had, until smoke rose from the gaps in Najak’s leg-armor, and then she released. Pain from the shrapnel in her side finally registered to her nerves, and the world reeled as she sagged to the ground.

Najak’s breathing came in a ragged hiss through his locked jaw. He slumped over, supporting himself on his good arm. His eyes were still open, still fixed on her. A moment passed.

“Well . . . fought,” Najak rasped. “Maybe . . . you are not such a coward . . . after all.”

“I’m no coward,” Keersa said, fighting nausea. “You killed my Matoran. You’ve killed your own brothers. You deserve everything I’ve done to you, and more.”

“Very righteous. You sound like Ahrak.”

“He was better than you.”

“He was . . . a fool.”

“We were all fools, following the orders of our masters.”

“Better to serve a cause . . . than to run away.”

“Look what that cause has done to us, Naj. Look around! This place is our grave, and the grave of our brothers. Ahrak followed his orders, and he died . . . drowning in his own element, with iron in his lungs and brain, and he took ten thousand souls with him in the Nova Blast.”

“It was certainly impressive. A testament to our power.”

“It was a waste. We were losing the battle—don’t deny it. The Barraki decided it wasn’t worth it, and the mighty Iron-Toa Ahrak obeyed . . .”

“And then I saved you. Without me, you’d be just as dead as the rest. You’re welcome.”

“Maybe that would have been better . . .”

“It doesn’t really matter. The way I see it, you’re already dead. You were dead to me the moment you abandoned your duty to the Lords of Order. Right here, you remember?”

“I found a new duty, and I fulfilled my purpose, Naj. Passed on my power. Not like you.”

He ignored her.

“The Iron Wave had passed,” he said, “and I traveled us back. The metal was all fresh and new, shining like glass . . . and all those voices trapped beneath. We couldn’t even carve them out . . . But we’d won, Keersa. We were the victors, remember? But you . . . you balked and ran away. Like a coward.”

Keersa said nothing. The sky darkened as the dust storm blew in over the landscape at last. Heat-lightning flickered on the horizon.

“But I didn’t run,” Najak continued. “I returned to our Lord, and informed him of our victory . . . and your betrayal. And as a reward, I was sent to deal with you, to balance out the scales.”

“I remember. And I beat you once already, could have killed you . . . We are even, Najak. The scales are balanced.”

“Almost, but not quite.”

Keersa lifted herself up again, almost faint with exhaustion. She raised her head.

Najak was standing upright. A coating of stone covered his lower torso, keeping him stable. He blinked in the blowing dust and spat grit from his mouth. Then he moved forward, one halting step at a time, as the rock liquified and hardened around his ruined legs. Keersa watched him with dull eyes, resigned.

“Once I kill you,” Najak said, “my duty will be fulfilled. Then . . . maybe I’ll return to your village. There were still a few weaklings hiding in the rubble. No one will remain to remember you, sister.”

“The Makuta will stop you. Their hounds are already prowling the outskirts of the Plain.”

“I’ve evaded them well enough so far,” he scoffed. Another slow step. “Anyways, the Makuta have bigger things to worry about. Unrest in Metru Nui and the like. One rogue Toa won’t be worth the resources for long.”

“And then what?”

“I’m not sure.” Another step. “I’ve been all about revenge for so long. I’ll have to rethink things, I guess.”

“You look tired.”

“You look like death.” 

Another step. Keersa looked up into the Stone-Toa’s face.

“Well,” she murmured, “it’s like you said . . . I’m already dead, aren’t I?”

Najak’s mask glowed, and she understood. He grasped her by the throat. She’d seen him do this before, to his enemies, in battle. Her ears popped as the world flashed into rushing light, and for a split second she was inside swirling dust and the rust of ages driven before the wind, and dry static washed over her face. 

Another pop, and they were above the storm, a kio in the air, and the Glass Plain stretched out on all sides from the Epicenter, harsh and horrible. Najak’s grip tightened, and she gasped.

One more jump, and now the air was cold, and she felt his fingers relax, ready to drop her and be done with it. 

Rage. Static from the lower air clung to her. She drank it in, deactivated the pain signals that coursed through her body. With the last fraction of her ebbing will, her mask flickered on.

Winds buffeted them as they began to fall, but her grip was suddenly iron on Najak’s forearm, shocking his fingers open. He realized, and tried to hurl her away, but she was twisting, contorting. Her knee connected with the shoulder of his bad arm. Pain. He smashed his head forward into her face, and she saw stars, almost let go, but the fingers of her other hand had found what they sought.

His next blow went wide. She twisted again, and blind fingertips purchased just under his chin, crooked inward with alien dexterity. Her foot caved into his chest and kicked hard, and she was spinning. Spinning free, spinning wildly in open air, spinning around the axis of a madly spinning horizon. And it would have been sickening . . .

. . . But his mask was in her hand, clenched tight. 

And his voice was screaming in her ears, somewhere off in the distance, in the wide air. Drifting further and further away. Screaming death and vengeance and dreadful fear as the Glass Plain hurtled up, up, up toward them like the execution hammers of the Lords of Order.

And the Glass Plain was steel.

This work can also be found on the author's tumblr, see here.